Understanding Racial Capitalism
Racial capitalism refers to the mutual dependence and coexistence of racism and capitalism, where capitalism depends on the “elaboration, reproduction, and exploitation of notion of racial difference,” according to Walter Johnson.
To better understand racial capitalism, we must understand capitalism first. Before capitalism, there was the presence of feudalism, a system in which serfs worked the lands owned by feudal lords for no wage. Instead, serfs received military protection and were essentially the property of their lords.
The emergence of capitalism allowed social mobility and formed two distinct classes: The bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie owns the means of production (machinery and raw materials needed to produce goods) which are worked by the proletariat (who do not own the means of production but receive a wage to survive instead). The wage given to the working class is always less than the full value of their labor. In this way, the bourgeoisie (ruling class) will obtain profit.
Capitalism is a system that relies on the exploitation of the working classes in order for the wealthy elite few to accumulate capital, or wealth. This rate of accumulation by the ruling classes is ever increasing, strengthening the forces of inequality asserted on the oppressed. The term “racial capitalism” acknowledges the bridge between the oppressions of race and class.
Capitalists accumulate wealth by manipulating the relations among groups of oppressed people, exploiting racial differences and other characteristics that could be weaponized to help capitalism survive. Capitalism and racism are not separate entities, but rather connected in a way that helped mutually substantiate the two.
Racial capitalism was a concept proposed by Cedric Robinson. Robinson’s proposal challenged the idea that capitalism eradicated the prejudices that were deemed exclusive to European feudal society. The idea describes that capitalist development shifted the way society was organized from an organization based primarily on differences (such as race) into one according to rules that were generally applicable, forming the European proletariat as a universal subject.
On the contrary, Robinson’s concept rejected the notion that capitalism was radically liberating from old discriminatory practices, but rather expanded feudal principles to manifest within racial oppression: slavery, genocide, imperialism, and violence. Robinson argued that all of capitalism was inherently racialized and that racialism was present even in feudal society. According to Robinson, “tendency of European civilization through capitalism was thus not to homogenize but to differentiate…” It emphasized regional, subcultural, and dialectical differences among the European proletariat into “racial” ones.
Racism is fundamental to making capitalism. Today, racism has major influence over the material conditions and relations of production among the working class. Racism was intrinsic to capitalist development. Racial capitalism requires the process of white people in white dominant systems to extract value from people of color, which has turned white people into the economically privileged and people of color into the economically and socially marginalized. Capitalism’s failure to universalize but rather divide is solidified. Racism is the material force within economical formations of our society.
