[PEN-L:8720] Re: re: Marx and 19th century racism

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Rob Schaap <carob@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 07/01/99 02:00PM >>>
Chas writes:

>Racism is a necessary condition , a without-which-not, a but for cause of
capitalism. Capitalism is a world system and >there has never been
capitalism without racism.

And I'm a bloke, and a bloke who has never been bald.  I'll be bald one day.


But I'll still be a bloke.

Really, Chas.  You wouldn't get away with argument like that at the bar, and
you shouldn't try it here.  Exactly why is racism necessary for capitalism?

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Charles: Well, you chopped off the statements from Marx. Why did you do that ? They are part of the argument.

The original racism was in the material practices of slavery and colonialism. These were the chief momenta, the main pushes, to the primitive accumulation of capitalism ( See _Capital_ Vol. 1). The primitive accumulation was a necessary condition for starting up capitalism.

After the primitive accumulation, racism became and remains today, the main method by which capitalism divides the working class and extracts superprofits. Division of the working class is what prevents socialist revolution (Workers of the World , Unite !) and is a necessary condition for capitalism to continue. Superprofiteering from the racist and colonialist division of labor ( Andy Austin just gave me two new terms for that: split labor market and dual labor market) also allow the bourgeoisie to buy off a segment of the working class ( especially in the Western countries) and thwart socialist revolution.

Ergo: Racism is necessary for capitalism. It is a without-which-not. In the law we call it a "but for" cause.

It is true that constant concommitance does not prove causal relation. But lack of concommitance disproves causal relation. So, I mentioned the concommitance of  racism and capitalism.

I rest my case.



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Rob:
Sure, it serves the purpose of dividing the working class, but I'm way off
being convinced capitalism couldn't do without it just fine.


Charles: Yes, but you don't have any empirical examples of capitalism doing just fine without racism. (Capitalism is a world system and colonialism is racism).



Rob:

 In the very
theory that legitimates it, capitalism promises the same formal freedom to
buy and sell labour power to all.  As a world system today, it benefits from
variations in labour costs and democratic clout, and those variations are a
function of history.  In that sense they express racisms of yore, but not
exclusively so.  It exploits the erstwhile 'second' world exactly as it does
the 'third'.  I suspect that the material base that brought us racism has
been withering for a while now.  But from that we cannot argue that it might
not persist.  It's our self-validating histories and the ever-present need
for scapegoats in hard times that we have to worry about now, I reckon (as
Engels told Bloch; the 'superstructure' can actually preponderate in shaping
our struggles).  And to that extent, it may be argued that racism, now that
it's with us, might attend our crisis-prone order unto the grave.  No longer
necessary, but ever complicit.

Charles: This is mostly speculation. You don't have a factual basis for your speculation that capitalism can be bald and still be a bloke, to use your metaphor above.

Racism and colonialism are part of the infrastructure, relations of production of capitalism.

CB

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BTW, when I pick my eldest up from primary school, I recognise racial
diversity all over the playground, but I actually don't think my lad ever
noticed it at all.  He's been getting some lessons at school on the evils of
racism lately.  They've hit home with desired effect.  But he's suddenly
begun to take an interest in who's from what race ...

Cheers,
Rob.