>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 02/28/01 05:53PM >>>
>CB: Yes, if we think of it as capitalism = wage-labor + specially
>oppressed labor, then race , nationality and gender in the
>capitalist epoch are rooted/constituted by the division of labor.
>Also, strategically, capitalism must have institutionalized ,
>antagonistic divisions between sectors of the working class ( divide
>and rule). Race , nationality and gender are necessary to the
>bourgeois mode/relations of production.
We can't fight against the "divide & rule" strategy if we conflate the contradiction between capital and labor with the antagonism between whites and blacks, etc. To repeat, our argument should be racism is *not* in the interest of white workers, sexism is *not* in the interest of male workers, and so on.
(((((((((
CB: That's true , but to say that the antagonism between whites and blacks derives from the contradiction between capital and labor is not to conflate them but to relate them. Nor is it to deny that once derived, the derivative antagonism has some emergent qualtiies that are not entirely reducible to the root. In other words, we need a complex dimension to our theory of race and class. Not only is the definition of race importantly related to the relations of production, but the defintion of class is importanly and critically related to the relations of races and nationalities.
"The" antagonism between whites and blacks is , at its root, the antagonism between Black people and the big bourgeoisie, not all white people. Or the antagonism between American soldiers and the Viet Namese people was actually an antagonism between imperialism and an oppressed nation.
The slogan " Black and white, unite and fight ( the big bourgeoisie)", an action proposal out of this theory, makes it clear that there is no conflation of the two antagonisms. If the antagonisms were conflated, what would be the basis for whites and blacks to "unite" and fight the big bourgeoisie ?