Whiteness and racial capitalism: to whom do the “wages of whiteness” accrue?

Abstract

ABSTRACT The writings of Neville Alexander and Bernard Magubane can be quite useful in resolving a debate that has grown ever more acrimonious between American Marxist scholars over the analytic purchase of the category “whiteness” and, by extension, the best way to conceptualize the relationship between “the logic of capital” and “racial identity”. The essay describes the genesis, execution, and logics of the Report of the Carnegie Commission on the Poor White Problem in South Africa. It argues that middle class Afrikaner reformers framed charity as a means of securing racial dignity and solidarity for the Afrikaner poor while teaching the Afrikaner upper classes how to transform their feelings of distaste and loathing for the poor into feelings of respect and solidarity. The essay concludes that their main interest did not lie in extending “psychological wages” to the poor so much as in securing higher wages for itself.