Must capitalism be racist?

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>From James F. to Justin:
>That would seem to be necessary for demonstrating that capitalism
>tends to promote racism IMO.  The kind of objection that one tends
>to get to the "divide-and-conquer" argument from neoclassical
>economists is that supposing if its central thesis is true (that racism
>or sexism by dividing the working class cheapens all labor whether
>white or black) the very fact that pools of cheaper black labor or
>female labor will result will encourage capitalists to begin to
>hire them in preference to the more expensive white male workers.

The divide-and-conquer argument doesn't have to persuade neoclassical
economists, though, to be a good political argument.  It only has to
convince workers, who are the audience of leftist rhetoric.  Workers (even
apolitical or conservative ones), in my opinion, don't think like
neoclassical economists in any case.

Yoshie