This quote from Karl Marx should be read by every black man and woman in America.

[Osmosis]

I'm reading a book on the links between Capital and Race right now, and it's very interesting.

It's essentially saying that Marx apparently correctly identified the birth of "America" (and colonial domination) as foundational for capitalism, but didn't explicitly put 1492 as the beginning date, but rather much later with the expropriation of land from British farmers (Enclosures) in the XVIIIth century.

So there seems to be this whole debate spanning the XXth century to this day, between traditional marxists and dissidents, about the beginning of capitalism and how important racism is for its creation and maintenance. The tradition, especially among abolitionist marxists and other marxists of color, insists on just that, and it seems like this perspective is gaining prevalence.

I didn't know the intricacies of the whole class reductionism debate, but it is not recent at all.

What book?

 

[SupaDupaFresh]

Be a socialist brehs

Please. Everyone.

 

[Mister Terrific]

I don't understand your question or your points.

Because something is foundational to another thing doesn't mean it'll necessarily lead to it.

For example, the common tale is that the development of agriculture was foundational to the creation of cities (and hierarchies). That doesn't mean it always led to it. Many peoples were invested in agricultural activities but did not build cities. That doesn't take away from the fact it can be considered as foundational when they did indeed build them.

Also, Marx and marxists are talking beyond the transatlantic slave trade. I said 1492. When Christophe Colomb pulls up to the continent looking for gold, takes the lands from the Natives for its resources and enslaves them for their labor, leading to their rapid genocides. This is what is debated as the beginning of capitalism.

The establishment of settled communities can be repeated throughout the historical record. The collapse of slavery only happened once. To have a hypothesis become theory you need to demonstrate it over and over again. Human chattel slavery has been endemic to human history. Hammurabi’s code codified the price of the capture of an escaped slave. Not easy new world slavery wholly different than old world slavery.

Pliney the Elder discusses “Latifundium” aka plantations, where he laments that Romans are longer employed in farming but instead vast estates are solely worked by slaves. Where rich landowners massively outnumbered the local populace. In Sicily this form of labor persisted to the 20th century.

If slavery was the driving motor of the development of capitalism it should be demonstrated multiple times throughout human history, instead what we see is a despised merchant class, lack of innovation, technological stagnation and political and social instability as free men are essentially forced onto state welfare.

Christopher Colombus didn’t invent slavery or colonization or world trade and Spain for that matter largely missed the industrialization train primarily for its over reliance on wealth extraction out of the colonies instead of development like GB.

 

[MischievousMonkey]

What book?

I'm not sure there's an English version yet (it came out at the beginning of the year), but as I said, it's not a new topic so there's plenty material out there.

Among pretty well-known authors of color discussing the links between the two, you got Stuart Hall, Amilcar Cabral, Walter Rodney, Achille Mbembe, Neville Alexander, Cedric Robinson...

For some more recent literature on the subject, here are a couple of English references from the book's very beginning's footnotes:

• How the West Came to the Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism, Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu
• The Origins of Capitalism and "The Rise of the West", Eric H. Mielant
• Political Geography Debates n°3: On the Significance of 1492, James M. Blaut
• Between Equals Rights: Primitive Accumulation and Capital's Violence, Onur Ulas Ince
• Americanity as a Concept or the Americas in the Modern World System, Anibal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein
• Colonialism. A Global History, Lorenzo Veracini

 

[Cobalt Sire]

If slavery was the “foundation of capitalism” why didn’t Ancient Rome, China or Spanish America, Songhai Empire or the Mongol Empire transition to free market economy? Colony literally comes from the Ancient Greek “Apoikia”

Ancient Rome is estimated to be 1/3rd slave where as America was about 10-20% of the population.

Marcus Crassus probably had thousands of human chattel under him, didn’t make him invest in new technology or innovate. In fact the common response to an excess of slaves for the Roman Empire was more conquest. Korea was essentially a slave society with as much as 70% of the population slaves during the Joseon dynasty.

I do agree that the rise of capitalism and industrialization spelt the end for slavery as it was no longer able to compete with paid labor, I don’t see any evidence the expansion of the institution under the trans Atlantic slave trade was tied to it.

Also there was a fervent moral opposition to slavery. This revisionism that the civil war and British abolition of slavery were not moral conflicts and simple economic was taught to our parents and is very much in line with lost cause revisionism.

I don't know why you're trying to deny the impact of slavery on capitalism and how it created wealth for the West. It's literally common sense. Hundreds of years of free labor.

Number 1, ancient societies had pockets of capitalism. Latin America had capitalism since it was colonized, China is capitalist. Pretty much every example you used was wrong.

Number 2, The reason why capitalism developed more since the transatlantic slave trade is because the transatlantic slave trade was more profitable than previous forms of slavery. Thus, you can call it the foundation of modern capitalism.

Number 3, capitalism, nor industrialization ended slavery. In fact, it was still going on for a long time after it was officially abolished. There's still slavery going on in parts of the world. What ended slavery is Black Americans increasingly standing up against it, along with the Civil War, which wouldn't have been won without Black Americans. Nothing can compete with free. Stop trying to downplay the role Black American slaves played in building society.

Number 4, you said you don't see how slavery expanded capitalism and industrialization. Are you out of your mind? Slavery created a lot of capital for the west which they then invested into industrialization.

Number 5, you must be afraid that there's a clear cut argument for reparations, because Black people built America, which built the West, which you're living in most likely, so give credit where is credit is due. Or maybe you worship the very system that wouldn't have been possible without Black people suffering. Pick your poison.

 

[Nkrumah Was Right]

The United States wasn't built like that when Marx was alive.
There weren't even any COLONIES in the US when Marx was alive.
"America" is bracketed.

@I Really Mean It You ain't slick

America internally colonized African Americans via slavery and were colonizing the Great Plains and committing genocide/ethnic cleansing on Native Americans

 

[Black Panther]

Slavery was the primitive accumulation of capital.

After extracting wealth from slavery and flippng it into industrial capitalism, slavery wasn't needed anymore.

It was the ignition.

You should read "Slavery by Another Name" by Douglas A. Blackmon. It wasn't possible for America to transition away from slavery as quickly as you're implying.

 

[Nkrumah Was Right]

But slavery was abolished in 1865, and America kept on going?

Jesus Christ / you never heard of how Reconstruction failed and the rise of Jim Crow?

 

[Black Panther]

it was from a letter written in 1846. it bears down on the irrefutable fact that this world, as it is presently constituted, would not exist but for slavery.

Aren't you still a Trump supporter?

 

[MoshpitMazi]

Marx on the coli?
Yessir let's eat

 

[omnifax]

I don't know why you're trying to deny the impact of slavery on capitalism and how it created wealth for the West. It's literally common sense. Hundreds of years of free labor.

Number 1, ancient societies had pockets of capitalism. Latin America had capitalism since it was colonized, China is capitalist. Pretty much every example you used was wrong.

Number 2, The reason why capitalism developed more since the transatlantic slave trade is because the transatlantic slave trade was more profitable than previous forms of slavery. Thus, you can call it the foundation of modern capitalism.

Number 3, capitalism, nor industrialization ended slavery. In fact, it was still going on for a long time after it was officially abolished. There's still slavery going on in parts of the world. What ended slavery is Black Americans increasingly standing up against it, along with the Civil War, which wouldn't have been won without Black Americans. Nothing can compete with free. Stop trying to downplay the role Black American slaves played in building society.

Number 4, you said you don't see how slavery expanded capitalism and industrialization. Are you out of your mind? Slavery created a lot of capital for the west which they then invested into industrialization.

Number 5, you must be afraid that there's a clear cut argument for reparations, because Black people built America, which built the West, which you're living in most likely, so give credit where is credit is due. Or maybe you worship the very system that wouldn't have been possible without Black people suffering. Pick your poison.

Spot on right here. I'm currently reading The Half has Never Been Told and the author details how whipping slaves and other brutal methods applied increased cotton production every year for a least a decade during the great expansion into the southwest (Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana at the time). It also led to a huge expansions of banks that provided credit to buy more slaves.

 

[Fill Collins]

OP hasn't done anything meaningful for Black people in real life and never will

 

[African Peasant]

You should read "Slavery by Another Name" by Douglas A. Blackmon. It wasn't possible for America to transition away from slavery as quickly as you're implying.

I never said it was quick. I said slavery in the New World gave the base for the industrial revolution.

 

[African Peasant]

I don't know why you're trying to deny the impact of slavery on capitalism and how it created wealth for the West. It's literally common sense. Hundreds of years of free labor.

Number 1, ancient societies had pockets of capitalism. Latin America had capitalism since it was colonized, China is capitalist. Pretty much every example you used was wrong.

Number 2, The reason why capitalism developed more since the transatlantic slave trade is because the transatlantic slave trade was more profitable than previous forms of slavery. Thus, you can call it the foundation of modern capitalism.

Number 3, capitalism, nor industrialization ended slavery. In fact, it was still going on for a long time after it was officially abolished. There's still slavery going on in parts of the world. What ended slavery is Black Americans increasingly standing up against it, along with the Civil War, which wouldn't have been won without Black Americans. Nothing can compete with free. Stop trying to downplay the role Black American slaves played in building society.

Number 4, you said you don't see how slavery expanded capitalism and industrialization. Are you out of your mind? Slavery created a lot of capital for the west which they then invested into industrialization.

Number 5, you must be afraid that there's a clear cut argument for reparations, because Black people built America, which built the West, which you're living in most likely, so give credit where is credit is due. Or maybe you worship the very system that wouldn't have been possible without Black people suffering. Pick your poison.

Say it again.

 

[inndaskKy]

He was a Jew.

We HATE Jews.

​

He is widely accused of being an anti-Semite himself. Here's his views on Jews:

Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money[...] An organization of society which would abolish the preconditions for huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would make the Jew impossible[...] The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews[...] Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man – and turns them into commodities[...] The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange[...] The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.

On the Jewish Question - Wikipedia