Racial ideology functions as a labor discipline for capital

Evidence

The bourgeoisie that led the development of capitalism were drawn from particular ethnic and cultural groups; the European proletariats and the mercenaries of the leading states from others; its peasants from still other cultures; and its slaves from entirely different worlds. The tendency of European civilization through capitalism was thus not to homogenize but to differentiate—to exaggerate regional, subcultural, and dialectical differences into “racial” ones. As the Slavs became the natural slaves, the racially inferior stock for domination and exploitation during the early Middle Ages, as the Tartars came to occupy a similar position in the Italian cities of the late Middle Ages, so at the systemic interlocking of capitalism in the sixteenth century, the peoples of the Third World began to fill this expanding category of a civilization reproduced by capitalism. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 205 (#expands, via linked claim)

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Feminism must combat domination across sex, race, and class, not just male chauvinism — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 562; Proletarianization created divisions among workers instead of erasing them; Post-1877 capitalism used differential reward by race to stabilize wealth (+45 more)

Related

• Proletarianization created divisions among workers instead of erasing them (similarity 0.92)
• Ethnic divisions within a working class can be exploited to strengthen capitalist rule (similarity 0.90)
• Capitalism triumphed by cultivating divisions rather than erasing them within the working class (similarity 0.90)
• Capitalism differentiated peoples into racial categories rather than homogenizing them (similarity 0.90)
• Post-1877 capitalism used differential reward by race to stabilize wealth (similarity 0.89)
• Capitalism conserving non-capitalist modes produces racial and colonial ideologies. (similarity 0.88)
• Capitalist proletarianization reproduced internal divisions rather than unifying the working class (similarity 0.87)
• English racialism predated ruling class divisions and shaped proletarianization itself (similarity 0.86)
• Capitalist expansion pursued racial directions, not the rationalization Marx expected (similarity 0.86)
• English racial ideology predated proletarianization rather than being invented to divide workers. (similarity 0.85)
• Capitalism emerged within feudalism rather than negating it, rooted in racialism. (similarity 0.85)
• Modern capitalist societies experience themselves as pluralistic rather than unified (similarity 0.85)
• Post-1877 racial division of labor was engineered to stabilize capitalist wealth (similarity 0.85)
• Race fractures the working classes internally in ways class alone cannot explain (similarity 0.84)
• Ethnic division between English and Irish workers serves capitalist domination (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism differentiated peoples into racial categories rather than homogenizing them #expands (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 205
• Post-1877 racial division of labor was engineered to stabilize capitalist wealth #exemplifies (0.80)
• Capitalism triumphed by cultivating divisions rather than erasing them within the working class #expands (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 267
• Racialism pervaded Western consciousness before and beyond capitalism #complicates (0.60)
• Black refusal of proletarian discipline blocked formation of a petit bourgeoisie #corroborates (0.60)
• Capitalism’s global unification paradoxically generated nationalism as fragmentation #expands (0.60)
• Racial hierarchy and whiteness were invented inside Europe before modern capitalism #complicates (0.55)
• Black outrage at racial capitalism springs from an African-rooted epistemological standard #complicates (0.50) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1428
• Historical materialism fails to capture Black historical being as more than opposition to capital #complicates (0.50)
• Black revolutionary consciousness formed independently of bourgeois thought and ideology #complicates (0.50)