The race-class debate over apartheid was really about capitalism versus class analysis

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

At a metatheoretical level the focus on apartheid helps clarify the specificity of the South African case. The peculiarity of its deviations from the classical capitalist path of development helps demonstrate that the society cannot be understood simply in terms of classical Marxism’s concept of the class struggle; the society also requires attention to the particular forms of what John Rex calls “the race war” engendered by colonial conquest. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 298 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anti-apartheid scholars displaced race with class precisely because race was so pervasive. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 577; The apartheid of race has been subsumed into an apartheid of class — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1592; The canonical race-class debate on apartheid actually diverted attention away from race — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 556 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Capitalism differentiated peoples into racial categories rather than homogenizing them #complicates (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 205
• Race fractures the working classes internally in ways class alone cannot explain #complicates (0.77)
• South African deviations from classical capitalism reveal limits of class-struggle analysis alone. #complicates (0.76) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 298
• Conquest and unfree labor, not universal Marxist laws, explain South African racial class structure #complicates (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 592