Postbellum race relations in commodity exchange

Abstract

A structural imperative of capital is to expand commodity exchange. To realize surplus value, capitalists not only have to exploit workers in the production process, but also make workers buy what they produce. This paper examines how this imperative of capital shaped race relations from the end of slavery through the Jim Crow era. The racism that sustained black slavery was highly exclusionary--a fixed racism that undermined this imperative of capital to expand commodity exchange. A more flexible racism would resolve this contradiction. Reconstruction was a move to erase all vestiges of the fixed racism that sustained slavery from relations of commodity exchange. Jim Crow countered with a more flexible racism that maintained the racial status quo but was less of a barrier to blacks participating in commodity exchange in the consumption process.

Economic Growth Potentials and Race/Ethnicity in Tennessee

“…Overlastfewdecades,theAmericanSoutheasthasgainedinoverallpopulationandracial/ethnic diversity. This increase has been accompanied by significant growth in the share of non-Black minoritiesinthesoutheast,whichalsoledscholarstonamethisregionasThe New South (McDaniel &Drever,2009;Mohl2003,2007Smith&Furuseth,2004;Strait&Gong,2015;Winders,2011aWinders, , 2011bWilson, 2010). 1 Much of the growing diversity and economic growth in this region has happenedbecauseofthe1970sindustrialrestructuringintheMidwest,followedbythesigningof theNorthAmericanFreeTradeAgreement(NAFTA)whichworkedtotheadvantageoftheU.S.…”