On the Stability of Racial Capitalism

Abstract

What is the connection between capitalism and racial hierarchy? In line with the tradition known as `the theory of racial capitalism' we show that the latter can functionally support the former. As a social construction, race has just those features which allow it to facilitate the sort of stable, inequitable distributions of resources that tend to emerge in capitalist systems. We support this claim using techniques from evolutionary game theory and cultural evolutionary theory, and end by discussing the normative political consequences of this relationship.

“I'm sick of being called a hero – I want to get paid like one”: Filipino American frontline workers' health under conditions of COVID-19 and racial capitalism

“…Emanating from the contributions of radical African and Black intellectuals, and synthesized, expanded, and elevated by Cedric Robinson ( 20 ), racial capitalism posits that racism and capitalism are intertwined, such that capital accumulation among elites is dependent on the labor and exploitation of Black people. As articulated by Bright et al ( 21 ): “The theory of racial capitalism proposes an origin story for how it is that the global economy came to be racially stratified and (in the main) organized along capitalist lines” (p. 1). Given legacies of colonialism and imperialism that have depended on the extraction and exploitation of labor, land, and resources of Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, and other racialized peoples, racial capitalism is a relevant framework across racially minoritized workers ( 22 , 23 ), and offers a historical lineage and context for understanding the interdependence of racism and class oppression as a fundamental cause of disease ( 24 ) and form of structural violence influencing health ( 25 ).…”

Reducing the Transactional Value of Identity & Race

“…18 A recent paper by Liam Kofi Bright, Nathan Gabriel, Cailin O'Connor, and Olúfẹḿi O. Táíwò uses evolutionary game theory to model the kinds of enduring social stratification that Chelwa, Hamilton, and Green emphasize. 19 These younger scholars build on Marxist arguments, but, like Chelwa, Hamilton, and Green, do not treat stratification as a crude condensate of skills and resources. Instead, they use game theory to model how capitalism is "stabilized by racial stratifications," even when ascribed racial identity has no relationship to skills.…”