Norviel's View on Capitalism, Class, and Domination

1. According to the author, his thesis is based upon the belief that racism as we know it today was brought about by economics and capitalism. Johnson uses the quote "This means that the central place of economics in social life gives individuals and systems powerful reasons to go along with the dominant economic system. Capitalism has been that system for the last sever hundred years, and since the demise of the Soviet Union, it's virtually the only game in town" (Johnson 42). By this quote he is saying that the only reason people have been classified into different groups such as race and class is largely due to the ever-growing importance of economy.

2. The author states that Capitalists goal is to take money and turn it into more money. In order to accomplish this you need plenty of people to help make more money, this is what brought about the different class issue. People of the "higher class", who were typically white males that owned land and already had money, were those who did not have to do the work but got the profit from it. They hired people who were thought to be lower class to produce the goods and were payed a small amount for their time and services. The workers were payed as little as possible so that the capitalists themselves would have more money to live on from the product profit. The workers were pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place because in order to make a living and be able to buy products for themselves and their families from one capitalist they had to work for another capitalist, so the rich keep getting richer. It was practically impossible to move up in class. In order to attempt moving up in class families were relying on 2 wage earners, and some of those people were working two or more low paying jobs.
Making a living and getting jobs was particularly difficult for minority groups such as women and people of color or different ethnicity. At first millions of African Americans were enslaved, so they were doing work with no pay but for food and housing in return. The invention of the cotton gin was not a positive step like you would assume it would be. With the ability to produce more cotton you would assume that the capitalists would want to help out their fellow man and provide jobs for them so that they could earn a living, but rather than doing that the capitalists just enslaved more people so they would be able to keep all of their profits without having to pay someone for the work. The capitalist used their power to inflict fear into their workers so that they would not demand higher wages, because if they did then they would lose their job.
Johnson describes the idea of privileges and those without privileges. Using different classifications such as gender, color, and sexual preference was used either for or against an individual. Those who were the most privileged were white, heterosexual males, the most underprivileged were colored lesbian women. They would give or take points away from a person based on these categories which would be used to classify that person, this was the "matrix of domination".

3. People today look down on this way of living in which we read, so how are we getting by with doing practically the same thing now? People are still put into classes, and people are still getting more privileges than others.
What would it be like now if we did not emphasize so much on economy?
Would the world be better today if "class" was never thought of?


4. The fact that people had no way of improving their personal standing did not seem fair. The thought that the rich got richer and the poor poorer seems like a vicious circle to me. I think that if class was never brought about then there would be less problems in the world. If everyone was paid the same for different jobs then people would be more likely to go into a career in which they truly love, rather than a job that they only like because it pays more. If people are able to do the jobs that they love, then those jobs would be done to a better quality.
I would have thought that the capitalists would want to take pride in themselves and offer workers the opportunity to earn more money and get jobs with the invention of the cotton gin. Instead they were more worried about their own wealth so they brought in more slaves, which made living harder on the white working class. I feel that now we take better care of people from other countries than we do our own people. For an example, here at Bowling Green they give discounts and scholarships based on ethnicity and race, this shows that "class" still plays a factor today just not in the same way as before. Shouldn't the scholarships be based solely on financial need, no matter what your ethnic background may be? I know people of different ethnicity who come from families that are considered to be "better off" than mine, but they are the ones who are having to pay less for school.
I felt that it was not right that the capitalists were so greedy and would pay as little as possible. This is still a problem today to an extent. People would rather hire someone whom they can get away with paying less just so they do not have to part with a few more dollars even when they can afford it. So today greed is still a major factor in our lives and way of living.
Overall I thought that this reading was effective, it was not that long but it brought up many good points that made you think. I had already learned the more general view of most of these topics, so this went into a little more depth to give us a better understanding. It is based on the past, but it's issues are still present today.