Inb4 the “but racism existed before capitalism” crowd
I don’t see any problem here. Racism existed before capitalism to justify slavery and has a new function after the abolition. In fact, before the abolition, it functioned to divide different oppressed groups, as it does today.
If anything, the meme says that racism was a precondition for capitalism. If capitalism needs racism, of cause racism must be older, otherwise capitalism could not have developed.
I’m not calling the meme a problem. There are people that legitimately hold the position of “racism existed before capitalism, so they have no interplay”. Those are the people I’m preempting.
so they have no interplay
Ok, this implication wasn’t obvious for me and it truly is a stupid take
I’m trying to work out the logic in the meme. It seems like it argues against itself somewhat.
A requires B to function
Divided C lowers difficulty of exploitation C. The two lines seems to imply the that exploiting C is required for the functioning of B.
Having something easier does not normally indicate it is a requirement. Typically tha is especially so if there are multiple ways to make something easier.
This meme seems lazy in its argument. But then I’m very very far from a logician.
It is a bit lazy. But it’s also a meme and not a thesis. If the purpose is mass communication, resonance is more important than rigor.
More to your point, I don’t think capitalism requires racism but it does require some sort of superiority dynamic within the working class. The more, the better. This takes form in misogyny, racism, ageism, ableism, and pretty much any other discrimination you can think of. All will be propped up by the inherent incentives of capitalism in order to keep the attention of the working class off of the business owners actually causing the problems.
Lol you’re going to have a bad time looking for logically coherent memes. I think the implied elements here are: Exploitation of C is required for A. Exploitation of C is not possible if C is unified. B enables division of C, therefore A requires B. It may or may not be true but it doesn’t hold up to logical analysis (e.g. B is probably not the only way to divide C)
That is much more succinct.