Capitalism and racism evolved organically from feudalism rather than negating it

Evidence

Robinson not only finds racialism firmly rooted in premodern European civilization but locates the origins of capitalism there as well. Building on the work of the Black radical sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox, Robinson directly challenges the Marxist idea that capitalism was a revolutionary negation of feudalism. Instead, Robinson explains, capitalism emerged within the feudal order and grew in fits and starts, flowering in the cultural soil of the West—most notably in the racialism that has come to characterize European society. Capitalism and racism, in other words, did not break from the old order but rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of “racial capitalism” dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism, and genocide. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 18

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the core concept of ‘racial capitalism’ as the modern world system built from feudal racialism.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s project on rise/fall of Black radical tradition by establishing that capitalism was racial from birth, not a failed universal.