People of color are more likely to experience structural obstructions when it entails employment, housing or educational opportunities. According to Milenko Martinovich, who wrote the article Significant racial and ethnic disparities still exist, according to Stanford report “The persisting earnings gap has made it even more difficult for African Americans and Hispanics to catch up. In 2010, median earnings for black males were 32 percent lower than median earnings for their white counterparts. The earnings gap between white and Hispanic men grew from 29 to 42 percent between 1970 and 2010.” This shows that the gap between job inequalities is especially difficult to close. The inequality of home ownership can go back as far as President Franklin Roosevelt’s implementation of The New Deal, whereas Martinovich mentions, colored families were banned from being able to own homes.
In a nation where capitalism is key, racism is used to divide society and to make sure that the rich stay wealthy so that the poor have no way to “catch up”. There are many theories in which I will explain in this book that attempts to understand why racism has to exist in order for capitalism to work, these theories include perspectives from popular sociologist such as Adam Smith, Emilie Durkheim, Karl Marx, and Max Weber. These chapters in this book contain the works of Anderson, Boggs, Gilbert and Sales.
Chapter one will explain the link between racism and capitalism through the work of James Boggs supported by sociologist Max Weber. Boggs wrote the article “Uprooting Racism and Racist in the United States” which states how through the need for capitalism, racism emerged. Boggs claims that yes, racism did exist through slavery but “mankind, prior to the rise of capitalism, had not previously experienced an economic system which naturally and normally pursues the expansion of material productive forces at the expense of human forces, so it had never known a society which naturally and normally pursues the systematic exploitation and dehumanization of one race by another” (Boggs 1970) Boggs mentions various encounters of different races in history and how everyone treated each other fairly and did not think of each other as being superior to the next race. The Slave trade then occurred, in Africa and consisted of the transportation of African slaves that brought in profits and goods to Europeans. Boggs then discusses the “benefits” of this slave trade, which included sugar, tobacco and cotton. Boggs states that “The more valuable the labor of blacks to Southern agriculture, precisely because of the relatively advanced stage of agriculture in their African Homeland, the more white Americans began to insist that they had done African savage a favor by bringing them to a land where he could be civilized by agriculture labor” (Boggs 1970) Boggs statement’s are supported by Weber’s point of view because Weber believed that in order for power to exist, there has to be a division between those who are powerful and wealthy and those who are not. For capitalism to work there has to be someone or a group of people who are wealthy and labor has to be wanted.
While chapter I dealt with Weber’s take of capitalism, chapter II of the book. explores the correlation between racism and capitalism through a Marxist perspective. Sale’s “ Capitalism Without Racism: Science or Fantasy” mentions how Marx identified racism as a way in which society can be split and controlled all at the same time by the creation of systematized classes between people. Sales quotes Marx and states how racism would be described as “false consciousness which inhibits the development of class consciousness between black and white segments of a single exploited working class.” Through racism, capitalism is able to gain profits through the exploitation of individuals who hold no real power and create oppression.
Sales argue “monopoly capitalism requires a reserve army of the largest possible size in order to depress wages as low as possible while maximizing labor discipline” (Sales 2018) Sales defines super-exploitation as ways in which capitalist use laborers to gain the most profit. Some examples Sales mentions of exploitation are “forcing of more skilled labor into jobs which require less skill and restricting the mobility of both geographical and occupational, of black labor relative to white labor “crowds” the available labor markets for blacks creating a situation where labor is “coerced” into working for less than its value” (Sales 2018)
In chapter III of my book, Geoffrey Gilbert’s “Adam Smith on the Nature and Causes of Poverty” discusses Adam Smiths’ point of view on poverty and how there is a sort of benefit to being wealthy and having a division to society. Gilbert mentions, “honor and “approbation “are extended to the wealthy and powerful, with whose joys (Smith contends) we easily sympathize, while the poor suffer disapprobation and even contempt because of our lesser capacity to sympathize with misfortune”(Gilbert 1997) Adam Smiths’ view on poverty is one that is highly criticized because he almost justifies capitalism. Gilbert begins to discuss that people who are wealthy do not become easily disturbed when learning about the struggles of those who don’t share the same wealth. Gilbert also mentions how poverty would not exist if there weren’t people who were viewed as superior because of their wealth and capital. Gilbert questions how the necessities of the poor could possibly be met with a society so unequal? In a capitalist world, poverty is viewed as something that is positive because both groups of people are benefiting. According to those who share a capitalist view, people who are poor seek ways to make money and those who are capitalists are willing to give work to those who are in need. This particular view is supported by Adam Smith because as Gilbert quotes Smith believes, “ordinary day-laborer, whom we falsely account to live in a most simple manor, has more of the conveniencies and luxuries of life than an Indian prince at the head of 1000 naked savages.” (LJ:338, Gilbert 1997)
Lastly S.E. Anderson’s article “Pitfalls of Black Intellectuals” can best be accompanied by Emilie Durkheim’s point of view because Anderson’s article discusses how Black liberation is non-existent due to our nation having a capitalist system. Anderson supports his statements by claiming, “the sociopolitical factors of American racism need an oppressed people to justify its white superiority complex and the politico-economic factors of capitalism need an oppressed people to super-exploit in terms of labor and consumption” (Anderson 1973) Anderson then begins to explain that America’s capitalist in fact, are omitting African Americans in their labor because they are considered not skill enough. African Americans are not “skilled” because it goes back to slavery days when whites forced African Americans to become inferior to them through enslavement. Anderson also states that America’s mindset is one that only focuses on making money and becoming profitable by any means necessary, it thrives on the exploitation of those who are not powerful or wealthy.
Anderson’s viewpoint can best be compared to Durkheim’s mindset on poverty because Durkheim believed that circumstances that occur to those who are less fortunate are not something that can be controlled or changed. He also believed that those who are oppressed have fewer opportunities available to them in comparison to those who are wealthy. It is through racism that capitalism used minorities for their own benefit.