Johnson Chapter 3

The reading this time was chapter 2 Capitalism, Class and the Matrix of Domination from the book Power, Privilege and Difference by Allan G Johnson. It started out by first defining the term capitalism. According to Johnson, the point of capitalism is to “turn money into more money”. From there, it talked about the growing financial gap between the wealthy class and the poor and its relationship with capitalism. The capitalists want more produced while paying a small amount to the workers, which means that the capitalists receive more money and the workers get less. Finally the author then talked about capitalism and its effects it has on different races, as well as gender. It said that plantation farmers, the capitalists, were looking only for a cheaper way to farm their crops. The cheapest way was to use free labor, which was in the form of slaves. By using white laborers, the farmers would have to pay them resulting in less money in their pockets. Gender was brought up also. White males were known to have more social dominance over white women, but white women were to have more than black males. However, social privilege is not that easy to figure out, but is comprised of a lot of factors making up a matrix of dominance. Johnson told of a system that would give points or take away point from a person that would show his/her position in relation to privilege. Unfortunately, he stated that it is not that easy and that other factors need to be put in to truly show a person’s individual relationship to the amount of privilege he/she may experience. The overall message that the author was trying to get across is the fact that race and privilege are correlated, which originally stemmed from the white wealthy people and their want to get more money. Some questions that came to my mind upon reading this chapter dealt with the issue of race and discrimination that takes place today. There have been laws that help to prohibit racial discrimination, but what are they exactly? I know that one of those laws helps minorities to pay for college, but is it wrong that I think that it is unfair? Does that make me a racist? I come from a poor white class family and am receiving federal financial aid to pay for college, but it does not cover a lot of it. My roommate who is black, on the other hand, comes from a family who had more money than mine, but has received a full paid-ride to BG just because of her race. Is it right to like feel like I am being discriminated against? Overall, I liked the chapter. It was short and to the point. It kept my attention and was very interesting. It told of a relationship between capitalism and racism that is often overlooked.