Must capitalism be racist?

JKSCHW at aol.com JKSCHW at aol.com
Fri Dec 24 19:16:29 PST 1999


In a message dated 99-12-24 17:02:37 EST, you write:

Jim: << Out of curiosity, given Roemer's rational choice theory approach to

political economy, how would he counter the objection that

neo-classicals would put up against this argument - that if indeed

racial discrimination created pools of cheap say black labor then

capitalist would immediately start hiring up all these cheaper

workers which would eventually drive their wages back up

to their levels of marginal productivity?

Justin: I haven't read Roemer''s piece in ana ge and a half, but the point of his paper is that with Walrasian assumptions you can build a model where thatr doesn't happen. Intuitively the idea might be--I can't swer athi si R's approach, as I don't recall his argument--that a divided labor force is less solidaristic and so chaeper. In general I would comment that rational choice theory is a broader approach than neoclassical economics, and even Walrasian economics is broader than NCE.

Roemer's speciality has always been to see if you can get left or progressive results using those tools, and he's very good. You have to look at his arguments very very hard to appraise them. I worked through his critique of Marxian exploitation theory and while I ended up being critical of his overextending his resukts, I found his reasoning basically sound. See me In Defense of Exploitation, Economics & Philosophy, 1995.

Jim,: And how would Roemer

counter the related objection that the "divide and conquer" thesis

requires some enforcement mechanism within the capitalist

class to make sure that the capitalist all act to do what is in

their collective interest which is to discriminate when at the

same time each capitalist would be faced with incentives to

stop discriminating in order to take advantage of the resulting

pool of cheaper black (or Hispanic or female etc.) labor?

>>

Justin: Again, I can't recall hia argument in detail. But the point would be to show that divide and conquer is individually rationally for capitalists.

--jks



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