Jake Shea October 3, 2010

A Critique of Capitalism ECON3405

Professor Alam
Review: “Colonialism and Racism”
George M. Fredrickson

In this chapter, George Fredrickson encourages a closer ground between

Historians and Sociologists by proposing a theoretical framework whereas the

comparative study of race and relations in societies of colonial origin can be addressed.

Fredrickson hopes to appeal to the sociologist’s interest in the theoretical understanding

of general processes, and the historian’s need for better conceptual tools with which to

illuminate particular historical experiences. This being said, the layout of his case can

follow along the parameters of Max Weber’s input on interpretative sociology: “The

growth of Capitalism is a central force shaping the modern world, but it does not assume

that we can fully explain patterns of inequality in modernizing, industrializing societies in

terms of the economic or even the political imperatives of the capitalist system.

According to Weber, status orders, based on a consciousness of differences in honor and

prestige among social groups, are analytically distinguishable from class hierarchies

determined by relationships to the market and current modes of production; and the two

may arise from independent causes. This orientation makes no a priori assumption that

‘class’ determines ‘status’ or vice versa. Both are treated as independent variables.”

Furthermore, Fredrickson employs four categories that act as identifiers for

colonial bodies: Occupational- those colonies in which there were few settlers and the

indigenous people were loosely supervised on what may be call a frontier system.

Typically a dense, populated agricultural setting with a fairly complex social and

economic system and considerable military capacity and relative immunity of European
disease. Mixed Settlement- Has a large indigenous population that produced an

agricultural surplus, however is more vulnerable to permanent settlement and direct

forms of dominance and exploitation than areas that were to be merely occupied. Fragile

or fragmented political structures, loss of population through epidemics, and other

weaknesses make it possible for settlers to acquire direct control of land and other

resources and substitute their own political institutions for those of the native peoples. In

a Plantation Colony- the principal form of exploitation was the forced labor of imported

workers to produce staples for the world market. It differed from the mixed type in its

initial circumstances because climate and soils were suitable for the intensive cultivation

of such staples and because the indigenous people population did not meet the needs of

the colonizers. White indentured labor also proved inadequate for a variety of reasons

and imported nonwhite slaves, usually Africans, became the principal work force.

Clearest examples of plantation colonies were the Sugar Islands of the West Indies.

Lastly, a Pure Settlement or pure form is when European settlers exterminated or pushed

aside the indigenous peoples, developed an economy based on white labor, and were thus

able in the long run to regain the sense of cultural or ethnic homogeneity identified with a

European conception on nationality. “What seemed required for the emergence of this

pattern was a population surplus at home and a relatively sparse indigenous population

that was politically and economically at a primitive (normally hunter-gatherer) stage of

development”.

To address the United States and South Africa- Both are in fact hybrid cases that

cannot exactly fit the typology presented. “Furthermore, these societies have been

exceptional in the role they have played in world economic and political development.
From economic and political dependency on European met roles, they evolved toward

self-sufficiency, “core status”, full political independence, and, ultimately, toward their

own form of imperial expansionism”. The Unites States naturally developed from a

cluster of British colonies, some of which may be able to mimic the pure settlement type

and others of which conformed closely to the plantation model. As the author puts it:

“After the Revolution the North abolished slavery but the South clung to what could now

be called its ‘peculiar institution’”. In turn, the basic forms of economic activity

predisposed the South to unfree labor and the North to a classic free-labor system. The

difference in the types of labor are more accurately described as a pure settlement form of

racism in the North, and a plantation form of racism in the South. “The South wanted

slavery and blacks- it was committed to a hierarchical biracial society- and the North

wanted neither- the popular preference was for white homogeneity. In one case ethnic

status was based on direct domination and in the other on exclusion.” In terms of

similarities, both the North and the South was an explicit ultra-racism that, in effect,

demoted blacks from the category of “men” referred to in the Declaration.

Fredrickson goes on to believe that if the two labor systems in the US at the time

had in fact been the same the Civil War would have never occurred. In fact, he goes so

far to note that perhaps these two different economic models were actually

complementary to each other. “Why, after all, should a core have to go to war with those

who were functioning as its agents in the periphery? It was a question of political

control”. However, what could not be resolved through normal political due diligence

was the ideological conflict- “triggered by the abolitionist agitation, between pure

settlement republicanism and plantation republicanism. The North, while reluctant to

admit blacks and other non whites to the public realm, became adamant against the

expansion of an institution that made some men the hereditary masters of others, even if

the latter were deemed inferior. The South came to believe on the other hand, that

slavery and republican liberty were not contradictory but complementary, that in fact one

could not exist without the other, and that the allegedly enormous racial differences

between the citizen race (whites) and the servile race (blacks) legitimized the system.

Ideological controversy encouraged sectionalist politics and policies, which, in turn,

intensified ideological polarization”. What is interesting is the massive exodus of

thought from the colonial era to the 1960’s. As the USA will come to realize, “American

national interests were now virtually synonymous with the health and the development of

the corporate economy, it can be argued that the beneficiaries of a mature settler

capitalism, seeing threats to their international hegemony from socialist regimes abroad,

suddenly came to realize that legalized racism was contrary to their vital interests. But

such a view would be too one-sided. And simplistic; an essential ingredient in the

desegregationist impulse was the legacy of the color-blind republicanism handed down

from the abolitionists, the Radical Republicans, and, in the twentieth century, the

founders of the NAACP. There is an American conscience on the issues involving equal

access to citizenship; most of the time it is held in check by an unholy alliance of greed

and race prejudice, but when powerful material interests cease actively supporting the

cause of white supremacy, the egalitarian ideal is empowered.

For South Africa it is slightly more difficult to find a conscience that had a

significant historical impact. White supremacy has become an organic element of South

African social structure, capitalist economy, and nationalist republicanism. “The Dutch
settlement at the Cape of Good Hope that grew from the victual station established in

1652 can be viewed as a special amalgam of the occupation and plantation modes of

colonization. Slaves were imported form the West Indies and East Africa to do most of

the work in the immediate vicinity of Cape Town”. As Herbert Blumer argues:

“Industrial capitalists can adapt readily, at least in the early stages of industrial

development, to pre-existing patterns of race relations. Industrialization neither creates

racism nor automatically dissolves it. To the extent that they can make profitable use of

nonmarket mechanisms to racial coercion, industrial capitalists perpetuate and intensify

traditional patterns of ethnic domination and exploitation”. The modern South African

situation, analyzed in terms of our typology, has evolved out of the interaction among

settlement , plantation, and occupation tendencies, but none has been carried to a logical

conclusion because each in its own way conflicted with the imperatives of industrial

capitalism. The settler tendency is reflected in the African myth that South Africa is, and

always has been; a white society and that Africans are temporary alien sojourners.

Due to the peculiar histories of the United States and South Africa, both are

confronted with opportunities and challenges. The only way the US can succeed

Fredrickson states- “On its own terms is to complete the process of emancipating,

enfranchising, and empowering its black minority. The only way South Africa can

survive as a nation and a decent place for anyone to live is to extend democratic rights to

the African majority. In other words, the only way that these settler societies can

ultimately succeed is by transcending their colonial or settler pasts”.

Conclusively, the approach and angle the Fredrickson takes the reader is

fascinating. I have been greatly curious of world history for many years, and having been
rather fluent in the timeline of how the US came to be, never once has an American

history book pointed to reasoning such as these. Breaking colonial states into categorical

groupings was by far the easiest and most effective way of supporting the points

Fredrickson had to offer. Comparing two colonial states such as the US and South

African proved fascinating for me as I was unable to do so prior to these readings in the

sense of “this is why things are the way they are” (to some extent). The USA has always

been presented in a fashion that there were two sides. A good side and a bad- It is an

interesting thought that both the North and the South complemented each other massively

on an economic level- and yet merely conflicted on a political basis.

In terms of South Africa, I knew little if nothing about it, other than the English

colonized it some years ago. It was fascinating to read about how South African is in

some ways a “stage” behind the USA. Being able to look at this culture and society

under a lens, it is rather easy to evaluate and organize Fredrickson’s thoughts on the

USA. This is what Fredrickson wanted in reality, “to encourage a closer ground between

Historians and Sociologists by proposing a theoretical framework whereas the

comparative study of race and relations in societies of colonial origin can be addressed”.