Global capital requires inventing an abject other to justify commodity circulation

Evidence

But more importantly, the “benign opacity” of the global economic system, which seems to lie beyond the functioning and therefore the power of the state, is a system whose very operation relies upon the continual depiction of the abject limits of the civilized social body, the barbarous and uncivilized, which both justify and motivate the operation of capital. The ideology of global capitalism reveals itself as an almost seamless extension of the rhetoric of empire. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3422 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The analysis of imperial ideology and practice sees quite readily that Africa has always had a special place in the European imagination, that the stereotypes of the Dark Continent provided a focus for the energies of imperial annexation and oppression around the world (Brantlinger, 1988). It also reveals the extent to which the present system of global capital has a cultural base in the marginalizing rhetoric of imperialism; its constant need to invent an abject other for the civilized world in order to justify the circulation of commodities and growth of profit. In economic terms this other is assumed to have “need” for commodities, for the need for commodities is universal. But in ideological terms the supply of these commodities must be buttressed by the hegemonic distinction of the civilized and the barbarous; the spread of capitalism becomes synonymous with the destruction of barbarism. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3440 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Empire justified commodity circulation by inventing a barbarous other needing civilization — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3440; Capital accumulation inherently requires the subjugation of weaker economies — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 337; European colonialism freed capital accumulation from Europe’s material limits — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 519 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Global capitalism depends on depicting abject others to justify its operation #corroborates (0.97) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3422
• Empire justified commodity circulation by inventing a barbarous other needing civilization #exemplifies (0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3440