Lookimg for clarification as a non-historian:
Listening to AskHistorians Podcast #108, around 25 minutes in the discussion goes to the lack of historians currently looking at class in american history generally, and antebellum South specifically. The guest specifically mentions Marxism as out of vogue. She also mention that many of the youngest historians are both from the south, and the most leftist, so there is hope for more class discussion in the future.
Did this comment mean to imply that one must be leftist to study class issues? Or does it mean that you must be leftist to study history applying Marxist theory? If the former, doesnt that necessarily introduce bias? If the latter doesnt that discredit Marxism? I'm picturing an engineer throwing out a bridge design calculation because of political associations. Obviously doesn't make sense there.
Also, are there not non-Marxist ways to conceptualize class struggle to also use for a more complete picture?
Hello. I don't think anyone is trying to imply that you can't study class if you aren't Left leaning or, more specifically, Marxist.
The analysis of class problems is central to Marxist historiographical theory and method, so it is normal that having more historians who use this approach would mean that there should be an increase in the discussion of class.
The use of class as a theory has gone up and down in popularity over the years. Some insist that class is a modern concept and can only be applied to societies where class consciousness exists (subjectivist model). Others insist that class is an objective reality based on phenomena like the social relations of production (objectivist model). Others eschew it depending on the time and place, either as a useless/cumbersome/loaded concept or by not mentioning it because it just doesn't interest them.
From the 1990s, Marxist historiography and several other approaches which focused on class fell out of vogue among many historians. Over the past decade or so, preoccupations with the nature of capitalism and the role of class in society has returned to prominence.
Again, none of this means that someone with more centrist or right wing politics can't touch on these issues, but as a rule people with these ideological viewpoints, as you put it, simply have less interest in class analysis.
The 'why' behind this is a long answer in and of itself, and possibly gets a little too political for AH, but the idea that the Left is far more interested in class analysis and its centrality in explaining history seems pretty uncontroversial.
Hey, just to clarify, Ep 106 was on marijuana. Are you thinking of 108 with Keri Merritt, on poor whites and slavery in the American South?