Capitalism and Racism: Which is Prior?

I hear a lot of debate from my fellow leftists on whether capitalism or racism is the more important system. But even as leftists, we frame the debate in many ways. Often it’s unclear whether leftists are even talking about the same kinds of things. I’ll try to tidy this up a bit.

Some leftists ask which system came first. Others ask which one offers a more fundamental explanation of society. Some leftists ask which system exerts the most influence on the world and our experiences. Others ask which one should be more important to our movements — which one we should do first.

Are these differences meaningful? Do they impact our answers to key questions and solutions to key problems? Maybe they’re all ways of asking the same thing.

Nope, there’s a difference! It’s possible to argue, for example, that racism (or capitalism) came first, but that capitalism (or racism) explains more things or is more important to our leftist movements. And so, we need to split the headline question of this article into a few parts.

Framing

Here’s how I’ll frame it. I’ll start from the question: which one is prior, capitalism or racism?

Since I’m not a fan of suspense in arguments, I’ll lay my cards on the table. I hope to bring readers around to my perspective. Here’s where I’m trying to take you:

1. We don’t know whether capitalism or racism came first. It depends on our analysis of those terms and how we read the evidence.
2. Capitalism offers a more fundamental explanation of society than racism.
3. People’s experiences vary. For some people, capitalism stands out as more important to their lives. And others experience racism as the more important force. Neither ‘side’ is wrong.
4. Leftist movements should address capitalism and racism at the same time.

So, there’s where we’re going. Now let’s see how we get there.

Historical Priority

Let’s start by discussing historical priority. Which one came first, capitalism or racism?

In short, it’s hard to tell. Why? Because these systems gradually emerged over a period of decades. Even centuries. Drawing a starting line for either system presents us with insurmountable difficulties.

The very notion of ‘race’ isn’t particularly old. The earliest plausible date for the invention of race comes with the European slave raids into Africa in the early 15th century. Historian Ibram X. Kendi, in his book Stamped From the Beginning, cites this date for the invention of race. He does so because it helps him provide a grand historical narrative of race and racism.

But we could come up with later dates if we adopted different criteria or goals. The modern system of racial classification dates to the Systema Naturae of Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century. Were we to adopt goals of, say, comprehensive taxonomy, that would be a preferable date.

Which date is the correct one? It depends on our aims. Potentially, either date is defensible. My own view, which I ground in considering race as an explanatory system, is that two things needed to be in place to kick off the notions of ‘race’ and ‘racism.’ First, European slavery had to become more or less exclusively racialized. And second, Europeans had to have some classificatory system in place (not necessarily the Linnaean system) in order to justify to themselves the ways they treated Native Americans and/or black Africans.

These criteria suggest that race and racism came about somewhere between the early 16th (anti-Native American racism) and mid-17th (anti-black racism) centuries.

But what about capitalism? In some ways, I find this an even more difficult question. Activity we might call ‘capitalism’ existed for centuries before the modern version. But capitalism emerged as the dominant economic system at some point between the 15th and 17th centuries.

By the 15th century, serf revolts and a large class of free laborers had emerged in Europe from the Black Death and its economic aftermath. That’s our earliest plausible date, though even Karl Marx himself saw this more as a prehistory of capitalism than as a part of its actual history.

We can look to the full emergence of the mercantile system in the 17th century as the latest plausible date. And, of course, even this came a century or so earlier than the full emergence of industrial capitalism.

What does all this tell us about which system came first? It tells us we’ve basically got a wash. Racism probably began in the 16th or 17th centuries. And while capitalism perhaps emerged in the 15th century, the 16th or 17th centuries are the most plausible dates.

Explanatory Priority

OK, so if historical priority doesn’t give us a clear answer, we might look to explanatory priority. Even if capitalism and racism emerged at the same time, one of these systems might explain more things or play a larger role on the world stage.

Readers might think about this as a debate about the root cause of social events. The issue of historical priority might be irrelevant to this debate about social events, especially if we’re talking about events that happened long after both systems emerged and mixed with one another.

Traditionally, leftists gave only one answer to the question of explanatory priority: capitalism. Marxists have long argued that class relations and conflict underlie the entire social structure, including the social structure of the capitalist era. These class relations explain a great deal of what’s happening at the level of the superstructure, which is where racism can be found.

But the explanatory priority of capitalism in today’s world isn’t just a Marxist thesis. Most leftists — from the most committed anti-racist to the hardcore class reductionist — accept it in some form. A few sects of Leninism, and perhaps a few more sects of Maoism, have flirted with rejecting it. But it’s pretty close to a central dogma of the left.

The contrary thesis — that race and racism are deeper explanatory forces than capitalism — was once almost unheard of on the left. It does, however, float around in all sorts of left-adjacent spaces. Various kinds of Black Nationalist and Black Power groups held the view in the 1960s and 1970s. But even in these spaces, groups such as the Black Panthers probably didn’t. More recently, various progressives and radlibs (though not all!) hold the view. And I suspect it’s a common view in the liberal and progressive commentariat.

As leftists, I think we should stick with the standard view that capitalism has explanatory priority. Much of the explanatory and political power of our views and our movements emerges from it. Without it, we lose leftism.

Can Racism or Capitalism Exist Without the Other?

In getting at the role of personal experience and leftist movements, I’d like to ask the question of whether racism or capitalism can survive without the other. And this is no academic question. We feel the force of both systems in our daily lives. And many of us want to know: can we get rid of them? How do we get to a world where racism and capitalism are gone?

If one system can survive without the other, but not vice-versa, it would tell us a lot. It would tell us to focus our efforts on fighting the one that could survive without the other. At least to focus our efforts there first.

So, is it possible to have a racist socialism or an anti-racist capitalism? Or are these oxymoronic notions?

I think both are entirely possible, even if they’re unlikely. Most leftists should know by now that racist currents have always run through leftist thought and movements. We’ve seen racist unions with radical views, racist leftist leaders who won (or lost) elections (or revolutions), and so on.

On top of this, even if underlying economic conditions produced racism — even if it produced the very notion of ‘race’ — racism has expanded well beyond its origins. Racism outlived slavery. It outlived Jim Crow. And, yes, it could even outlive capitalism itself.

As for the flip side of things, an anti-racist capitalism looks obviously possible to me. Even though many doubt it. In fact, I think there’s a reasonable chance we’ll see a version of it in the future.

Capitalism has proven extraordinarily flexible when it comes to how it uses race. In the very beginnings of race, white slave owners stole black Africans from their lands and used them as free labor. After the abolition of slavery, capitalism moved black Americans into the reserve army of labor and into various feudal-style arrangements. As parts of that system broke down, capitalism used race and racism as tools to turn black and white workers against one another.

And so, capitalism has adapted before. It’s trying its best to adapt again. Silicon Valley spends countless time and money looking for ways to replace race with other tools to divide workers. Capital would love to automate as much labor as possible and divide workers by education, nationality, culture, et al. as a replacement for race. And companies would love to pat themselves on the back and generate profits by positioning themselves as ‘progressive anti-racists.’

We must conclude, therefore, that we have to fight both capitalism and racism at the same time. Fighting only one system leaves the other in place.

Lessons for the Left

Let’s return to those four theses I laid out above. In terms of historical priority, neither capitalism nor racism obviously came first. It depends on how we analyze those systems, how we set our goals, and how we read conflicting historical evidence.

In terms of explanatory priority, both capitalism and racism explain a great deal. They explain overlapping and also different things. But capitalism acts at a deeper level in society. It is the fundamental explanatory force in our world.

In terms of experience, both capitalism and racism deeply matter. We see this in how people report their own experiences and in how these systems can potentially evolve and survive without the other.

Finally, in terms of political practice and movements, leftists need to address both capitalism and racism. While capitalism is the more fundamental explanatory force, race and racism are just as important to the daily lives of many of the working-class people leftists need to put together to build a coalition to fight capitalism.

Some leftists argue for either ‘universal class demands’ or ‘race-specific moral demands.’ Both approaches, I think, miss the key point.

The best class-based approaches start from universal issues (e.g., health care), and carefully attend to how, in practice, these issues are racialized, gendered, et al. And the best anti-racist approaches acknowledge and address the deep class divisions that exist within racially marginalized communities.

N.B.

This article is an updated version of a post at my blog, Base and Superstructure. The link in this article to Ibram X. Kendi’s book is an affiliate link.