Capitalism triumphed by cultivating divisions rather than erasing them within the working class

Evidence

But even more to the point, we have seen that the generic terms “the English working class” or “the English proletariat” mask the social and historical realities that accompanied the introduction of industrial capitalism in England and its Empire. Social divisions and habits of life and attitude that predated capitalist production continued into the modern era and extended to the working classes located in Britain specific social sensibilities and consciousness. The English working class was never the singular social and historical entity suggested by the phrase. An even closer study of its elements—for we have merely reviewed the more extreme case with the Irish—would reveal other social divisions, some ethnic (Welsh, Scottish, and more recently West Indian and Asian), some regional, and others essentially industrial and occupational. The negations resultant from capitalist modes of production, relations of production, and ideology did not manifest themselves as an eradication of oppositions among the working classes. Instead, the dialectic of proletarianization disciplined the working classes to the importance of distinctions: between ethnics and nationalities; between skilled and unskilled workers; and, as we shall see later in even more dramatic terms, between races. The persistence and creation of such oppositions within the working classes were a critical aspect of the triumph of capitalism in the nineteenth century. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s goal: the causal mechanics of capitalism’s triumph via divide-and-rule, which the Black radical tradition’s cross-racial solidarity later had to overcome. — connects to: Proletarianization created divisions among workers instead of erasing them; Nationalism proved stronger than the class struggle in the modern world — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 362; Post-1877 capitalism used differential reward by race to stabilize wealth (+25 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The reversal that proletarianization did not erase pre-capitalist divisions but disciplined workers to emphasize them, and that this was central to capitalism’s success, is paradigmatic for understanding race and class.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267

Broader Connections

• Ethnic division between English and Irish workers serves capitalist domination #exemplifies (0.85)
• Post-1877 racial division of labor was engineered to stabilize capitalist wealth #exemplifies (0.80)
• Working-class movements accommodated capitalism while theory idealized a revolutionary proletariat #corroborates (0.60)
• Abolition of slavery coincided with capitalism’s reorganization toward new labor forms #expands (0.60) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1434
• Racialism pervaded Western consciousness before and beyond capitalism #complicates (0.50)
• Racial hierarchy and whiteness were invented inside Europe before modern capitalism #complicates (0.50)
• Working-class culture emerges from its material conditions combined with class struggle #complicates (0.45)