Capitalism and White Supremacy

Recently Making It Plain (MIP) had a discussion with Dr. Horace Bartilow (HB), Professor of International Economy at American University, Washington DC. The discussion covered a number of critical issues including the global economy and developing countries, Pan-Africanism, and non-capitalist development.

This week in Part 2 of our series Dr. Horace Bartilow continues the discussion on the New International Economic Order (NIEO) within current global conditions and addresses the interconnection of capitalism and white supremacy.

November 14, 2021

HB: Look at all the revolutions, look at the Milanese revolution, look at the Algerian revolution. The French said that the Algerians were monsters, they were beasts; the Algerian revolution was certainly bloody. The Algerians planted bombs at these French cafes and blew them up and the French would ask them “why were you so violent?” and the Algerians would say “we had to be that violent to show our own people, that the French were humans. They can bleed, can feel pain, they can feel sorrow just as they have inflicted on us. We had to show our own people that they were not gods.” This is what colonialism does; it creates a situation where nonwhite people see white people as gods, and they are not.

So anyway, I know that this is a kind of roundabout answer to your question about the NIEO, but the NIEO was almost doomed from the beginning because it was negotiating with States in the world, former colonizers in the world; to change a global order that they created and continue to benefit from. And so, they are not going to wake up and say, “wow! you know, we realize what monsters we are, we are so sorry, and we're going to do everything and change the world so that, you can now recoup all the resources we took from you.” So, it was doomed from the beginning; (maybe it was set up to make them feel guilty, I do not know), so that is one reason.

The second reason is that you have countries like China, who is by the way still a developing country, because it is so vast; it is now the largest economy in the world, it has surpassed the United States. People do not realize that. But honestly, in terms of meeting the needs of its vast population, China is still a developing country. It is a developing country that has found a way of developing using a capitalist mode of production. As a result of that, countries like China and, there are still a few developing countries, who have grown within this capitalist mode of production. So that is another reason you do not hear about NIEO anymore. And let me also say this, and again a lot of Black people do not get this either, we do not really understand white supremacy. Capitalism as we understand it today, cannot be separated from white supremacy; do you understand that?

MIP: Yes I do but you try and tell the Nationalists that; at least the narrow Nationalists, try and convince them about what you just said.

HB: Well, I hate to say it, but they are not read, they are not well read, they are not. Now why do I say this? If you go back to antiquity, the Greeks, and the Romans they certainly acknowledged race; they wrote about it. They called all black people back then Ethiopians; they knew that there were racial differences,  they painted black people and they talked about Ethiopians and their dark skin and so on. The substantial difference is, they ascribed no judgement. As far as their relationship with Ethiopians as black people, they ascribed no judgement. There is nothing in their writings that said that they saw themselves as inherently superior to these people.

In fact, the Romans would hire, they had a great amount of admiration for Ethiopian fighters; Ethiopians were some vicious fighters. In fact, what we now call Special Forces, the Romans would hire Ethiopians to be Special Forces when they wanted to go to war against an enemy. So that was the level of respect. Was there slavery during that time? Yes but it was not chattel, quite different, which meant that a person could be a slave and be absorbed into the society. That is why Moses, although they say the Jews were slaves in Egypt, but Moses was absorbed into the Egyptian society where he became Pharaoh’s son; but they were absorbed by the Egyptian society. You had slavery even practiced among the native people, native Americans in the United States, but they were absorbed into the society because they became part of the family.

Chattel slavery only showed up with the evolution of capitalism in Western Europe, which is when you get chattel slavery.

MIP: Reminds me of Eric Williams’ book Capitalism and Slavery.

HB. Yes that is the basic jest of Capitalism and Slavery, but I do not think he sufficiently made the connection between white supremacy and capitalism. Capitalism is the economic expression of white supremacy where there is a need for racial superiority, supremacy, a sense of racial supremacy, the Aryan supremacy. That was justified by commodifying people who are non-white. The commodification of people who are nonwhite, is where chattel slavery comes in; you are permanently assigned a subhuman status of existence for the sole purpose of accumulating wealth. Permanently assigned with a subhuman category, your humanity is stripped from you because of the need to accumulate wealth.

We live in a world where capitalism is now a global phenomenon. You now have different people, different races in the world, participating in capitalism. But they are participating in a system whose genesis, whose DNA is white supremacy; whose DNA naturally creates hierarchies, divisions. By definition, white supremacy and capitalism have to create hierarchies. Hierarchies of races and within races, hierarchies based on class. You are constantly dividing, constantly dividing up and that is a problem.

Part 3 follows next week