The civilizational standard quietly re-encoded race as economic capacity

Evidence

This slippage between race and economics persisted even as the standard of civilisation appeared to establish neutral and universal criteria for membership in the ‘family of nations’. On the surface, the standard held out the possibility that independent, non-colonised states like Japan and Siam (now Thailand) could be admitted to this ‘family’ if they transformed their international and external relations. In reality, ascriptive racial hierarchies remained central, even if they were no longer framed as static biological accounts of racial difference. The British imperialist Cecil Rhodes exemplified this shift. A firm believer in white supremacy, Rhodes appealed to Dutch Afrikaners in 1897 by promising ‘equal rights for every white man south of the Zambesi’. Two years later, he instead promised ‘equal rights for every civilized man’. In 1900, he told the South African League that he had ‘used the word civilised to cover the coloured people’ (a category that did not include the black majority) and others worthy of the rights of voters. In a short period of time, the white race became the civilised – a category ultimately extended to certain (wealthy and literate) people of colour. What remained consistent was the hierarchical ordering of humanity, and the belief that this hierarchy was indissolubly racial and economic. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 83

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s prior work on dress/morality panics: ‘civilized’ as a mobile exclusion/inclusion marker parallels ‘modest’ as class-race signaling. — connects to: Race retained power by distinguishing cultural capacity for European privilege rather than biology — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 981; Economic position has functioned as a proxy for racial and civilizational worth — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 82; Economic paradigms explain racial and ethnic divisions as effects of economic structures — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 579 (+3 more)
• ADDENDUM: Rhodes’ ‘equal rights for every civilized man’ is the mirror image of the moral-panic dynamic in the immodesty article: surface-universal language that encodes racial and economic exclusion.

Broader Connections

• Economic position has functioned as a proxy for racial and civilizational worth #corroborates (0.95) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 82
• Race retained power by distinguishing cultural capacity for European privilege rather than biology #complicates (0.85) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 981
• Economic paradigms explain racial and ethnic divisions as effects of economic structures #expands (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 579
• Doctrines of civilizational decay are intimately connected with race-thinking #expands (0.80)
• Racial hierarchies adapted to enslavers’ economic needs and cultural preferences #expands (0.80) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 205