I was wondering if there is any academic work that anyone could point me to regarding the the relationships between capitalism and various forms of discrimination. I'm paticularlying interested in whether there is a direct causal link between discrimination and economic inequality and hierarchy. It is a curiosity of mine that I have been pondering on.
It does not have to be too difficult to read, and I would be happy if someone could explain how this works, or point me in the right direction.
I have my own possibly crackpot ideas on this myself. for example, I think it may have something to do with the fact that giving advantages to some one group or another reinforces their support if the state or capitalism, as they do not want to loose any privileged status, and the more dependant the state capitalist system becomes on this support, the more important it is to preserve it. That's one idea, the other I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere else, that discrimination acts as a diversion from economic and political injustices that lead to the very conditions that makes people angry in the first place.
And another idea is more about religion. I suspect that religion, and nationalism facilitates the creation of a set of rules or laws for how a country should be, and the general surrender of one's identity to some big idea like god or country, creates within an individual a sense of, not just belonging, but a sense that one is constantly under threat from internal deviations to these "divine" or "patriotic" laws. Or for that matter, a sense of threat from people completely outside the group. I believe state power might emerge out of this, as all of this nationalistic religious or racial hatred would motivate mass orginised violence both internally and externally to a state.
If that one is true that would imply a more symbiotic relationship between this politics of discrimination and state power, and would thus be beneficial to capitalism, as this is protected by the state.
It does not answer the question of which comes first, discriminating ideologies or power structures, it does not even nessercarily mean there us a causal link, the two could coincide with a command cause, such as an economic surplus or something, and have a more complicated relationship.
It could be sone combination of ideas like these or something I have not thought of. Please way in libcom, I would like to hear what you have to say!
I don't know of any studies
I don't know of any studies but I'm sure there are plenty out there. I agree on a lot of your suggestions. Remember that people are in competition with each other under capitalism. They will therefore resort to tribal affinities (race, nationality, culture, gender, etc.) as part of this as competition implies some sort of threat.
Of course it would be helpful to examine discrimination before capitalism (and before private property) to see what changes have occurred throughout history. Also we must remember that discrimination is often based on assumptions around the historical divisions of labour (e.g. "women's work", slavery, etc.).