Economic form and the mutual constitution of social inequalities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37062/sf.59.23509Keywords:
class, economic form, inequality, mutual constitution, raceAbstract
The analysis in this article develops a theory of the mediation of social inequalities by economic forms. It is argued that economic forms are co-constituted with unequal social relations (e.g., race, class and gender) and that economic forms bring such relationships together. The theory is developed with reference to the co-constitution of determinate constructions of race and the commodity form (including its legal construction as an abstract form of property) and the form of wage labor. These processes of co-constitution entail the reproduction and modification of dualist modes of thought traceable to the prehistory of the commodity form; their interconnections to economic forms relate otherwise dissimilar inequalities to this characteristically modern duality. In turn, these common symbolic features facilitate the mutual articulation and reinforcement of different inequalities. This theoretical argument is illustrated by the mutual articulation and reinforcement of race and class in the disjunction of free and unfree labor which defines modern wage labor.
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