Capitalism generates racist wage gap

Every so often, some tiny grains of truth that appear in the bosses’ liberal media actually contradict the distortions, unwarranted assumptions and outright lies we usually read there. Such is the case with two recent articles that, taken together, validate Progressive Labor Party’s line that: 1) racism is to capitalism as garbage is to rats; and 2) it is in the economic interest of all workers, including white workers, to fight racism.
The first is an analysis of recent studies that examine the Black-white wage gap over the last 70 years (NY Times, 6/25). Most studies of this phenomenon look only at wages of those who are actually working, and conclude that Black workers have made significant progress during that period. The author of the Times article, David Leonhardt, points out that comparing only wage workers in this analysis is insufficient because a large and growing percentage of students and unemployed workers, who are disproportionately Black, have either stopped looking for work completely or are incarcerated. In analyzing comparative wages in that way, a recent study calculated that the ratio of Black median wages to white median wages—about half—is exactly the same as it was in 1950. Leonhardt calls this result “remarkable” only because of his undying faith that progressive change for Black workers can come through reforming the capitalist system.
What is also “remarkable” is the fact that average real wages for all workers are more or less at the same level they were in 1973 (pewresearch.org, 8/7/18). This is without taking into account the downward push on wages that will no doubt be caused by the mass unemployment of the current economic crisis. Meanwhile, despite the fact that productivity of labor during those last 47 years has more than doubled, almost all of the value generated by that increase in productivity has gone to the capitalist class, and very little of it to the working class.       
There has been much written about the Racial Wealth Gap (RWG), which shows that the average net worth of all white households is six and one half times the average net worth of all Black households. The RWG is clearly a result of the racism that is endemic to the capitalist system. It is also a reflection of the super-profits that capitalists have, historically, reaped from the labor of Black workers. The RWG has been used to support arguments by promoters of “White Skin Privilege” (WSP) ideology that white workers need to acknowledge their “privilege” and agree to a plan to redistribute their wealth (see, for example, “Race, The Power of an Illusion, Background Readings”, PBS).
But there has been little analysis of the main source of that gap. A recent article, “The Racial Wealth Gap Is About the Upper Classes'' (People Policy Project, Matt Bruenig, 6/29), unmasks the WSP argument on the Gap. By breaking down ownership by deciles of wealth, starting with the richest 10 percent of households, and looking at each 10 percent of the remaining households, down to the poorest 10 percent, Bruenig shows that roughly 75 percent of total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of both white households and Black households. Bruenig continues: “[w]hat this means is that the overall racial wealth disparity is being driven almost entirely by the [gap] between the wealthiest 10 percent of white people and the wealthiest 10 percent of Black people.”
Bruenig’s analysis of the effect of equalizing the RWG for the poorest 50 percent of households is even more striking. Doing so would still leave a total of 97 percent of the gap intact! As Bruening says “it is not that hard to get two groups who own relatively little to own the same amount of relatively little. But such measures would not make much of a dent in the overall [RWG].”
But Bruenig’s analysis still does not tell the whole story. Wealth under capitalism is extremely concentrated. For example, the top 1 percent of all households own 40 percent of the total wealth in the U.S., with about half of that amount owned by the top .1 percent (Saez and Zucman). The bosses’ media fails to talk about the exploitative relationship between the working class and the ruling class.
To eradicate inequality, trash capitalism
What does all of this mean for the working class? Black and white workers have a common interest in uniting to fight the capitalist class that is stealing most of the wealth that our class, and only our class, creates. The bosses have a tremendous stake in promoting racism, both because of the extra (super) profits generated by lower wages for Black, Latin, immigrant and female workers and because the racist ideology that infects our class allows the bosses to keep playing this same game of divide and conquer. Fighting racism in all of its many forms must be a bedrock principle for workers to make any progress in our struggle to rid ourselves of capitalist exploitation.
The wealth produced by the international working class today is sufficient to feed, clothe, house, provide recreation for and otherwise meet the needs of all workers across the globe. PLP aims to build a multi-racial workers’ movement to smash racism and capitalism. A communist revolution to seize power and take down the exploiters would allow us to share “the fruits of our labor that we have sweated for.”