Capitalism = Racism

The New Age of Empire, Kehinde Andrews (2021), Allen Lane.

‘Capitalism is racism.’ That’s what it says on the inside of the dust cover.

It made me pause, intrigued at such a bold statement and as someone who, dialectics not withstanding, is a bit of an economic determinist, not a little discomfited. I do not downplay the impact of race or gender on societies and individuals in the West or indeed the Global South, but for me the key stratification is economic class. It is the lens through which I have been trying to understand what is going on in our world for the last 40 years or so and now Professor Andrews is suggesting this might not be right!

So let’s see what he has say.

Andrews takes aim at what many of us view as the genesis of modern liberal understanding – The Enlightenment. He views this as providing the intellectual basis for colonialism and contemporary imperialism by legitimising White supremacy, pointing to the philosophical racial hierarchies that were created with the White male at the pinnacle and the dark Black people at the bottom. He points out that this ‘racial ladder’ perfectly reflects the current global distribution of wealth / poverty, with the White West at the top and Black Africa at the bottom. Non-White people were viewed on a continuum of sub humanness – and thus disposable.

With these ideas in their back pockets European colonialists set about exploiting their ‘discoveries’ in the Americas with a ruthless efficiency. Firstly they dealt with resistant indigenous populations through genocide before repopulating with slaves brought largely from Africa – from whom enormous surplus value could be and was extracted. Thus super profits flowed into Europe which were invested in the triangular slave trade itself and, crucially, the industrial revolution. Andrews’ key point is that without colonialism and slavery, both grounded in racism and white supremacy, insufficient capital would have been available to kick start industrial capitalism in the West and it would not have been able to become the dominant global economic system that it has become.

That racism was a central plank in colonialism was never in doubt for me, but I had not really appreciated the scale of the economic input from the profits of slave labour into the development of capitalism in the West. This is not just about the grand buildings in ports such as Bristol and Liverpool but crucially about the development of the textile industry in the north of England, the sugar and tobacco industries and the creation of Marx’s modern, mass proletariat. Andrews suggests that none of this would have been possible without racism and notions of White supremacy enabling Black and Brown people to be used and abused as disposable cheap labour.

Thus kickstarted with ample funding, what Andrews calls ‘the colonial logic of empire’ was introduced to other countries such as India and those in South East Asia. With slavery (or at least the Atlantic trade) becoming less acceptable (and less economically viable), a slightly different approach was used. Tolerance of frequent famines aside, full on genocide was not propagated. Instead standards of living were driven down to provide very cheap labour and the extraction of raw materials.

Andrews points out that the impact of the West’s colonial adventures on those countries colonised was devastating and suggests that rather than referring to them as ‘undeveloped’ we should view them as deliberately under-developed. The impact of slavery on Africa maybe obvious: the loss of at least 24 million young, largely productive people and the distortions to economic and social development associated with this. In India industries such as textiles were dismantled, steel works closed and trading infrastructures undermined, leaving the indigenous population increasingly dependent of the now very skewed terms of trade with their colonial overlord. At the start of colonialization India accounted for 25% of the world’s trade whereas by independence in 1947 this had shrunk to 3%. In the 18^th century India had comparable living standards to that in Britain, whereas it is now riven with a level of poverty unimaginable here.

This deliberate skewing and underdevelopment of economies to service profit extraction to the West resulted in colonies being manifestly unable to grasp the benefits of ‘independence’ in the 20^th century. Colonised countries had underdeveloped health and education systems and lacked experience of governance (as all the top posts in administration had been largely taken by (White) settlers). So began another iteration of the colonial process – imperialism, in which direct rule is supplanted by governance through an indigenous elite in the context of a post world war 2 global order designed to ensure the continued extraction of super profits to the West. Andrews suggests that workers in places like India are enduring horrendous working conditions and extreme poverty in order to prop up general living conditions in the West – and that this is tolerated because they are Brown. ‘The number one cause of global poverty is racism.’

Andrews goes on to bring his analysis up to date by suggesting that the global institutions of the UN, IMF and World Bank were set up specifically to support the then new global (capitalist) super-power; the US and the continued extraction of super profits from the global south. These institutions provide the illusion of inclusivity despite the very real heavy economic hand of western imperialism and increasingly that of its current iteration of neo liberalism. Tellingly he asserts that the UN declaration of human rights is based on White supremacy as non-Whites are accorded a lower status and even the right to life is explicitly contingent on contextual economic conditions.

So, we have described for us a global system whose dominant (until now at least) economic system is based on racism and notions of white supremacy that allows Brown and Black people to be heavily exploited and condemned to extreme poverty in order to deliver super profits to the West. But what about other emerging economic powers? You wouldn’t describe China, India or any of the BRICS as White would you?

Andrews talks about ‘The non-White West’ as fitting comfortably within his ‘ladder of racism’ arguing that these countries have simply applied the same ‘colonial logic’ in order to exploit other under-developed countries – especially Africa. Unlike the IMF and World Bank (who lend / give money with neo liberal strings attached) India and China offer much needed infrastructure projects at minimal / no cost in return for access to raw materials or service contracts that benefit their industries. They may not land under-developed countries with crippling debts or require state services to be privatised, but they do limit the future potential for these countries to develop a sustainable economic independence.

All of this brings into focus how we view the West. I doubt whether anyone reading this will view the West as an unequivocally ‘good thing’. We know that our wars have caused destruction of countries and the devastation of their populations. We know that we exploit workers in the sweat shops of the Global South in order for us to be able to consume cheaply and that there is widening inequality in our own countries. We know that our overconsumption of commodities is driving potentially catastrophic climate change. But Andrews wants us to understand just how pervasive racism and notions of White supremacy are in our politics.

He points out that as the post world war 2 social democratic consensus in the West to share the spoils of imperialism more equitably became too expensive to be sustained, people had to be persuaded to vote against their best interests. They were required to vote for a gradual dismantling of welfare states, the emasculation of public services and a bonfire of regulations that had been hard fought for to safeguard the interests of the many. Andrews says that ‘the delusions of whiteness’ have been used politically; to remind White voters that they are the recipient of real (if relative) material benefits from the current global economic system; and to stoke fears about the impact on this that Black and Brown immigration might have.

Wealth differences between the West and the Global South are stark. Those living on the poverty line in the US are in the top 14% globally and those on average incomes are in the top 4%.

This is the context within which the Left in the West is operating. Andrews suggests that a social democratic approach that seeks to reduce inequality in the West can only result in a re-sharing of the spoils of imperialism and leave untouched global poverty and exploitation. He says that ‘the Left should not focus on improving the lot of the poor in western countries without regard for / at the expense of Brown and Black workers in under-developed countries’.

I guess I knew most of this, even as I stood on doorsteps in elections trying to find a way to connect with, or even understand people who were citing concerns about Brown and Black immigration. However, to have set out in a clear and well-argued form the proposal that capitalism = racism, with much evidence that racism and White supremacy are integral to the current global order and economic system, is powerful and persuasive. I think some re-thinking on my part may be in order!

There are two potential endings to this piece:

1) A return to where I started – Is the case for capitalism = racism made?

2) The inevitable question for the real world – What is to be done with these insights?

I will go with (2) as it seems the more important and will cover (1) in a footnote.

Andrews has already dismissed global institutions such as the UN, IMF and World Bank as contributing to the impoverishment of so many in the under-developed world and he gives international aid short shrift too. Not only does he point out that the scale of aid is manifestly insufficient for the task but also that much aid is targeted to promote western capitalism, encourage free market reforms and promote privatisation. The overall impact is to further open up such countries to multinational corporate engagement and continued heavy exploitation of their people.

What about reparations? Andrews acknowledges the case for the moral basis of reparations to the descendants and countries of those enslaved but states that the amounts involved are ‘almost beyond calculation’ and would result in the bankruptcy of western capitalism.

Not surprisingly Andrews arrives at the conclusion that the global capitalist system is not reformable, that the stated aims of the UN to reduce poverty, improve education and reduce inequality are completely unrealistic as they are unaffordable without the destruction of Western Imperialism – and presumably the standard of living people of living in the West.

Andrews doesn’t ask the question – but it’s hard not to hear it: how much of our share of the 4 – 14% of the world’s wealth are we in the West prepared to give up? He doesn’t ask the question because I assume he thinks it’s a pointless one – he thinks that revolution is what is required – ‘but this won’t come from those who benefit from western imperialism’.

— X —

Foot note:

Does Andrews make the case for capitalism to equal racism? Despite the force and comprehensiveness of his argument, I remain unconvinced because for me the way in which people co-operate and compete to utilise scarce resources in order to feed, clothe and house themselves is the key factor in determining social relationships and societal structures. Ownership and control of the means of production confers power and excludes and marginalises those who don’t. So I would always consider economic class and the relationship between the two key ones in capitalism (those who own the means of production (and who extract surplus value / profit) and those who have only their labour to sell (part of which generates the uncompensated surplus or profit) as being its very essence as an economic system.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge the impact of other stratifications such as race and gender on power in social relationships and societal structures as they interact dialectically with each other and with the economic base.

For a while I tried to think through the role of these other stratifications in the transition in Europe from small commodity production to what would today be recognisable as capitalism before realising that this was a bit of a dead end. Andrews’ point is that without the huge capital injection from the super profits of slavery (justified and operationalised through racism) the European industrial revolution would simply not have taken off as it did. Moreover, it is unlikely that capitalism would have become the dominant global economic system that it is today without this extraordinary kickstart. So within the factors that allowed capitalism to develop globally through colonialism to current iterations of imperialism, I can see that racism was, and still is, a key, if not the key enabler.

But is an ‘enabler’ equivalent to a ‘driver’? The driver for capitalism is the extraction of a surplus, the acquisition of profit. Racism has been and remains key in this and has been deployed to propel capitalism to global dominance. However are not Brown and Black people simply at the worst end of a continuum of those who only have their labour to offer? Slaves were just about kept alive long enough to make a return on their owner’s investment and for Brown and Black people currently employed in the sweat shops of the Global South the only (slight) difference would appear that they have the freedom to leave one job with appalling conditions for another. Could not the White working class in the West be viewed similarly to the ‘working class aristocracy’ (those with skilled jobs and material benefits to defend) identified by sociologists in the 1950s and 1960s?

Before I get too far out of my theoretical pay grade it is worth considering what Andrews says about all this in his introduction to the book. He talks about thinking ‘intersectionally’; that understanding society requires an appreciation of the interlocking oppressions that shape inequality. ‘Intersectionality is not about adding up various oppressions, but rather accounting for their interplay’ (e.g. of race, gender and class)’.

This is a new one for me and perhaps underlines how long it is since I was involved in any critical theoretical discourse – but after some thought decided to characterise this for myself as some form of ‘multi – modal dialectics.’

Andrews argues, I think rightly, that ‘it is impossible, in any genuine understanding, to remove racism from how we think intersectionally.’ But, as we know, he goes further than this to say that ‘White supremacy, and therefore anti – blackness, is the fundamental basis of the (current) political and economic system and therefore infects all interactions, institutions and ideas.’

This challenges the notion of economic class as the primary prism through which to understand society and suggests that ‘class relations in capitalism are produced out of the colonial logic of imperialism.’ He acknowledges that social classes existed before the establishment of capitalism but argues that these were fundamentally transformed through the racism that underpinned colonialism. He criticises Marx for not recognising that the development of the proletariat was dependent on the application of racism in the colonies and points out that where there has been revolution in the world this has largely been propagated by the organisation of peasants rather than the predicted organised working class.

Andrews also considers the impact of gender oppression on the development of colonialism and contemporary imperialism, pointing out that violence has, and is, a key factor in this and that violence against women, particularly sexual violence, is a universal tool in this. Nevertheless he rightly, in my opinion, observes that how gender oppression is experienced by women is mediated by racism (and of course I would argue, economic class). He argues that the liberalisation of gender roles in the West has only been possible because of the economic surpluses extracted from under-developed countries.

Does it matter if the case that ‘capitalism = racism’ is made or not made? Andrews caught my attention sufficiently for me to read his book and to have my theoretical base challenged. I think it is more than enough to understand better the role and impact that notions of White supremacy and anti- Blackness have had and are having on a global economic system that heavily exploits Brown and Black people in under-developed countries – and to consider how this might inform my politics.