In response -- > > Moreover, whether the enslaved and their sharecropping descendants were a > proletariat or not, they played a pivotal role, at least through the > importance of American cotton to England's "satanic mills," in the > development of industrial capitalism. What would be the point of arguing > with Brenner et al that slavery was "pre-capitalist"? ...... Racism is > useful to capitalist hegemony precisely because it seems to live and move > on its own. > > ME: The reason it has value is because it helps identify the DYNAMICS of > that sub-system --- the dynamics of North American slavery was such that it > could not be "abolished" by governmental fiat such as was done in the > British Empire decades before the US CIvil War --- it was TOO PROFITABLE > and SUCCESSFUL to be beaten any other way than by a bloody Civil War --- > The dynamics of the post-CIvil War South was such that the struggle of > ex-slaves for political and economic rights focused on the right to vote > and the need for land --- and in fact, the contradictions of the American > South were only solved when vast numbers of ex-slaves LEFT THE REGION --- >
Racism also made it very difficult to create a unified working class in the US --- which is at least a PARTIAL explanation of why there never was a social democratic political force comparable to the various European political structures both before and after WW II .... > _._,_._,_ > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#3740): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/3740 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/78364365/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
