The Futures of Racial Capitalism

Capitalism appears to be endlessly in crisis but without ever loosening its hold on our lives. New modes of racism and exclusion emerge, but the old ones never go away. We continue to struggle to live and survive in its wake but are unable, still now, to build commonality with each other. In this incisive book, Gargi Bhattacharyya revisits debates about racial capitalism and its violence through differentiation. Taking the four lenses of prisons, borders, debt and platforms, Bhattacharyya reveals how this moment of capitalist crisis positions humans as expendable, but differentially so, in a process that remakes longstanding racialized hierarchies. Uncovering practices and techniques embedded in the shifting processes of accumulation and state power, the chapters illuminate how value is extracted from populations through non-wage routes and indebtedness. This engaging introduction to racial capitalism offers an interlocking and insightful analysis of capitalist renewal, essential for students and scholars interested in issues of race, racism and inequality.

Gargi Bhattacharyya is a sociologist and writer, based in London.

Preface: Staying Human Introduction: If Not Theses, then What? Chapter 1: What is at Stake? Chapter 2: Why Understanding Racial Capitalism Also Returns to the Question of Social Reproduction Chapter 3: How to Think About Racial Capitalism in Times of Widespread Indebtedness Chapter 4: Borders - Small Adaptations in Familiar Techniques of Racial Capitalism Chapter 5: Prisons and the Carcerality of Transforming Racial Capitalism Chapter 6: Platform Capitalism as a Remaking of Racial Capitalism Conclusion: Fun and Games Afterword: Being Ridiculous