How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society

528 Pages·1999·6.35 MB·English

by  Manning Marable

Contents

Foreword by Leith Mullings
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: A Critical
Reassessment
Preface
Introduction to the First Edition
SECTION ONE. THE BLACK MAJORITY:THE DOMESTIC
PERIPHERY
1. THE CRISIS OF THE BLACK WORKING CLASS
2. THE BLACK POOR: HIGHEST STAGE OF UNDERDEVE
3. GROUNDINGS WITH MY SISTERS: PATRIARCHY AND
THE EXPLOITATION OF BLACK WOMEN
4. BLACK PRISONERS AND PUNISHMENT IN A
RACIST/CAPITALIST STATE
SECTION TWO. THE BLACK ELITE: THE DOMESTIC CORE
5. BLACK CAPITALISM: ENTREPRENEURS, CONSUMERS,
AND THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE BLACK MARKET
6. BLACK BRAHMINS: THE UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF
BLACK POLITICAL LEADERSHIP
7. THE AMBIGUOUS POLITICS OF THE BLACK CHURCH
8. THE DESTRUCTION OF BLACK EDUCATION
SECTION THREE. A QUESTION OF GENOCIDE
9. THE MEANING OF RACIST VIOLENCE IN LATE
CAPITALISM
10. CONCLUSION: TOWARD A SOCIALIST AMERICA
Endnotes
Tables
Praise for How Capitalism Underdeveloped
Black America The reissue of Manning Marable’s
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America
confirms that this is a classic work of political
history and social criticism. Unfortunately,
Marable’s blistering insights into racial injustice
and economic inequality remain depressingly
relevant. But the good news is that Marable’s
prescient analysis—and his eloquent and self-
critical preface to this new edition—will prove
critical in helping us to think through and
conquer the oppressive forces that remain.
—Michael Eric Dyson, author of I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther
King, Jr.
For those of us who came of political age in the 1980s, Manning Marable’s How Capitalism
Underdeveloped Black America was one of our bibles. Published during the cold winter of
Reaganism, he introduced a new generation of Black activists/thinkers to class and gender
struggles within Black communities, the political economy of incarceration, the limitations of
Black capitalism, and the nearly forgotten vision of what a socialist future might look like. Two
decades later, Marable’s urgent and hopeful voice is as relevant as ever.
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Yo’ Mama’s DisFunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in
Urban America For a Latina, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America is not only a
powerful analysis of the Black experience; Marable also opens the way to perceiving our Black-
Brown commonalities. Through Marable’s eyes, we see how Chicanos and other Latinos share so
much with African Americans: the importance of learning our true history; of seeing how our
oppression began with the violent seizure of our labor (and land, in the cases of Mexico and
Puerto Rico); the sexist oppression of women as basic; the need for decent education; and the rise
of imprisonment rates—along with internal issues like the role of our middle class; the church;
and the homophobia that dehumanizes us. Above all, Marable helps us see how all roads point to
the need for radical action by peoples united to win a new, socialist society.
—Elizabeth Martínez, author of De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-
Colored Century Marable is of that unique band of African American intellectuals whose
scholarship arises from, and has a direct bearing on, the struggles of ordinary Black people—and,
in the process, throws up the symbiosis between race and class. A new edition of his pathbreaking
work, How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America, should open out these perspectives and
challenges to a new generation of readers.
—A. Sivanandan, editor, Race & Class Following in the footsteps of W. E. B. Du Bois, Oliver
C. Cox, and Walter Rodney, Manning Marable’s How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America
is a groundbreaking study of the political economy of Black America. It has stood the test of time
and remains essential reading for a critical understanding of the interconnection of racism and
economic exploitation.
—Robert L. Allen, senior editor, Black Scholar In How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black
America, Manning Marable created a classic work that continues to stand as a seminal text for
those on the left interested in a grounded, coherent, and insightful analysis of the struggle for
Black liberation. For example, long before other progressive activists/academics were ready to
articulate, let alone deal with, the devastating impact of patriarchy on Black progress, Marable set
forth on just such a path in the pages of this important book. Thus, in many ways, this text is
illustrative of Marable’s own long-standing commitment to lead a progressive and revolutionary
fight, not the most popular one. In an age in which public intellectuals with little or no connection
to the lives and struggles of those they write about and supposedly “represent” seem to dominate
the scene, it is timely that How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America should reappear.
Hopefully, this book will remind us all of the need for serious and grounded analysis about the
condition of those most marginal in our society. It is a must-read (or reread) for anyone
committed to the theory and practice of struggle.
—Cathy J. Cohen, professor of political science and African-American studies, Yale
University Professor Manning Marable’s How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America
remains one of the most informative and insightful books for understanding historical and
contemporary relationships among race, power, and wealth in the United States. This book
reminds us that race and class divisions continue to represent a fundamental social, economic, and
political reality in this nation. Marable explains how class interests mold racial policies and
politics, but also how Black people, and other communities of color, as well, reflect and challenge
such interests. In fact, the author shows convincingly how a Black community in alliance with
other communities and mobilized on behalf of a progressive social and economic agenda remains
a serious threat to the capitalist order in this society.
—James Jennings, Trotter Institute, University of Massachusetts Boston There are influential
books—and then there are classics. Marable’s How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America is
a clear case of the latter. Drawing upon the interpretive insights of Walter Rodney, the work
advanced nearly all of the central concerns of the African American struggle for liberation in a
world that continues to be hostile and exploitative. Concise and unapologetic, its endurance over
the past two decades is a testament to its message of praxis and freedom.
—Lewis R. Gordon, chair of Africana Studies and professor of Africana Studies, Religious
Studies,
and Modern Culture and Media, Brown University
In 1983, when How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America first appeared, there existed a
notable void in the intellectual delineation of the deteriorating circumstances confronting millions
of African Americans. The 1980 election and subsequent administration of President Ronald
Reagan signaled a national political rotation that would simultaneously attack Black progress and
celebrate capitalism. Although an earlier generation of Black scholars, such as C. L. R. James and
W. E. B. Du Bois, argued that the Black condition in the United States had to be situated always
within a framework that understood and critiqued capitalism, it was time for a new voice. Already
a well-known commentator and writer on Black life, Manning Marable’s breakthrough work
launched a new era in Black scholarship challenging left and Black orthodoxy in both the
academy and alternative intellectual arenas. How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America
unfolds as a coherent and comprehensive work that addresses not only capitalism writ large, but
also specific dimensions of Black life, such as sexism and patriarchy, criminal justice, poverty,
religion, and education.
Marable elaborates on the contours of Black life with a scholarly vigor but in a manner that is
accessible, a feature that has continued to characterize his voluminous body of work. . . . How
Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America stands the test of time in many ways. Globalization
has exacerbated, rather than eliminated, all of the contradictions described by Marable’s classic
text. A new edition, which updates the tranformations that happened since 1983, yet retains the
basic sound arguments, is a welcome and pivotal literary and political event.
—Clarence Lusane, author of Race in the Global Era

First published by South End Press in Boston, Massachusetts.
© 1983 Manning Marable

This edition published in 2015 by Haymarket Books
P.O. Box 180165
Chicago, IL 60618
773-583-7884
[email protected]
www.haymarketbooks.org

ISBN: 978-1-60846-511-8

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This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and
the Wallace Action Fund.

Cover design by Eric Kerl.

Library of Congress CIP data is available.
For his personification of praxis, for his brilliant intellect, and for his
uncompromising legacy as the voice of the periphery bound up in world
revolution, this book is dedicated to Walter Rodney, the author of How
Europe Underdeveloped Africa
Foreword