Substack -- What if social scientists cannot predict the future of social difference

Substack 'Futures of Difference'
Why Social Categories Resist Prediction Short

Jan Rath on the limits of prediction, the reality of assimilation, and the primacy of class

10 september 2026

What if social scientists simply cannot predict the future of social difference?

Sociologist Jan Rath offers a bracing corrective to academic future-gazing, arguing that societies are far too complex for forecasting. But his real provocation lies elsewhere: assimilation is real and has happened many times, yet the possibility that certain differences may lose social significance is rarely taken seriously. And beneath all questions of identity, Rath insists, lies the political economy — the material distribution of resources that shapes everything else.

We asked: “What is the most important thing to bear in mind when imagining or thinking about futures of social difference?”

Rath’s emphasis on political economy and his willingness to name assimilation as a real process challenge some of the assumptions that run through diversity scholarship. His intervention adds a materialist counterweight to the cultural and identitarian analyses explored elsewhere on the Futures of Difference platform.

Klik here for the full statement.