Racial Capitalism: What's in a Name?. (16th September 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hall, Catherine
• Is Part Of: History workshop journal. Volume 94(2022)
• Page Start: 5
• Page End: 21
• Publication Date: 2022-09-16
• Subjects: Jamaica -- state -- race -- capitalism -- sugar; History -- Periodicals; Social history -- Periodicals; 905
• DOI: 10.1093/hwj/dbac022
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1363-3554

Abstract

Abstract: Racial capitalism is a way of talking about the intersections of racisms and capitalisms: but how does it operate in practice? This essay explores the derivation of the term and focuses on one concrete example from the eighteenth-century Atlantic. Hereditary racial slavery and mercantile capitalism were articulated together: the expropriation of African lives and labour enabled the production of wealth for slave-owners and merchants. Both the metropolitan state and the Jamaican colonial state were critical in providing economic, legal, political and military frameworks legitimating White power and Black subjection.