Racial political theology governed heterogeneous labor more effectively than individualizing religion

Evidence

At the outset, the labor regime for mineral capitalism urged homo minimalis: strength over skill, youth over experience, physicality over intellectuality. In any case, an individualized relation to the deity might just as well spawn a sense of self-worth and equal standing, and so a disposition to reject, resist, or rebel against exploitative labor conditions as it did discipline, following orders, and deference. The political theology of race, drawing into common orbit British expansionist and boer settler in mineral-rich South Africa, was far more conducive to delivering labor, securing power, and controlling land – in short, producing the wealth of power through governing heterogeneity – than any simply individualized modality, whether of the missionaries or finance capitalists. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1447

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s biopolitics/governmentality debates and to Goldberg’s own earlier work on racial states; the ‘homo minimalis’ coinage parallels homo economicus in Foucault’s 1979 lectures.
• DEEPTHINKING: The counterintuitive thesis — that individualizing Protestant conversion actually endangers labor extraction by fostering self-worth and resistance, so a group-based racial regime proves superior — resists summary and reframes how ideology and production systems interface.
• DEFINE: Introduces the term ‘homo minimalis’ — strength over skill, youth over experience — as the labor-subject type mineral capitalism demanded.