It is idea that the term 'racial commercialism' was first used in a pamphlet published by the anti-Apartheid movement in London (Kundnani, 2020). Interestingly, Cedric J. Robinson was in England around this time working on his ground-breaking text, Blackness Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (1983). During this menstruation Robinson published several essays in Race & Form , the journal of the London-based Constitute for Race Relation's journal. Robinson would afterwards bring together Ambalavaner Sivanandan and others on the journal's editorial board.

In a number of ways, Blackness Marxism is a dialogue with the Eurocentrism of Karl Marx and Marxism. In terms of the former, Robinson addresses Marx'due south failure to adequately consider the importance and revolutionary potential of radical social movements outside of Europe. In terms of the latter, Robinson was of the view that Marxism had failed to adequately account for the racial nature of commercialism.  Robinson also held the view that the idea of race and processes of racial differentiation were key components of how classed identities were imagined. Indeed, capitalism's tendency towards fragmentation rather than homogenization is a primal feature of Robinson's theorization of racial capitalism.

Central to Robinson's thesis was the idea that dissimilar modes of production non merely co-existed merely that they were coterminous. So much so, Robinson maintained that the residue of different features of pre-backer club lived on in the backer system. Indeed, he argued that 'racism is a means by which the relationship betwixt these modes of product, and the associated differentiated labour, are coded, managed and legitimated' (Kundnani, 2020)

Building on the sociological work of Oliver Cromwell Cox, Robinson rejected the notion that capitalism was a radical break with the feudal organisation. For Cox, capitalism had emerged from inside feudalism and in concurrence with pre-existing forms of 'racialism' that had already been ensnared in Western feudal society. In his obituary of Cedric Robinson, Robin D. K. Kelley (2017) explains that, 'capitalism and racism … did non pause with the old order just rather evolved from it to produce a modern world system of racial capitalism dependent on slavery, violence, imperialism and genocide'. For Robinson, 'capitalism was "racial" not because of some conspiracy to split workers or justify slavery and dispossession, but because racialization had already permeated the Western feudal society' (Kelley, 2017). For Robinson, 'racialization within Europe was very much a colonial process involving invasion, settlement, expropriation, and racial hierarchy' (Kelley, 2017).

In curt, Robinson'due south Black radical treatise looks beyond methodological nationalism, eurocentrism and the tendency to overemphasise European exceptionalism. By rejecting the idea that 'early on capitalism emerges in bounded national spaces' (Bhattacharyya, 2018: 11), Robinson encourages us to think of the emergence of capitalism as 'world system'. What is more, Robinson challenges the idea that 'there is one and only one route for economical and societal development' and that 'there is no pre-determined political agent who holds the key to revolutionary change' (Bhattacharyya, 2018: xi). In doing so, Robinson affirms the importance of the histories of African diaspora/s every bit an annal of anti-capitalist struggle.

Over the years, a number of scholars have congenital upon, and supplemented, Robinson's thesis and the recent cries of 'Black Lives Affair' have reignited discussions over the nature of racial capitalism. In low-cal of this, in that location are a couple of contributions that nosotros might look towards to help us come up to terms with the racialised nature of commercialism and capitalist social relations which bear upon the racialised dimensions of (super-)exploitation, liberty and unfreedom, appropriation, theft and reparations, including the theft of land from Indigenous communities, and, processes and practises of criminalisation, surveillance, policing and terrorism

In 2015, Tithi Bhattacharya and Lance Selfa (2015a; 2015b) engaged Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar (2015) in a comradely and productive debate over the office played by the state in the development of racial capitalism. In brusque, this debate centres on the office of state repressive, coercive, ideological and consensual functions and the way in which the country might act in matters of upper-case letter-labour relations, often in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoise, without threatening backer accumulation. Another cardinal feature of this debate relates to the complex and contradictory role that racialization has played in state policy-making and the making, unmaking and remaking of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic working grade.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2020) invites us to call back nearly the 'geographies of racial capitalism' and specifically, the global dynamics of contemporary racial capitalism and how racism has inflected neoliberalism and thrift. Gilmore places emphasis on the manner in which capitalism requires inequality and 'racism enshrines it'. Not only this, Gilmore has gifted us a rich torso of work on the prison industrial complex and the extension of criminalisation in the modern world. Focussing primarily on California in the mid-1970s and 1980s, Gilmore (2010) documents the exorbitant sums of money spent on the building of 'prison, after prison, afterward prison, after prison'. For Gilmore, the prison house industrial complex is ane fashion in which economic elites go about getting what they desire. Hither Gilmore lays out the role that criminalization plays in facilitating this through the (re-)production of liberty and unfreedom and how this a historical legacy of slavery, genocide and the perpetuation racial order and hierarchy. In her book, Alter Everything: Racial Commercialism and the Case for Abolition, Gilmore contends that abolitionism 'does not just say no to police, prisons, border control, and the electric current penalty organization'. It requires 'persistent organizing for what we demand, organizing that is already nowadays in the efforts people cobble together to achieve access to schools, wellness care and housing, fine art and meaningful work, and freedom from violence and want'. In some ways, Gilmore echoes Malcolm X when arguing that racial do and bureaucracy cannot be undone with undoing capitalism.

Robin D. G. Kelley, a leading historian in the United States, shares Gilmore'due south interest in whether the abolitionist movement can radically transcend white supremacy and class domination. Deploying the concept of racial capitalism Kelley has spent much his career exploring, amongst many other things, the political dynamics of, and the role played past, radical social movements within African-American culture. Describing himself as a 'Marxist surrealist feminist who is not simply anti something but pro-emancipation, pro-liberation', Kelley'due south piece of work endeavours to stretch Marxist chiliad narratives by documenting the 'weaponization of racial capitalism' throughout US history. Kelley also offers an intersectional perspective on what must be done, arguing that, 'a truly, fundamental abolitionist future requires that they all [i.e. racism, classism, heteropatriarchy and ableism] be held together'.

In conclusion, if we are to adequately grasp the nature of racism and capitalism, both historically and at this particularly moment, while imagining a radical culling hereafter, nosotros would do well to remember Gargi Bhattacharyya'south (2018) '10 Theses on Racial Capitalism'. For Bhattacharyya; (1) racial commercialism 'is not a way of understanding capitalism every bit a racist conspiracy or racism as a backer conspiracy'; (2) Feminist debates can help us reconsider the function played by 'non-piece of work' as part of an expanded conceptualisation of social reproduction'; (3) 'racism had a distinct history that precedes capitalism'; (iv) Racial capitalism combines both the 'exercise of coercive ability and the mobilisation of desire'; (v) 'new and unpredictable modes of oppression must be understood'; (vi) nosotros must grasp 'how people are divided from each other in the name of economic survival or in the name of economic well-being'; (7) racial capitalism 'describes a set of techniques and a formation, and in both registers the disciplining and ordering of bodies through gender and sexuality and dis/ability and age flow'; (eight) Racial capitalism is 'intimately intertwined with the processes precipitating ecological crisis'; (9) 'Dehumanization seems to exist an unavoidable result of the processes of capitalist development'; and, (10) Racial capitalism is a way of understanding why nosotros seem to exist and so divided and yet and so intimately intertwined with each other' (2018: 9)

Readings:
Bhattacharyya, G. (2018) Racial Commercialism: Questions of Reproduction and Survival. London: Rowman & Littlefield.
Robinson, C. J. (1983) Black Marxism: The Making of The Black Radical Tradition. London: Academy of North Carolina Printing.
Robinson, C. J. (2 October 2019). Quan, H. L. T. (ed.). Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance. Pluto Press.

Further Readings & Resource:
Basu, L. and Stuart, F.  'Is commercialism racist?', Open Commonwealth – podcast.
Bhattacharya, T. & Selfa, L. (2015a) '"Race, surveillance, and empire": A commentary', Internationalist Socialist Review, Issue 97.
Bhattacharya, T. & Selfa, L. (2015b) 'Race, class, and capitalism: A response to a response', Internationalist Socialist Review, Issue 98.
Brunt-Stelly, C. (2020) 'Modern U.Southward. Racial Capitalism: Some Theoretical Insights', Monthly Review: An Contained Socialist Magazine.
Gilmore, R. W. (2020) 'Geographies of Racial Commercialism', An Antipode Foundation film – video
Kelley, R. D. G. (2017) 'What is Racial Capitalism and Why Does Information technology Matter?', recorded at the Kane Hall, University of Washington, Seattle, WA – Video
Kelley, R. D. Chiliad. and Shamsi, H. (2020) 'The Rebellion Against Racial Capitalism', The Intercept – podcast.
Kundnani, A. (2020) 'What is racial commercialism?', Arun Kundnani on race, culture and empire. https://www.kundnani.org/.
Kundnani, A. & Kumar, D. (2015) 'Race, surveillance, and empire', Internationalist Socialist Review, Issue 96.

Questions:
How did Cedric J. Robinson define racial commercialism?
In what ways do different theorizations of racial capitalism seek to stretch Marxism?
What are the central points of debate between Arun Kundnani and Deepa Kumar, and Tithi Bhattacharya and Lance Selfa on the relationship between racism and capitalism?
What does Ruth Wilson Gilmore mean by 'Capitalism requires inequality, racism enshrines information technology'?
Hash out Robin D. G. Kelley's vision of 'a fundamental abolitionist future'.
Consider the different ways in which the concept of racial capitalism has been used in the context of the Black Lives Matter uprisings?
Discuss Gargi Bhattacharyya's ten theses on racial commercialism?

Submitted by Stephen D. Ashe

Images: Cedric Robinson (Boston Review); Ruth Wilson Gilmore (City University of New York); Robin D. G. Kelley (UCLA); Gargi Bhattacharyya (Open Democracy).