>>> furuhashi.1 at osu.edu 03/02/01 01:37AM >>>
Heather Boushey writes in "Two Alternate Tests of the Wage Curve: Does Discrimination Matter?" (1998):
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These findings provide empirical support for the argument that it is in the interest of whites and males to maintain their employment privilege because it sustains their higher earnings. When events are such that even whites or males lose their jobs, all groups suffer in terms of pay, but when African Americans or women lose their jobs, pay does not fall for other groups as much.
[1] This makes intuitive sense in that the unemployment of high earners has, relative to low earners, a more of a negative effect on average earnings since high earners are a large proportion of the labor market. *****
Yoshie F. :I don't think Boushey's findings "provide empirical support for the argument that it is in the interest of whites and males to maintain their employment privilege because it sustains their higher earnings." Why is it in the interest of white & male workers "to maintain their employment privilege" when the only thing it sustains is their relatively "higher earnings" than discriminated-against workers'? Her findings do not suggest that _real earnings_ of white workers go up _because_ they increase their _relative privilege_ (e.g., they are not among the "last hired, first fired") by making America _more racist_. In my opinion, _only if_ real earnings of white workers rise _because_ of racism can it be said that racism is in the real -- as opposed to perceived -- interest of white workers (in the empiricist sense).
Moreover, Boushey neglects to compare the earnings -- as well as other indices of welfare -- of white workers in the area with a higher degree of racism (the U.S. South) with those in the area with a lesser degree of racism (the U.S. North).
***** It is not accidental then, that where the Negroes are most oppressed, the position of the whites is also most degraded. Facts unearthed and widely publicized, including the Report of the National Emergency Council to the late President Roosevelt, have thrown vivid light on the "paradise" of racial bigotry below the Mason-Dixon Line.
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I believe it is still very much true -- even after the end of Jim Crow -- that white workers in the U.S. North are much better off than their counterparts in the Southern "Right-to-Work" states. I'd like to see if anyone has newer studies that compare them
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CB: There is a newer study in _Economics of Racism II_ ( International , 1996) ,Victor Perlo . Perlo supports Yoshie's ( and Harry Haywood's ) general argument that white workers do not on balance gain even economically from their relative privilege based on racism, and Yoshie's specific argument that the South as a haven for the conjunction of reactionary racism and anti-labor social forces and laws. Perlo does this particularly, in a chapter entitled "Who Gains and Who Loses from Racism ?" Perlo says:
" The South remains the region where slightly more than 50% of the African American people live and where discrimination against Blacks is most severe.
The South is also the region where incomes of white workers are lowest and poverty among whites is highest. This remains true despite the rapid growth of industry and the overall economic and financial importance of the area.
The South is also region where the rights of labor, white and Black, have been most trampled; where trade union membership and influence has been most drastically curtailed. where the organization of unions faces the highest obstacles. The "right-to-work" laws have almost completely smashed unions in states with the fastest growing industry - North and South Carolina. ( A table is given demonstrating this proposition.)
Perlo quotes Michael Reich ( _The Economics of Racism, in Edward Reich, and Weiskopf: _The Capitalist System_, Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1972) for a general posing of white loses from racism:
"Wages of white labor are lessened by racism because the fear of a cheaper and underemployed Black labor supply in the area is invoked by employers when labor presents its wage demands. Racial antagonisms on the shop floor deflect attention from labor grievances related to working conditions , permitting employers to cut costs . Racial divisions among labor prevent the development of united workers organizations both within the workplace and in the labor movement as a whole. As a result union strength and union militancy will be less the greater the extent of racism...the economic consequences of racism are not only lower incomes for Blacks but also higher income for the capitalist class and lower incomes for white workers"
(CB quoting Perlo) " In a study of metropolitan areas, Reich found a quite significant correlation between the degree of income inequality between whites and Blacks and the degree of income inequality among whites. In those areas where the white /Black differential was greatest, the percentage share of white income received by the top 1% of the whites - that is, the tip capitalists, was highest, and the general spread between wealth and poverty among the whites - the socalled Gini coefficient of white incomes - was greates. An even higher correlation of the same type among states was computed by S Bowles ( Also in _The Capitalist System_)
Perlos also says, "it cannot be emphasized too strongly that the decades of major gains of the Black people in reducing discrimination - the 1950's and 1960's - were alos the decades of the most significant gains of the entire working class: in real wages, in formation and consolidation of unions, in achieving a degree of social security and humane working conditions.
and the subsequent decades of increasing racist discrimination were also the period of serious losses for all workers: in absolute and relative wages, in the smashing of unions... ( et al.).
CB
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Moreover, racism (which compounds sexism) has been one of the main reasons why it has been so difficult to create, sustain, & improve the social programs & insurances (e.g., universal health care, unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, old age pension, paid parental leaves, paid vacation, day care, decent public schooling, free tuition for post-secondary education, etc.) that lower the "cost of job loss," which Boushey, too, says plays "an important role in the determination of wages," and/or directly improve the welfare of the proletariat.
In short, I repeat my argument that racism makes white workers -- as well as workers of color -- "losers." Therefore, racism is not in the interest of white workers.
Yoshie