Capitalism: A Brief History of Sexism, Racism, and Exploitation
The “free-market”, laissez faire, private enterprise: regardless of what thin veneer of perceived financial equality is used to mask it, capitalism is the system the United States has proudly functioned on (if not fully, then partially) for the majority of its relatively short existence. America couldn’t be technically described as a fully-fledged capitalist country until the beginning of the 1900s, the steps taken to groom a society in which maintaining deregulated markets to foster “economic growth” was more of a priority than taking care of millions of low wage workers. This has been a steady and calculated process that thrived in the imperialist and white-supremacist origins of our nation. Though it may be tempting to place the misdeeds and amorality of our founding fathers behind us, an analysis of America’s current power structures make it clear that the ghosts of our past are still rattling chains. At this very moment, women are making less than a man who does the same job and they make even less if their skin is anything besides white. Right now, men, women, and children of color are condemned to a cycle of poverty perpetuated by lower quality housing and public education due to lower chances of employment brought on by institutionalized racism. Right now, students are struggling through the financial nightmare that higher education has become, are paying obscene loan interest rates, crippled by debt, and are limiting their potential to working for decades to pay off their loans. Meanwhile, corporations are treated like first class citizens, able to anonymously contribute unlimited amounts of money to campaigns, abuse the employees that depend on them for survival, and shape legislation through their profits. Thinking of capitalism in terms of simply being an economic system, one that is entirely separate from governmental structures, would be a gross overestimation of the free market’s self-containment. Legislation perpetuated by societal norms and the intrinsic exploitation in capitalism aren’t mutually exclusive occurrences. America’s economy was based on colonial and racial oppression, inequality, and exploitation since its very inception. This mode of accumulation was normalized as wealth was equated to a specific work ethic and ambition, not to inherent privilege derived from race or gender. Throughout the United States’ existence, the majority of injustices and oppressive power structures we have observed (and still do) are a direct result of the cannibalistic, self-serving nature of capitalism.
I. The Beginning
The progression of settlement and subsequent territorial battles spanning from 1600 to 1790 is characterized by subsistence farming in religiously-based colonies, and there are elements of a semi-capitalist economy in the commercial production of tobacco by the Virginia Company controlled colony of Jamestown. As part of a commission by King James I (the town’s namesake) to establish a colony in the “new world,” the charter sought out gold in the territory explored by Sir Walter Raleigh, who would later name the region “Virginia” after Queen Elizabeth, the virgin queen. Breaching the shores in April of 1607, daily life for the company included an unrelenting search for gold that didn’t exist, back-breaking labor, and the consequences of lack of focus on developing food and water sources. The most commercialized sectors of the economy were predominantly staffed by enslaved and semi-enslaved workers.
The formation of the United States as a political entity (stemming from unexploited resources) is a direct result of the policy of mercantilism emerging from the decline of feudalism in Europe. Colonies existed solely to benefit the mother country through export of resources, but not to compete economically with their established industries. The New England colonies functioned for commerce and trade centers. Massachusetts specialized in shipbuilding, fishing, harbor receivals; New Hampshire focused on lumber to be used for English ships, livestock, and foodstuffs; while Connecticut and Rhode Island were utilized for livestock and iron. The middle colonies, including New York, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, contributed trade locations and foodstuff, as well as various other profitable goods. Southern colonies, by contrast, existed almost entirely as areas for lucrative crops to be harvested by slave labor. Virginia and, to a lesser extent, Maryland, provided tobacco and wheat. North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia harvested tobacco, rice, indigo, and silk. The scramble for territory not only led to the systematic, violent relocation of native tribes, but also the enslavement of generations of Africans. As tobacco markets expanded after 1730, England increased ties with France to meet the growing demand. As a result, the southern colonies growing tobacco increased production to take advantage of the rising prices. In order to give their labor system more longevity, colonial planters chose not to work their slaves as brutally as masters did in the West Indies; however, the men and women stolen from their lands still lived in sub-human conditions (“Slavery in the Colonies”). This pattern of disregard for Black and Native peoples isn’t a coincidence. White supremacist ideology was incorporated into the brutal enslavement of one group, and the termination of another, in order to keep up with the consumption under capitalism. The irony of a country so firmly devoted to personal freedoms and liberty functioning under capitalism rings throughout America’s history. Even as men gathered in 1776 to lay the foundation for a new government that would ensure the protection of its citizens, others were bound in servitude. It becomes clear that, historically, “capitalism must justify and mystify the contradictions built into its social relations — the promise of freedom vs. the reality of widespread coercion, and the promise of prosperity vs. the reality of widespread penury — by denigrating the ‘nature’ of those it exploits: women, colonial subjects, the descendants of African slaves, the immigrants displaced by globalization” (Federici 23).
Classist and racist ideology went hand-in-hand as the 19th century drew closer. Capitalism showed itself to align directly with the most powerful; political literature expressed the ideals surrounding the apparent direct correlation between grit and affluence. As Thomas expressed in his 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations, “the real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.” Dismissal of a historically underrepresented segment of the population normalized this systematic oppression. Capitalism requires a depletion of a portion of the population’s quality of life to sustain a violent power structure.
II. Capitalism in Opposition to Racial Inequality
An economy based on the trade of humans, the US has never fully grown out of the deep-grained racism that fueled the country’s early formation. Liberation groups recognized the intrinsic connection between the economic system and the disenfranchisement of minorities. Malcolm X, the leader behind the liberation group, the Black Panthers, recognized that “you can’t have capitalism without racism” (Breitman).
After the end of the Civil War, there came the question of reparations for years of abuse and methodical oppression. Unlike other mass reorganization of social structures, the Reconstruction era focused less on redistribution of land, but more having more autonomy within the African-American community, concerning their labor power. However, the remnants of a dark past lingered in the promising economic horizon. Many freed slaves ended up tenant farmers, working the same geography, caught in a cycle of poverty perpetuated by lack of financial opportunities. Mass production of the early colonial years required homogenization of laborers. This set forth the precedent, which continues to hold true, that “capitalism works best when people are not individual people with celebrated differences, but identical workers, cogs in the machine. Once diverse cultural identities are stripped away, the only culture left to identify with is capitalist culture” (“Cultural Appreciation” 4).
Intrinsic barriers carry over into modern times as well. According to a 2010 US Census Bureau report, even though non-white-identifying individuals make up only a little over 30% of the American population, they account for almost half of the country’s impoverished (Macartney 3). Based on federal indifference to areas with higher populations of minorities resulting in lower quality public education, lower employment rates, and a race-based wage gap, communities of color have been facing subjugation on a more subtle and socially-accepted scale. The chains are manifested in a less tangible form, ones of subtle economic discrimination. As multi-disciplinary activist Kim Katrin Crosby stated at Dartmouth for LGBTQ history month, “If you blame Black communities for their relative poverty, remember that Black Americans were stolen from a continent, trafficked, and enslaved for nearly 300 years.”
These injustices manifested in the consciousness of young black Americans towards the middle of the 20th century. A more unified and politically-focused wave of racial equality movements had evolved out of the disgruntled race riots of the 20s and 30s. Cohesive, articulate, and increasingly angry, this new generation was nurtured by the deeply-ingrained racism and the counterculture movement that characterized the youth of the late 1960s. Many leaders and members recognized the connection between race and allocation of resources, concluding that “capitalism is a system based on a gendered and radicalized division of labor, resources, and suffering,” which had starkly divided the US in the haves and the have-nots (“Who Is Oakland” 1). Racism had long been the preserved rampant unemployment amongst the black communities in America, as well as the historical wage gap between races. Even in the current workplace, employment is influenced by “reasons that have more to do with class — and often racial — prejudice than with actual experience” (Ehrenreich 212).
III. Sexism and Capitalism
Historians have often characterized the feminist movement into three distinctive categories, based on time frame, goals of the majority, and the strength of the female political voice. The first wave of feminism came about in the late 19th century to early 20th century on the coattails of several other reformation movements. Lead by women advocating for women’s suffrage, the temperance movement, and abolition of slavery, this political faction was comprised mostly of middle-class white women in Western Europe and the United States that had begun seeking more agency for their social reforms. Notable figures include Susan B. Anthony (a well-known advocate for extending voting rights to women), Sojourner Truth (one of the few African-American women embraced by the mainstream movement, and a passionate speaker on abolitionism), and Lucy Stone (suffragist and orator). Egalitarian ideals and notions that challenged the status quo regarding the economic and political repression of women, propelled the mentality of equality forward. The second wave was born out of the environment of counterculture that characterized the 1960s. Stretching approximately three decades, the main focuses surrounded sexuality, reproductive rights, anti-war activism, and civil rights. This evolution targeted more institutionalized barriers facing women, including workplace discrimination. The culmination of their legal efforts manifested itself as the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment). Other less formal acts of defiance included rejecting traditionally feminine roles, clothing, and societal expectations. In reaction to the growing black power movements, fueled by the racial issues regarding the Vietnam War, feminism began to section itself off from other oppressed groups by forming female-related-oppression only organizations. The third wave came about right before the turn of the century. This new brand of feminists were more inclined towards academic interpretations of empowerment. Bra burning gave way to post-modernist views of the deconstruction of gender roles.
Capitalism and the women’s movement have always been at odds, regardless of if the majority of its members were consciously aware of it. The dismissal of women within unions during the mid-1800s industrial boom by groups like the American Federation of Labor demonstrated the dichotomy that had arisen in political actions. This common exclusivity crippled many movements because “at the core of capitalism there is not only the symbiotic relation between waged-contractual labor and enslavement but, together with it, the dialectics of accumulation and destruction of labor-power, for which women have paid the highest cost, with their bodies, their work, their lives” (Federici 23). Capitalism is based on class society, as is the patriarchy. Both rely on inequality (to yield profits), prestige and white, male privilege.
IV. How Capitalism is Killing the Planet
During the second Industrial Revolution (1865–1900), not only was there an astonishing push for innovation and advancements in technology, there was also the sharp decline in workplace conditions. Workers were paid low wages, sharply contrasting long and, generally, labor-intensive hours, as steel, oil, and electricity built a new world power. This new dawn was the result of an abundance of natural resources, hands-off government policy regarding businesses, the free-market system, the influx of immigrants in the US, and technological advances courtesy of inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. Railroads became a huge employment market, thanks to the Transcontinental Railroad Act of 1862. Union Pacific, full of Irish immigrants, built to the west, while Central Pacific, made up of mostly Chinese immigrants, built east. Factories multiplied, attracting foreign job-seekers, and creating thriving cities around them. However, as the economy boomed and surpassed the globe’s expectations, dark consequences loomed on the horizon. Capitalism’s need for infinite resources in a finite world, devastated natural landscapes. Consciousness about the effects rampant commercialization had on wildlife eventually surfaced. With literature such as Rachel Carson’s The Silent Spring, concern arose over how environmental health was taking a back seat to the hunger for more and more profits. The utilization of fossil fuels not only put America on a unsustainable course, but it also poisoned the air. While coal propelled human progress to extraordinary levels, it came at high costs to the Earth, and, ultimately, to the health of all living things. However, as companies racked up never-before-seen profits, the possible consequences were ignored. In the American countryside, coal-burning machines ripped into the earth, yielding short-term profits at the expense of soil erosion and other long-term problems. Cities and towns, meanwhile, were becoming notoriously polluted by fossil-fueled industries (“Coal and the Industrial Revolution”). The mentality of accruing capital superseding ecological balances blinded tycoons to the environmental devastation.
VI. Conclusion
Harms in the status quo are innumerable and fairly obvious; however, the amount of blame capitalism is getting for perpetuating them is disproportionate. This system simply isn’t fit for the long term. A people-centric government and capitalism can’t peacefully co-exist. Democracy is intrinsically corruptible, however, in order to function as a system that truly works for the people by the people, capitalism, must be abolished. If the status quo remains unchanged, sexism, racism, and environmental destruction (among other things), will continue to flourish. Despite its origins in a citizen-operated economic platform to provide equal opportunities for financial success, it has mutated into the institutionalized barriers of today. This isn’t a plea to the here and now, to the voters already filing the polls or feeling particularly disenchanted around the general election. This is for the future. This is a plea for change.
Works Cited
Breitman, George. Malcolm X: The Man and His Ideas. New York, NY:Pathfinder, 1965. Print.
“Cultural Appreciation or Cultural Appropriation.” [Zine] Volume One, Issue One. Olympia, Washington. 2011.
Danzer, Gerald A. The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell/Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America. New York: Metropolitan, 2001. Print.
Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia, 2004. Print.
Macartney, Suzanne. “Child Poverty in the United States 2009 and 2010: Selected Race Groups and Hispanic Origin.” US Census Bureau, 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 May 2014.
Who Is Oakland: Anti-Oppression Activism, the Politics of Safety, and State Co-optation. Oakland: n.p., 2012. Print.
