Finance Capitalism = Racism?

Off Topic
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[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]angry chicken wrote:

X, I am NOT saying that the Tukegee Experiment didn’t happen or that Millions of blacks weren’t routinely disenfranchised. [/quote]

If you are comparing getting into a few fights growing up to what my grandfather experienced in the US military, then I would say you are very much trying to decrease the effect that racism had on an entire race in this country.
[/quote]
First of all I didn’t “get into a few fight’s growing up”. I was beaten at home, in school, after school, after I left home at sixteen, and while I was in PRISON for four years I was stabbed five times and got into more fights than I can remember.

Second of all, no one is talking about your grandfather’s experience, we are talking about opportunities NOW and weather there is racism NOW. I have acknowledged that I’ve seen it, but I also used my own circumstance as an example of how one can overcome it.

[quote]

As I said before, I didn’t have any guidance. I didn’t start turning my life around until I was in PRISON. Ever been to prison, X? There are opportunities there to improve your self if you choose to take them. For example, I worked in the library and helped MANY men (almost all of them black) how to read and/or improve their reading proficiency. There are MANY programs in “the system” that anyone who passes through that system can take advantage of and become exposed to new ideas and new ways of thinking. It makes me very sad that so many people choose to ignore these options. But it is their CHOICE, and therefore their RESPONSIBILITY.

I’m glad that your parent’s were able to guide you and support you so that you became a successful dentist/doctor (I’m not sure which, I’ve seen people refer to you as both). Part of me wishes that MY parents had the ability and vision of YOUR parents - I would have suffered a lot less. But my point is that my parents didn’t do SHIT for me, other than hurt me.

I NEVER denied these factors exist, I only maintain that they can be overcome.

[quote]

[quote]
When I grew up, I didn’t really have a strong grasp of politics, I only really knew my neighborhood. And the small businesses in my neighborhood were owned by every nationality BUT whites. So your theory of a lack of role models, while may be true politically, certainly didn’t apply to being a successful business owner. [/quote]

What?!
Dude, who are you talking to? All you had to do was turn on any tv and see whites in positions of power. Hell, until The Jeffersons, there hadn’t been even one single public SUCCESSFUL portrayal of a wealthy black man on tv in prime time. Are you really going to pretend that the world was the same for you as it was for all of those other guys you grew up with assuming you were born before 1980?

I’m not talking about television. I was born in 1974. And frankly, I didn’t watch much TV. I was referring to my direct observations of my environment. I do remember the Cosby show starting in the mid 80’s and ran for a VERY long time (you can still see it on cable tv). But I’m not arguing about television - I will concede there were more shows appealing to a white demographic than to a black or minority demographic. So what? That isn’t the point of this discussion.

[quote]

I agree that it will take more time, but I also see a lot of progress.

[quote]

[quote]

A percentage of ALL government contracts HAVE to go to 8A or minority owned businesses - even if they are not the lowed bid. There are plenty of businesses and performance based jobs that don’t discriminate against ANYONE, where results are truly the only limiting factor of your income. So if someone feels they cant succeed, they are wrong. They just have to choose the vehicle for their success and work hard at it. I know PLENTY of successful minorities, black, spanish, asian, middle eastern - I live and work in northern Virginia, it’s a virtual melting pot here. There’s plenty of opportunity for everybody. They just have to stand up and take it.[/quote]

Right…and there is no way in hell we would be at this point without literally forcing a change through the 80’s and 90’s. [/quote]

So now it’s 2010. And the OPPORTUNITY IS THERE. So WHAT is holding people back from taking advantage of it?

I see you didn’t bother to reply to my OTHER post. Is admitting that you need to let your anger go something you’re not ready to do? That’s fine - we’re all at where we’re at. But if ANYTHING is going to heal the deep seated wounds inflicted by racism it’s going to require change on BOTH sides of the equation.

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Looks like I fucked all the quotes up, sorry about that - I’m not very good with computers, I’m more of a people person.

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[quote]NvrTooLate wrote:

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

[quote]NvrTooLate wrote:
How many people contributing to this thread actually work in an executive position within a corporation? [/quote]

No need to be an exec to understand the history of capitalism. A better question might be how many have studied the history of capitalism? Some of the arguments so far lack any consideration of history, or even capitalism in large part.

Of course if someone wanted to narrow the focus of capitalism in just the financial system in the US, I encourage them to take a look at redlining and subprime lending.[/quote]

This thread isn’t just about understanding the history of capitalism. The clash is whether or not there is institutionalized racism. If you look back in my previous posts, you’ll see what point I’m trying to make. My contention is that institutionalized racism is so minor that it isn’t even worth our time arguing about it. I was merely trying to get a “show of hands” of posters that actually work for a corporation to see if anyone else has experienced racism first hand.

You can study capitalism and it’s theory and history all you want but until you’ve actually contributed to the bottom line in a large company you really are not at the right level to answer my question
[/quote]

Perhaps we can agree that efforts to change institutions (this includes education, government policy as well as policy concerning hiring practices and efforts made by companies themselves) so that racism is a decreasing factor in many large companies have been positive?

That said, a historical view is needed in understanding this situation now. But I agree, one should not be blind to the present, as hopefully you agree, nor should one be blind to the past.

I have not worked for any long length of time for a private organization, but I had many talks with my father (any others of that age) who worked in upper management for a private corporation for decades (in several different locations) and have some reference point for changes since the 70s. My employment have mainly been in public institutions where race and gender is openly discussed in employment policy and decisions, and sometimes hotly debated. I have had jobs that directly affected the “bottom-line.”

I will also submit that while capitalism is not inherently racist as a theory, it is far more of a management of class structures - there must be workers who have to sell their skills and demands a growing need for cheaper labor, as labor cost is one of the greatest variables in production cost - the development of capitalism in it’s particular time period infused racism, sexism and agism into the labor structure. We may be at a time that the role of racism at the level of the corporation management structure may be significantly lessened, it will still be generations before race can be insignificant because of other institutions outside of the corporate structure yet within the organizational field of the United State’s capitalist culture. And this has to know and will need in the future government policy that regulates the practice of companies and other institutions so that social divisions such as race and gender in labor become insignificant culturally.

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[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

Would you like the reference for my statement? It is a history piece on global trade that considered how labor was organized (and moved) globally in order to produce goods to be consumed away from the site of production. More specifically, the expansion of sugar from a scarce commodity to a cheap global commodity and the economic system that developed in order to make that happen. It also speaks to the organization of labor on the plantation that would latter be replicated in the textile mills in Manchester England and elsewhere. The authors mention this idea as a growing understanding within the field of history.
[/quote]

I very much would like a source for that. The reason is that “Capitalism” never quite existed the way most people think. First off there was Mercantilism – dominant in antiquity, ebbed a bit in the Middle Ages then dominated until the rise of what I will call Commerce, which was outlined by Adam Smith, although he certainly never created it. Karl Polyani argues well that the first actual instances of this were only in Britain in 1834.

(I’m trying to avoid the term “Capitalism”, which was never used by Marx, who favored “Judentum” = Jew-ery and was popularized by the Nazi economist Werner Sombart. To my ears, “Capitalism” is simply racist, but I have an extensive understanding of early 20th century history, since until about 1940 the most standard stock phrase was “Jewish Capitalism”.)

Mercantilism is by and large responsible for the plantation system we find so abhorrent, in which commodities were produced by non-commercial means, such as slavery, and the system of financing it as well as distribution was essential feudal. The idea was to essentially maximize revenue and hard currency reserves for the state at all costs. What’s more, the government would seek to regulate what we would consider well-run profitable businesses. In Britain’s New England colonies, small businesses often found themselves suddenly obliged to pay taxes or other such rent-seeking* measures, which they keenly felt. The phrase “taxation without representation” was really the rallying cry also to end Mercantilism. A large part of the American system of government is aimed at making the government itself play fair, i.e., abide by its own laws, which was most often never the case prior to that. (If you had a good business, the King could and likely would slap taxes on you or simply take it over outright, e.g. While we are not too historically minded, this is still why the US has such inertia about the government getting involved in economics.)

The rise of Commerce caused several, very far-reaching changes. For one thing, citizens rights must be guaranteed in order for it to work, so it is no coincidence that the most tolerant countries are also heavily into Commerce. Also, anything that can be commoditized can enter the system, which generally reduces cost and increases availability. This includes most everything that slaves did, so while Mercantilism gave us a terrible legacy, but the twin engines of industrialization and Commerce destroyed slavery as a viable institution. A plantation owner could get a tractor and replace his slaves, then take his raw cotton to a service that ran a cotton gin and baler. It was a lot cheaper and more reliable. We would arguably still have slaves if it were not for Commerce, so it was not morality that freed them, but economics.

(Very quickly, socialist as well as older – as in Biblical – approaches to wealth are that it is a constant and inherently evil. Most socialist theories state that therefore the lot of everyone is a slow descent into poverty and only state control with rational allocation of resources will save us all. Commerce (in particular Adam Smith’s most excellent analysis) states that it is human work that creates wealth, so that there is almost no limit to affluence. Since the wealth of the world has been doubling every few decades consistently since WW II, there is a good reason to think that Smith has been vindicated on this point. )

Lumping all of economics into Capitalism = “anything we don’t like that involves money” is a very common occurrence, both popularly and in Academia. As I have indicated in other posts on this thread, academic analyses of such hot-button topic are often very badly skewed for any number of reasons. For instance, Jared Diamond is widely respected but has a poor track record at getting it right. One of the more glaring examples was his famous analysis of Easter Island in which he concluded (surprise!) that the depopulation was all due to Ecological collapse and from this wove a morality play for Industrial nations. Pity he didn’t bother to consult the Islanders or many sources, which clearly showed that it was Chilean slave raiders and an epidemic of smallpox that easily accounted for most of the population decline.

And as always, I might just be full of shit…

– jj

=====

  • “Rent-seeking” is a very good term to learn if you do not know it. Rather than creating wealth, a rent-seeker attempts to thwart those who produce. In 3rd world countries, graft is a common form of this, where you must bribe an official to do his/her job. Taxes and other such measures are rent-seeking and in economic terms, all governments are rent-seeking, their abilities being almost wholly negative to production. [/quote]

I agree, mercantilism > plantation system > industrial production within capitalism. I do not lump all things that concern money with capitalism, but hopefully you can see in my postings, capitalism is a particular way of organizing labor and economic production.

Jefferson and Hamilton disagreed on how the US should proceed economically, with Jefferson against the industrial structures forming in Manchester - usually cited as the start of capitalism. Hamilton won. Legal slavery continued in the US for nearly 100 more years.

Look to the agricultural sector and the guest worker programs start in the 1910s. “Illegal” workers are still a key labor source because by paying under minimum wage it keeps costs down and they perform jobs that have not, as of yet, been replaced by machines. While not specifically slavery, there are enough similarities to be disturbing at the least. Also, consider the role of company towns in the US industrial growth. Oh, you can also look at labor practices in other countries that, while not legal here, are the source for profits for US companies.

Diamond trumps a theory that was abandoned by geographers in the 1920s because of its racial overtones.

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[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

I agree, mercantilism > plantation system > industrial production within capitalism. I do not lump all things that concern money with capitalism, but hopefully you can see in my postings, capitalism is a particular way of organizing labor and economic production.
[/quote]

Not what I said, though.

Mercantilism > plantation BUT Commerce stopped the plantation system and is the reason that 5,000+ years of slavery came to an end. As I see it, the plantation system (pioneered by the Spanish and French, adopted belatedly nearly a century after the fact by the British) was an attempt to use what were standard (feudal) methods of production but starting on an industrial scale, since for the first time since the Roman Empire there was actually large-scale international trade. We have so much angst in this country about slavery we often don’t even discuss why it went away, rather than to pat ourselves on the back for being the good guys. Slavery still existed around the world, ending in Europe in the late 19th century (all those Gypsies who live on the margins of European society were mostly slaves in Eastern Europe and are treated just awfully still with nary a brow raised.)

My point should be treated seriously, that the standard Marxist influenced economics taught widely in public school badly misses the mark, trying to obscure various economic systems together as some form of “Capitalism”. If I am right ( von Hayek and Mises would approve) is that most forms of state-controlled economies are just more authoritarian forms of Mercantilism (“The Road to Serfdom” was named that for a reason). The new & radical change to the world was the introduction of Commerce and it has driven rising standards of living worldwide, emancipation of all slaves as well as pushing most Human Rights. Putting Commerce in the same category as Capitalism is much like declaring all inoculations inherently evil since criminals are executed by lethal injection too. A singular example of the categorization fallacy.

Jefferson was very much of a mind that the gentleman farmer was the future. He was wrong and did not understand what industrialization would do. Hamilton was more savvy.

And as always,…
– jj

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[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

I agree, mercantilism > plantation system > industrial production within capitalism. I do not lump all things that concern money with capitalism, but hopefully you can see in my postings, capitalism is a particular way of organizing labor and economic production.
[/quote]

Not what I said, though.

Mercantilism > plantation BUT Commerce stopped the plantation system and is the reason that 5,000+ years of slavery came to an end. As I see it, the plantation system (pioneered by the Spanish and French, adopted belatedly nearly a century after the fact by the British) was an attempt to use what were standard (feudal) methods of production but starting on an industrial scale, since for the first time since the Roman Empire there was actually large-scale international trade. We have so much angst in this country about slavery we often don’t even discuss why it went away, rather than to pat ourselves on the back for being the good guys. Slavery still existed around the world, ending in Europe in the late 19th century (all those Gypsies who live on the margins of European society were mostly slaves in Eastern Europe and are treated just awfully still with nary a brow raised.)

My point should be treated seriously, that the standard Marxist influenced economics taught widely in public school badly misses the mark, trying to obscure various economic systems together as some form of “Capitalism”. If I am right ( von Hayek and Mises would approve) is that most forms of state-controlled economies are just more authoritarian forms of Mercantilism (“The Road to Serfdom” was named that for a reason). The new & radical change to the world was the introduction of Commerce and it has driven rising standards of living worldwide, emancipation of all slaves as well as pushing most Human Rights. Putting Commerce in the same category as Capitalism is much like declaring all inoculations inherently evil since criminals are executed by lethal injection too. A singular example of the categorization fallacy.

Jefferson was very much of a mind that the gentleman farmer was the future. He was wrong and did not understand what industrialization would do. Hamilton was more savvy.

And as always,…
– jj[/quote]

I will think about this.

Thing is, there is still slavery.