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Why capitalism needs racism

The capitalist social pyramid is black at the base and white at the top. In South Africa, until apartheid was formally abolished in 1994, this pyramid was legally sanctioned. Elsewhere, while slavery and segregation have been outlawed, the richest people are still the whitest and the poorest are the blackest.

Racism suits capitalism because it’s an important way of justifying economic discrimination. It’s no accident that wherever you find racism, someone seems to be making money from it.

Racist ideas help capitalism get away with super-exploiting racial and ethnic minorities, and all non-white people.

“Those Arabs” or “Those Asians”, we’re told, “are used to doing dirty, hard work, and they’ll be glad to get a job at all.”

Or when unemployment is on the rise, it’s always handy to blame “Asians”, or whichever ethnic group is being demonised at the time, for taking jobs away from “real” Australians.

And when governments in the rich countries impose welfare funding or wage cuts on working people, they always start by targeting the most vulnerable groups — non-Anglo migrants or indigenous people. International students are often the first to cop attacks on higher education.

Racism fosters the idea that the massive under-development and deprivation faced by the people of the Third World is “their fault”. This leads to acceptance of the idea that, while rich countries should give some aid or loans, it should be tied to the recipient government agreeing to terms favourable to the donor countries, including huge interest charges.

Without racist and nationalist ideas prevalent in the populations of imperialist countries, people would be less likely to accept as “natural” or “inevitable” the huge inequalities between the First and Third Worlds or endorse wars on Third World peoples who resist imperialist domination.

In other words, racism is a way for the capitalist class to divide ordinary people from each other, within and between countries: divide and rule.

(Source: anticapitalist)