> Richard writes>To do so would be
> >to drive up the costs of labour considerably and deprive the ruling class
> >(including that wing allied with the Democratic Party) of a very important
> >method of social control.
>
> How so? Wouldn't it drive down the cost of labour by increasing
> competition? Does capitalism really need other forms of social control
> besides the ownership of the means of production and the
> sympathy/protection
> of the state (I am not saying that it hasn't used other forms, but whether
> it needs them or not)?
>
The best way to judge this is to look at it historically: what has the role of racial oppression been in the US? Has it not been in large part to reduce the overall wage bill by creating originally explicit racial categories within the labour system (colour bar wages etc) that subject African Americans, Mexicans, Chinese, etc. to hyper-exploitative conditions, while allowing for some limited paternalism for white labour? See Robert Vitalis' work on the US energy frontiers for some good empirical discussion of this tendency (on the social democratic variant of paternalism, see Ira Katznelson's 'When Affirmative Action Was White'). Of course, the right-wing argument has always been that by attacking the legacy of such systems through meaningful affirmative action and anti-poverty programmes, one would place white labour at a disadvantage ('reverse racism'). But this is a myth: in practise, measures implemented to combat such practises precisely did involve also addressing white poverty, unemployment, etc.
And why would elevated competition be the major effect of overthrowing white supremacy? Wouldn't a plausible effect be elevated cooperation, in the form of class unity, industrial militancy, demands for social democratic forms of protection etc? Isn't one of the major blockages to US working class advance precisely the vexed issue of race, and the way that it reinforces ideas of competition, social Darwinism, 'meritocracy' etc in a layer of white workers?
The question of whether capitalism really needs other forms of social control 'besides' the ownership of the means of production and the protection of the state can also be approached historically. In practise, capitalism has always needed recourse to some global system of differentiating labour according to race, gender, nationality, etc. I would suggest that a number of features of capital accumulation make this so. First of all, the clumpy spatial distribution of capital rules out any pure transnationalism in a capitalist system. It will always require nation-states in some configuration. Secondly, as a corollary, these nation-states will be called on to defend and advance local centres of capital accumulation, to secure their access to global markets, to obliterate enemies etc. That means it will always be characterised by imperialism and potential inter-imperialist rivalry. For that reason, it cannot shed 'race' or some analogue function in its political-ideological imaginary. Thirdly, since national states will be required to manage the labour market, and since national demographics do not always favour accumulation, some basis for admitting and deterring migrant labour will be required. That means forms of national and racial discrimination will persist. The cost of reproducing migrant labour is substantially lower than that of reproducing domestic labour, and one way in which this is the case is that a great deal of migrant labour has no legal entitlement, is vilified within the society at large, and is maintained in low-cost forms of collective housing and transport. Improve the legal status of migrant labour and you raise drive up the wage bill not just for those workers but potentially for domestic labourers as well (as those employing migrant cleaners in the US have come to find out, if they didn't already know). Fourth, capital requires the predictable and reliable reproduction of labour in its normal condition. That 'normal' condition is socially determined (Marx uses the phrase 'level of civilization'), which means that the normal condition (in terms of consumption, education, etc) of a group of workers can be reduced if it can be effectively subordinated in some race, caste, or gender system. Capitalists are driven as an *imperative* to reduce the input of variable capital, and such systems of subordination meet that imperative. Further, the reproduction of labour as such requires that some effort is made to maintain the predominance of heterosexual family units. Even if capital's expansion draws millions of women into the labour force, it does so on terms that leave women workers subordinate, hyper-exploited, disproprortionately in part-time and temporary work, and bearing the greater burden of household reproduction. So, dispensing with gender oppression and heteronormativity is not a capitalist imperative.
-- Richard Seymour Writer and blogger Email: leninstombblog at googlemail.com Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml