Chief influences: Marx, Foucault, Bourdieu, Luhmann, Abbott, Bayes. Human action fundamentally centers about status, which is a social commodity. The modern social-economic nexus probably revolves more around consumption than production (thus, Marx was wrong), where consumption involves the production and the re-production of self in a way that perpetuates social inequality and social conflict. Participation in political life therefore frequently amounts to little more than the consumption of a cultural good.
It is possible, in principle, to have objective political discussions. Only, not right now.