Yoshie:
Erase _contradiction_ from history as you (unlike Marx, Eric
Williams, John Ashworth, Thomas Laqueur) do, and you can't explain
any _change_ (from one mode of production to another, as well as
within one mode of production).
==========================================================
Perhaps you missed my earlier post?; where I wrote:
>Yes, sorry, let me clarify what I said about the Enslavement not being in
>contradiction with capitalism. Enslavement did eventually produce increasingly
>contradictory effects with regard to capitalism. Emancipation was the
>dialectical result of political, social, and economic forces, in which some
>whose interests were the same as capital or consistent with capital saw it as
>beginning to have results that were in conflict with pressures of accumulation
>and competition while others whose interests were the same as capital or
>consistent with capital still felt that it contributed more to profitability
and
>accumulation than it prevented profitability and accumulation. So it is not
>that Enslavement was in complete contradiction with capitalism, even at the
end.
>Its (perceived and real) results were contradictory, and "capital" (short hand
>for capitalists, other classes in cahoots with capital, etc.) itself was split
>(fractured may be better, because possibly more than one fault line) on its
>position.
There are multiple contradictions on multiple levels as regards Capitalist
Enslavement.
Change from one mode of production to another is not a problem, I just don't
believe that Enslavement was another mode of production. Change within a mode
of production is relevant. As I wrote in the same post excerpted above:
>Enslavement was no longer (historically!) necessary for fulfilling conditions
of
>capitalism's existence and reproduction, however. But, importantly in my view,
>other institutions were necessary for fufilling the conditions that were
>previously fulfilled by Enslavement. It is about the mediating institutions.
>Crudely put, hierarchy among the working class is necessary for capitalism.
>White supremacy as a racial formation has served an important role (roles,
>really) in capitalism since the 15th century. The actual manifestation at
>different periods has been different (Enslavement, Jim Crow, American
Apartheid,
>etc.). Racism is not "irrational" in terms of capitalist "rationality." The
>institutions have changed but there is no fundamental shift from
pre-Enslavement
>to Enslavement to post-Enslavement, such as pre- and post- are a different
"mode
>of production" from Enslavement, because of a confusion with regard to applying
>what Marx said about ancient slavery to capitalist Enslavement.
For example, we can understand the transition from Reconstruction-era
institutions to Jim Crow as a change in the nature of the capitalist racial
formation, rooted partly in requirements of capitalism, but without reductionism
or economism.
Denying that the Enslavement Industry was "backward" in the sense of
unprofitable or less profitable does not mean there are no contradictions.
Mat
