Well, the Classical Marxist school (Darity, Williams, et al) argues that
capitalists do not autonomously determine the composition of the divisions
within the working class, but rather that gendered and racially and ethnically
diverse workers participate in the process that distinguishes
the waged from the unwaged, the high-waged from the low-waged, and the
job-secure from the job-insecure. There is intense competition, rooted in the
nature of capitalism, not only between capital and labor, and between capital
and capital, but between workers. Workers attempt to protect themselves from
this competition and so participate in the differentiation, and so it is not
simply divide and conquer tactics of capitalists that divide the working class.
The employed are at war not only with capital, but with the unemployed as well.
The highwaged are at war not only with capital but with the low waged as well.
Note that one does not even have to take the position that white workers benefit
from racism to acknowledge that white workers participate in the process. One
can argue that white workers (and men) participate in the process to their own
detriment. So there are two separable issues: 1) are white working class men
"hurt" by racism and patriarchy?; 2) do white working class men participate in
the processes that result in wage, employment, and job inequality by race and
gender?
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 10:09 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L:8792] Is Racism in the Interest of White Workers?
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/06/01 09:10PM >>>
Yoshie asks:
>>Do white workers gain _higher real wages & better social programs_ by
practicing racism _even in the short term_?>>
Yes, I think they do. Bigotry in the work place pays off -- that is why
all those white men out there have lower unemployment rates and higher
wages -- even in unskilled labor -- than anyone else in the labor
market. maggie coleman
((((((((((
CB: However, it is not the white workers, but the bosses who do the hiring and
the firing which determines who is unemployed. So, the racism of the white
workers does not directly cause black higher unemployment. It is the racism of
the bosses that gives white workers the higher employment rate.
((((((((((
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Maggie says:
>
> >1. I think that the age old "what's short and what's long?"
> >question applies here.
> >Most people (from all classes, including the working class) do not
> >think of long
> >term strategy -- in fact the only people I know of who think in
> >terms of long term
> >strategy are economists, political economists, and lefties.
>
>
