English employers explained Irish wages through racial hierarchy beliefs.
Evidence
The Irish worker having descended from an inferior race, so his English employers believed, the cheap market value of his labor was but its most rational form. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 256
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: Central to Robinson’s thesis that racism predates and is not reducible to capitalism.
Related
- Employers justified paying Irish workers less through a racial hierarchy. (similarity 0.88)
- Ethnic division between English and Irish workers serves capitalist domination (similarity 0.88)
- Employers justified Irish wage depression through racialized notions of Irish inferiority. (similarity 0.88)
- English racial ideology predated proletarianization rather than being invented to divide workers. (similarity 0.87)
- English racialism predated and shaped the proletarianization of the Irish (similarity 0.87)
- Southern employers preferred expendable Irish to valuable slaves purely economically (similarity 0.86)
- English racialism predated ruling class divisions and shaped proletarianization itself (similarity 0.84)
- Proletarianization created divisions among workers instead of erasing them (similarity 0.83)
- Racialized division between workers serves capital’s domination over both camps (similarity 0.83)
- The Irish were the prototype white servants later absorbed into a white racial identity (similarity 0.83)
- Marx saw English and Irish workers divided into hostile national camps that strengthened capital. (similarity 0.82)
- European racialism originated in intra-European caste ordering, not color (similarity 0.81)
- English workers gained labor-aristocracy privileges within a world system (similarity 0.81)
- English racial order prevented workers from separating class universality from racial particularism (similarity 0.80)
- Race mattered only after Irish replaced blacks, when blacks stopped undercutting (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- English racial ideology predated proletarianization rather than being invented to divide workers.
#expands(0.70) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 18 - English racialism predated ruling class divisions and shaped proletarianization itself
#expands(0.65) - English racial order prevented workers from separating class universality from racial particularism
#expands(0.60) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 115 - Racism against Europeans like the Irish predated color-based slavery
#expands(0.50) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1725 - European racial hierarchy is ancient, predating modern slavery
#expands(0.50) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1700 - English workers gained labor-aristocracy privileges within a world system
#contradicts(0.30)