An F.Y.I. on Capitalism: Who Really Benefits?
Capitalism is “an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.” In my mind, this prompts me to wonder, who are the private owners? Who enjoys the profit? Who actually works for the profit? Many have argued that in order for capitalism to run the way the capitalists want it to, there must be a victim, i.e. someone who, no matter how hard they work, can never gain significant wealth.
American capitalism is a particularly frustrating topic for me. It is a racialized institution that perpetually holds down Black Americans, specifically Black women, by exploiting their labor and maintaining a legacy of slavery. It is no coincidence that the majority of people who own the means of production are white. In 1905, German sociologist, Max Weber published a book that, to this day, perfectly encapsulates the origins of these capitalist-driven inequities.
According to Weber, it all started when John Calvin led the Puritans to New England after the Protestant Reformation (you know, that international event that totally shattered the credibility and reputation of the Catholic Church in the 16th century). The Calvinist rules that the Puritans followed were intensely strict and rigid: no playing games, no dancing, no unnecessary socializing, nothing that might have the possibility of eliciting joy. Otherwise known as total depravity. Life consisted of working and earning in order to make sure you secured a seat in Heaven.
Puritans believed in predestination, meaning that from the moment you are born God already decided if you are destined for Heaven or Hell. They believed there was absolutely nothing to be done about it. Since no one technically knew who was or wasn’t part of this “predestined elect,” they spent their days working and saving. Working, because busy hands can’t get into any trouble. And saving, because spending money and time tending to one’s own material needs was the work of the devil. Anyone who did these two things must have been a part of the Elect. This perpetual saving led to mass accumulation of wealth among many in the Puritan community, all of whom were white.
Okay Ella, this is great to hear and all, but what does that have to do with capitalism today? (I understand if you’re not sure where I’m going with this, but I promise it’ll be worth it!) So, Max Weber’s theory maintains that because the Puritans were able to save money and gain such great wealth, they were immediately shot to the top of the socioeconomic scale when the US economy began to industrialize. Yes, they were always wealthy, but as Weber contends, they had nothing to do with this money for generations, until they realized how much power it gave them.
Circa 1815: Europeans started immigrating to the US in droves, giving those who owned the means of production (descendants of Puritans) the opportunity to heavily profit off the exploitive labor of these immigrants who desperately needed work. While these working conditions were none too pretty, do not forget that, simultaneously, there were kidnapped folks trapped in the southern half of the country being forced into slave labor. Also, do not forget that even though life definitely sucked for the immigrant laborers working under their careless bosses, their oppression eventually came to an end and rarely, if ever, showed its ugly face again. However, the racism and oppression inflicted upon Black people systemically infiltrates nearly every aspect of their lives to this day.
If you’re Black in the US, the government will ensure that your children’s schools are grossly underfunded, your sons will be sent to prison en masse, your daughters will be hyper-sexualized, your mothers will die during childbirth at disproportionate levels, your opportunity to go to college is alarmingly slim, and you will not be able to buy a house outside of certain areas (the chances of you buying a house in general aren’t as high as your white peers). This small list only begins to touch on the ways the US has strategically held down Black Americans from making significant economic progress.
Toni Johnson, a member of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, discussed how despite their de jure emancipation in the 1863, Black women have been subjected to domestic work and other legacies of slavery for centuries. “We take care of the children so you can go to work, start a business and go to school, yet we are not able to do that for ourselves and our families,” Johnson tells In These Times. Black women are the reason why American capitalism has been able to thrive for so long, and yet they overwhelmingly reap none of its rewards. Even though slavery was officially abolished, anybody with the ability to think critically can surmise this emancipation was a political stunt and not a true abolition of slavery. Otherwise, why would Black women participate in the workforce at a significantly higher rate than white women, while still being in poverty at a higher frequency than white women?1
When you look at this through Max Weber’s lens, how is it fair that white Americans have a generational “leg up” on the socioeconomic scale just because of their ancestors while an overwhelming number of Black Americans are stuck in a cycle of extensive labor with little long-term compensation? It’s not. When white elites in this country tell poor people of color to pull themselves up by their “bootstraps,” essentially, they are dismissing the immense advantages they, as white Americans, were awarded based on what happened hundreds of years ago. Under the current system of capitalism in the US today, Black women will always be victimized because capitalism always requires a victim.
I can’t say for sure how the US should go about fixing this enormous problem, especially considering Americans have been indoctrinated to hate socialism and worship capitalism. But I feel that by pointing out this reality and spreading awareness about it, more of my fellow white Americans can begin to internalize how skewed the system was made to be and how it continues to negatively impact Black women, in particular, on a daily basis.
To my white readers, whether or not you are financially successful today, we are where we are in society because of this history. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of living under a government that doesn’t see anything wrong with our current economic system. America, how dare you tell a Black woman to pull herself up and “work hard for a better life” when all you’ve ever done for her is throw inescapable obstacles her way and pretend to be surprised when she’s angry she makes 64 cents for every dollar a white man makes?