Capitalism
market, profit can increase infinitely – so costs will inevitably be unethically reduced, and corporatism will inevitably emerge, to which exploitation is foundational in whatever form that corporatism may take. The third is based on the behavioural model of ‘homo economicus’, which describes humans as inherently selfish, rational and relentlessly self-maximizing, which is just as morally corrosive as it is scientifically incorrect. Yet this model is capitalism’s basis: selfishness is the cause of economic prosperity, greed is good and widening inequality is efficient. This narrative is entrenched to encourage populations to strive to emulate these qualities of successful capitalists, thus indirectly validating their model (by imitating it to survive) and therefore permitting their exploitation in a self-sufficient cycle. Perhaps people desire safety and security for themselves and their loved ones, but for this basic desire to be twisted to fit the enrichment of a few is sickening. As the philosopher Andrew Collier puts it, ‘to look at people in a capitalist society and conclude that human nature is egoism, is like looking at people in a factory where pollution is destroying their lungs and saying that human nature is to cough’ . 2 Capitalism supposes the pre-existence of considerable masses of capital already owned by the producers of commodities, so that they can privatize the means of production and so that we can sell our labour to them. Marx describes this assumed mass of wealth as ‘primitive accumulation’ . 3 He contends that accumulation is not the result of a capitalist mode of production, but its starting point. There must be a primitive accumulation of wealth preceding it, an accumulation that is both the basis of the ‘success’ of the modern world, and therefore of the drastic inequality currently present. This capital was and is accrued through transparently violent means: war, (neo)colonialism, and the labour of slaves that fuelled the industrial revolution. In his book Black Marxism , Cedric J. Robinson pointed out that capitalism is racial capitalism, a modern world system that relies on colonialism and imperialism; there is no ethical version of capitalism that exists independent from this. 4 Successful capitalism seeks not only maximum value, but minimum cost, meaning that slavery, or labour exploitation, is successful capitalism. Racism was a tool of early American capitalism; racist rhetoric validated the profit model (slavery), by establishing the labourer (the black man) to be a lower class than human. Slavery was abolished because it was no longer profitable; the economic element was at least as strong as the moral element. 5 Chattel slavery of the nineteenth century transformed into the colonial system in which people would be enslaved in their own country and used as markets for new commodities. 6 Racism is more than just a tool of division or justification for slavery; it is part of a network intersecting equalities that capitalism relies on. In fact, our social reality is created through policing in its various forms, to maintain the marginal status of certain groups. Capital can only sustainably accumulate by producing and maintaining relations of severe inequality; for capitalism to survive it must exploit and prey upon the ‘unequal differentiation of human value’ , 7 value that it produces and maintains itself in a cycle. And so, when racism is reduced to an issue of individual morality, its systemic purpose within capitalism is ignored. Racism has been reduced to a political movement that can be adopted as a campaign tool, a slogan, because politicians could never morally be racist or they would be heartless monsters, and yet they are all capitalists. They all support a system in which one social group created and maintains their power by inflicting violence and perpetuating poverty through countless intersecting tactics. In the words of author Reni Eddo-Lodge, conversations
2 Collier 2004. 3 Marx 1867. 4 Robinson 1983. 5 Bradley 1978. 6 Melamed 2015. 7 Ibid.
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