Ibram X. Kendi’s View on Capitalism and His Anti-racist Solution:
“Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist. They were birthed together from the same unnatural causes, and they shall one day die together from unnatural causes.” - Ibram X. Kendi
This week, I read and quickly finished How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. The book was extraordinary, specifically describing the effect of racism on our views towards ourselves and other races. With the knowledge of systemic racism the book taught me, and many others, policies supporting racist ideas can be recognized and hopefully dismantled. If not even that, you can see the world with new eyes - a new perspective.
One of my favorite takeaways was instead of being “not racist”, be an “anti-racist.”
Another important takeaway I observed was Kendi’s view on capitalism. Although I have outwardly criticized capitalism, its connection to race solidified my hatred of it.
In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi writes, “Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist.”
This revelation intrigued me, and I want to share it with you and really emphasize and expand upon this idea.
Throughout the book, Kendi writes racial ideologies in the US exist because white enslavers wanted to have a justification for slavery. They didn’t hate black people because of their differences (they may have), but they did it because they did it to exploit the labor of Black people. The only way for them to do so without guilt is to believe Black people are inherently inferior.
For those who no little about capitalism, a capitalist system tries to get as much labor as possible for the least amount of money. Hence, slavery is created.
The capitalist system invents racism as a justification for slavery.
However, this belief didn’t disappear with the end of slavery.
Marx said, “Capitalism is the exploitation of man,” meaning capitalism must require people to be exploited. In the mind of a person with capital, a person running a business or factory, you want people to be desperate for a job. Those desperate for a job will be willing to work for long hours in horrible conditions. This search for workers is easier when these “inferior” people are of a different race and easily identifiable.
With the end of slavery, an “inferior” class must exist to be exploited by capitalism. Those in power refuse to become a part of this underclass, and because of this, they need Black people to stay in the subclass through segregation, whether it takes the form of residential segregation, criminal justice segregation, redlining, or environmental racism, etc.
While people of both races can be poor and rich, there is still a noticeable racial gap.
Racism perpetuates capitalism through capitalists attempting to scare people away from socialism using racism. The stereotype of the “lazy black man or woman” who depends on welfare is created to turn people to the idea that a socialist economy would make lazy people depend on your tax dollars, which you worked hard for and they don’t deserve.
Ronald Reagan, for example, created the idea of the “welfare queen” as a backlash to the rising civil rights movement during the early 1960s. This idea was perpetrated by the GOP, Republicans, and Reagan, emphasizing the idea lazy, parasitic Americans thrived from unemployment benefits, deterring them from getting a job.
The solution to this ending this symbiotic relationship between capitalism and racism is socialism, which is the antiracist policy Ibram X. Kendi advocates for.