'I see the divide-and-conquer strategy every day'

From Ruling by divide-and-conquer by Caneisha Mills

The biggest obstacle that has prevented the working class in the United States from realizing its potential as an agent of revolutionary transformation has been the capacity of the ruling class—that is, the capitalists—to fine-tune a system of division that pits worker against worker and inhibits the unity workers need to successfully fight for their common class interests.

From its inception, the ruling class in the United States has been extremely conscious of the fact that it is a minority stratum of society, and that those it oppresses and exploits constitutes a huge majority that could easily overwhelm them. And so it instituted a system of divide and conquer among those it exploited, which has been foundational to the maintenance of their class rule.

It is worthwhile to take a moment to review the brief history of how the capitalist class has maintained social control despite its status as a small minority in society.

In his seminal work “The Rise of American Civilization,” historian Charles Beard wrote that at least half of the immigrants in North America before the revolution of 1776 were either African slaves or indentured servants. In other words, the original foundation of “American society” rested not upon free labor but upon slave and semi-servile labor, both Black and white.

In the four southernmost of the 13 colonies, enslaved African peoples constituted either half or more than half of the entire population. The profits from the slave trade were the cornerstone of Anglo-American commerce, and enslaved labor was the cornerstone of the majority of U.S. agriculture. Slave labor was the dominant form of labor in ancient society, and was the economic foundation of the classical Greek and Roman societies. Slavery vanished as a significant form of economic production for centuries, only to be reborn again with the expansion of capitalism into North America, the Caribbean and South America—but not only in the Americas.

The monarchies of England, Spain and other European powers derived the greatest source of their profits from trade in human beings. Slave labor enabled the primitive accumulation of capital—the accumulation of vast wealth that fueled the expansion capitalism by leaps and bounds in its early formative stages.

The resort to African slavery was not first and foremost the byproduct of the racism of the nascent capitalist class, either in Europe or in North America. They were in fact prepared to enslave people regardless of race or nationality. They enslaved indigenous Indian peoples, but as it turned out, most of the enslaved indigenous people in the West Indies, for instance, got sick and died in captivity, or were massacred as they resisted.

Thousands of German serfs were sold by their lords to slave merchants and ship owners. After the British conquest of Ireland in the middle of the 17th century, over 100,000 men, women and children in Ireland were seized by the English troops and shipped over to the West Indies, where they were sold into slavery on the tobacco plantations. The great Irish socialist James Connelly reported that one British company alone was responsible for shipping over 6,400 Irish girls and boys into “New World” slavery.

The problem facing the tiny slave-owning capitalist classes in North America and the Caribbean was that a united uprising of slaves, indentured servants from Europe, poor farmers and the indigenous population could easily overwhelm them. There were many instances in the 16th and 17th centuries of such nascent united fronts.

The ruling classes in the “New World” were not yet protected by standing armies and evolved repressive state institutions such as those that had developed in Europe. They stood exposed to revolt and feared they could be literally slaughtered at any moment by the oppressed.

Racism the foundation

The rulers lived in terror because of their exposure. This is what led them to the divide-and-conquer strategy that shaped the destiny of the United States. Racism, white supremacist ideology, a highly refined system of apartheid, shock-and-awe terror against the enslaved people and the eventual prohibition of slavery for poor whites were the foundation of this strategy.

In short, racism developed as a system of class rule for the tiny capitalist class. Without the promotion of racism as a comprehensive system, the capitalists would have been crushed by a unified revolt of the oppressed classes.

The white oppressive ruling class sought to provide relative privilege to the oppressed white working population. They promoted white supremacy as an ideological tool to pit the working-class white population against the African and indigenous population. White skin became identified with “free labor,” while Black skin became identified with the most severe forms of oppression and brutality. Every slave uprising was met with the most vicious assault. Those who rose up were demonized in the media, educational system and religious institutions.

The evolution of this system over five centuries was full of complexities, but one thing is clear: Racism is historically a creation of the capitalists. It is not a byproduct of “human nature” or the inherent inability of different sectors of our class to unite.