The conection between bigotry and capitalism?

[Invincible Summer]

This is a bit of a noob question, but what are the links between racism/homophobia/transphobia/etc and capitalism? Some bigots are just crazy, and that won't necessarily be cured within a communist society.

I was thinking in terms of discrimination against ethnic/racial minorities, sometimes they are seen as unskilled or from an area that "nothing good comes out of." This lack of skill and under-development of culture could be attributed to the unequal distribution of resources globally, as well as the tendency for capitalism to basically rape other nations in order to prop capitalists up.

Not sure what else... what do you guys think?

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Some forms of prejudice result from isolation between different people due to geography or just general unfamiliarity with those who are "different," but most of it relates to class society:


This is a bit of a noob question, but what are the links between racism/homophobia/transphobia/etc and capitalism? Some bigots are just crazy, and that won't necessarily be cured within a communist society.Sexism and racism subdue competition by turning the population of exploited laborers against itself - perhaps the universal status of women in relation to the means of production resulted from a physical disparity between the genders at the turn of the Neolithic Revolution when the female practice of "gathering" started to lose importance. Men saw the growing "dependency" of women, especially during a time when pregnancy was much more common, as reason to completely remove them from power. And I'm sure it didn't help that the complex of nature of warfare, with men being physically dominant yet again, only solidified this opinion. Racism has been used in a similar way to consolidate wealth into the hands of those who think they "deserve" more authority. The Athenians, for example, were notoriously racist against "barbarians" and even their fellow Greeks, claiming a sort of Social Darwinism that related to their superiority. And in the early colonial period, before race became the defining feature of American slavery, we see that plantation owners were deathly afraid that blacks and whites would unify, as the indentured servants had often broken their contracts during the time period. Slowly we witness changes to the law that define slavery around racism rather than debt or heretic religion, especially when a small population of blacks become successful and open up their own plantations as competition.

Homophobia seems to have developed later on in all societies after sexism as a way to further define proper masculinity and proper femininity. It also probably has something to do with the confusing laws over generational inheritance.

[ZeroNowhere]

It's worth noting that what GC outlined as to fear of the unity of blacks and whites is covered in quite a bit of detail in Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States'.

[Cowboy Killer]

You have to remember that almost all capitalist societies have monotheism (judaism,christrianity,islam) and that the ancient scriptures that they follow call for sexism,homophobia and transphobia. The racism comes from the imperialistic/nationalist mind set of these societies. If you need an example look at america.

[mikelepore]

A major source of discrimination has been the tendency of one population group to point to another population group and say "They are trying to take our jobs away." For example, in the U.S. in the 1800s, an early attempt to form a labor union, the Knights of Labor, quickly degenerated into a group for white workers to physically assault Chinese-Americans. The source of bigotry is usually related to competition for a limited number of jobs. Other factors are observed, such as the religious basis for homophobia, but an economic situation that force workers to compete with other workers tends to be the strongest factor.

The ancient Roman empire used an interesting strategy called "divide and rule." After conquering several new regions, they would require them to pay unequal percentages of taxes to the empire. Then the conquered people who payed higher taxes would hate the conquered people who paid lower taxes, and the people who paid lower taxes would feel lucky and superior. These psychological factors prevented the conquered people from realizing that they were on the same side -- the victims of conquest by the empire. Instead, they thought they were each other's enemies. The parallels to today's divisions among workers are instructional.

[Durruti's Ghost]

You might be interested in this (http://issuu.com/durrutis_ghost/docs/gans_race_as_class) article on the class-based origins of our conceptions of race. It was written by an American sociologist who, AFAIK, is not a socialist.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is a bit of a noob question, but what are the links between racism/homophobia/transphobia/etc and capitalism? Some bigots are just crazy, and that won't necessarily be cured within a communist society.

I was thinking in terms of discrimination against ethnic/racial minorities, sometimes they are seen as unskilled or from an area that "nothing good comes out of." This lack of skill and under-development of culture could be attributed to the unequal distribution of resources globally, as well as the tendency for capitalism to basically rape other nations in order to prop capitalists up.

Not sure what else... what do you guys think?

Capitalism employs systemic bigotry in a unique way, but most oppression comes from class society and the desire of the dominant class to imprint its ideas and interests on the rest of society as well as "divide and rule" as someone already mentioned.

Oppression in capitalist society is different than past oppressions where the emphasis was on restricting certain behaviors. Sodomy was equally sinful if done in a homosexual or heterosexual context until the industrial era; anti-jewish sentiment in the middle ages was based on a dislike of the religion whereas modern (capitalist) antisemitism is based on ethnic hatred no matter if someone has converted or is nonpracticing. Ancient slave societies treated slaves as a lower caste, but did not base slavery on the racial or inherent "inferiority" of the enslaved as modern slavery did with black and native slaves.

A major part of this oppression in capitalism comes from "divide and rule"... Fredrick Douglas famously said that the southern rulers use poor whites against poor black slaves in order to rule both groups. Racial divisions come in real handy for the bosses - oppressed groups such as immigrants or black migrants have been used as scabs or a scapegoats for social problems.

There is also an ideological reason for this kind of specific oppression in capitalism which is that this system is supposed to be perfect an allow anyone the chance to succeed - yet it can't and has no real interest to do so. So rather than admit that the system in irreconcilably flawed and that someone is always going to be on the bottom - in fact this is how wealth an profit are made and maintained - racism is used to explain away inequality and blame the very victims of inequality on themselves. As the bigot-myths go: women are no good at competition and serious work, that's why so few are CEOs; black people are lazy, that's why they are underemployed; immigrants lack morals and that is why there is prostitution and crime in immigrant neighborhoods.

[The Red Next Door]

No, there is not a connection between capitalism and racism. racism is the cause by people not knowing about other and believing the prejudices that was taught by their parents and their parents before them.

[Invincible Summer]

No, there is not a connection between capitalism and racism. racism is the cause by people not knowing about other and believing the prejudices that was taught by their parents and their parents before them.

So with this viewpoint, discrimination against people based on race or sexuality won't be reduced/eliminated through Communism... people will just be bigots, and we should just try to "change their minds?"

Makes things sound a bit less optimistic

[Kayser_Soso]

You have to remember that almost all capitalist societies have monotheism (judaism,christrianity,islam) and that the ancient scriptures that they follow call for sexism,homophobia and transphobia. The racism comes from the imperialistic/nationalist mind set of these societies. If you need an example look at america.

Ahem, capitalism is widespread throughout Asia in countries that are historically Buddhist, Confucianist, and Shinto as well.

[RHIZOMES]

Well for one example the reason there is so much hatred against African-Americans is due to the deeply ingrained effects of hundreds of years institutional racism set up by the US ruling class to stop poor white servants/workers from uniting with the blacks on the mutual understanding that they've both been fucked over by the US ruling class. Laws forbidding blacks and whites to have sexual relations, segregation, enforcing only a certain ratio between black and white "servants" back in the plantation days and attempts at singling out blacks as inherently stupid/violent/etc by the ruling class, punishing black servants more harshly than white servants when they committed a crime, etc. Also the fact that there were still constant allied white-black rebellions which needed to be heavily repressed shows that bigotry between races isn't some sort of "natural" thing but is firmly rooted in economic relations. This all had a putrid effect on societal attitudes against blacks. And it's become a self-perpetuating cycle, as due to this new post-modern/late capitalist/neo-liberal age we're currently in, everything is reduced to individual failings without looking at the wider socio-economic and historical reasons of why black communities are crime-ridden and poverty-stricken. So thus it is perceived from this cultural logic that blacks have entirely themselves to blame for the state their communities are in. This of course is complete rubbish.


No, there is not a connection between capitalism and racism. racism is the cause by people not knowing about other and believing the prejudices that was taught by their parents and their parents before them.

And where do you think those ideas and beliefs came from smartypants. Out of thin air?

EDIT: Also I strongly recommend ZeroNowhere's suggestion of "A People's History of the United States", particularly the chapter "Drawing the Color Line".

[Il Medico]

This is a bit of a noob question, but what are the links between racism/homophobia/transphobia/etc and capitalism? Some bigots are just crazy, and that won't necessarily be cured within a communist society.

I was thinking in terms of discrimination against ethnic/racial minorities, sometimes they are seen as unskilled or from an area that "nothing good comes out of." This lack of skill and under-development of culture could be attributed to the unequal distribution of resources globally, as well as the tendency for capitalism to basically rape other nations in order to prop capitalists up.

Not sure what else... what do you guys think?
Nobody is born a bigot. Bigotry is something that is taught by both immediate influences (family, friends, etc) and society as a whole. This is evident when you take someone who was raised in the forties and compare them to someone raised in the 90's. The latter will not have as racist views because the the ruling class and the state apparatus no longer openly advocates racism. More subtle means of teaching bigoted views are needed and the media and other tools of the ruling class take this up. As for why the ruling class does this, the answer is rather simple. They do it to preserve their position. Capitalism and the bourgeois class that benefits from it are a huge minority. They need bigotry to keep the proletariat divided against itself. If sexism, racism, homophobia, etc did not exist the only division in society would be class. This is something that the bourgeois really don't want, as it will lead to their class losing power, because the proletariat would quickly develop the class consciousness needed to want to over throw capitalism (and the bourgeois). Thus, bigotry is needed by the ruling class to preserve capitalism and keep the proletariat divide, rather than in a united front against them.

[Robocommie]

Racism is an outgrowth of classism; and this is why racial oppression most often involves economics. Classism frames the poor in a negative moral light, people are poor because they're lazy, or stupid, or criminal, what have you. This is very similar to how racism casts ethnic minority groups, and this isn't a coincidence.

Something I've heard people say in the United States, when they think they're not being racist, is that there are "black niggers" and that there are "white niggers." That is to say, not all black folks are poor, lazy good for nothing criminals, just like not all whites are, but there are those whites who are. Even Chris Rock supported this kind of thing, when he did his whole stand up comedy routine about there being two kinds of black person; "black people" and "niggers."

It's like the term "white trash." Doesn't that term seem to imply that they're trash because they're whites who are poor, as opposed to just poor? As if they're somehow bringing shame to the white race by not being in the socio-economic master class.

Economic determinism. It's all about the money, son.

[Robocommie]

You have to remember that almost all capitalist societies have monotheism (judaism,christrianity,islam) and that the ancient scriptures that they follow call for sexism,homophobia and transphobia. The racism comes from the imperialistic/nationalist mind set of these societies. If you need an example look at america.

Which explains why so much of the American abolitionist movement of the 19th century was religious in nature. Good point, there.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Which explains why so much of the American abolitionist movement of the 19th century was religious in nature. Good point, there.

Indeed. Religion is in almost every instance a scapegoat, not the actual cause.

[Robocommie]

Indeed. Religion is in almost every instance a scapegoat, not the actual cause.

Yeah, I say it makes up a very convenient excuse for how people would be inclined to behave anyhow. You can't really say religion causes one thing or another, because there's no consistency of behavior among religious groups when you really sit down and objectively look at history. People say, well religion causes needless wars and divisiveness. Fine, say that, certainly there has been a lot of conflict framed in religious language, but I'd suggest that all of those conflicts had a pre-existing political or economic factor that was the real source of tensions. In history, you find more cases of people manipulating religion to weasel out a justification for how they want to behave than you find of religion actually pushing people to act in a way they otherwise wouldn't.

I mean, what god did Alexander the Great conquer for? Genghis Khan slaughtered millions, what god did he do that for? Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Ivan the Terrible, all of them did what they did for secular reasons.

I don't begrudge people who have no use for religion, nor do I deny that religion is without it's problems, but anyone who is so ready to categorically denounce ALL religion EVERYWHERE for being solely or primarily a source of conflict and suffering is simplifying things. That kind of Manicheanistic black and white view of the world is not the product of a reasoned, sophisticated analysis of history and culture.

[narcomprom]

nationalist ideologies have first appeared with industrialisation in europe, racism was made nescessary with colonisation. think of the tutsi and hutu: the colonisers arbitrary elected "tutsi"s and made them a middleman class to direct the wrath of the peons, the "hutu", away from themselves. Long after the colonial authorities have left their ideology existed on to justify a genocide.