Racial capitalism is a concept reframing the history of capitalism as grounded in the extraction of social and economic value from people of marginalized racial identities, typically from Black people. It was described by Cedric J. Robinson in his book Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, published in 1983, which, in contrast to both his predecessors and successors, theorized that all capitalism is inherently racial capitalism, and racialism is present in all layers of capitalism's socioeconomic stratification.[1] Jodi Melamed has summarized the concept, explaining that capitalism "can only accumulate by producing and moving through relations of severe inequality among human groups", and therefore, for capitalism to survive, it must exploit and prey upon the "unequal differentiation of human value."[2]
Prior to Robinson's coining of the concept, earlier scholars and theorists such as W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James and Eric Williams had extensively documented the foundation of industrial capitalism on colonialism and slavery, who also made departures from the Eurocentrism of Marxism.[3][4][5] Furthermore, Black radicals in American sociology such as Du Bois, St. Claire Drake, Horace Cayton, and Oliver Cromwell Cox established a foundation for academic research on the intersection of racism and capitalism.[3][6][7]
In modern academic literature, racial capitalism has been discussed in the context of social inequities, ranging from environmental justice issues,[8][9][10][11] through the South African apartheid and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict,[12] to disparities in COVID-19 pandemic contraction rates.[13]
- ^ Robinson, Cedric J. (2 October 2019). Quan, H. L. T. (ed.). Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance. Pluto Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctvr0qs8p.13. ISBN 978-1-78680-520-1. JSTOR j.ctvr0qs8p. S2CID 242754388.
- ^ Jodi Melamed (2015). "Racial Capitalism". Critical Ethnic Studies. 1 (1): 76–85. doi:10.5749/jcritethnstud.1.1.0076. JSTOR 10.5749/jcritethnstud.1.1.0076. S2CID 240902418.
- ^ a b Du Bois, W. E. B. (1998). Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880. New York: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-85657-5. OCLC 45289935.
- ^ James, C. L. R. (1963). The Black Jacobins; Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (2d ed., rev ed.). New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0-394-70242-5. OCLC 362702.
- ^ Williams, Eric Eustace (1994). Capitalism & slavery. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-2175-6. OCLC 29953150.
- ^ Drake, St. Clair (1993). Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Horace R. Cayton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-16234-6. OCLC 27726372.
- ^ Cox, Oliver C. (1970). Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics. Joseph S. Rouček. New York: Modern Reader Paperback. ISBN 0-85345-116-8. OCLC 739837.
- ^ Pulido, Laura; De Lara, Juan (March 2018). "Reimagining 'justice' in environmental justice: Radical ecologies, decolonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition". Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. 1 (1–2): 76–98. doi:10.1177/2514848618770363. ISSN 2514-8486. S2CID 149765978.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
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:10was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Pulido, Laura (2 July 2016). "Flint, Environmental Racism, and Racial Capitalism". Capitalism Nature Socialism. 27 (3): 1–16. doi:10.1080/10455752.2016.1213013. ISSN 1045-5752. S2CID 147863017.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:12was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Laster Pirtle, Whitney N. (August 2020). "Racial Capitalism: A Fundamental Cause of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic Inequities in the United States". Health Education & Behavior. 47 (4): 504–508. doi:10.1177/1090198120922942. ISSN 1090-1981. PMC 7301291. PMID 32338071.
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