racism, world(-)system, global wage structure

Searching for literature -

 

If one looks at the present world(-)system through the eyes of Third World scholars, racism (as distinguished from "race" as a dubious category and as distinguished from economic relations) is an important feature/force/dynamic of the present world(-)system. Here are three quotes:

 

(1) Mansour (Egypt) (Monthly Review, February 1999):

 "The overall optimism which dominated socialist thought in the nineteenth century, and called on the workers of the world (actually meaning the West) to unite, is no longer sufficient. Historical experience over a whole century has shaken some of the assumptions and theoretical foundations on which that optimism was based, and brought to the foreground other elements which tended to be underestimated, like culture, nationhood, and the sheer atavistic racist and exclusivist sentiment."

 

(2) Shiva (India) ("New Brahmanism...", March 2000):

"Now, who creates wealth? In my view, it's the workers who create wealth. It's women working away in the factories in the U.S. who create wealth; women peasants in India create wealth. But who is creating wealth in the racist worldview? The corporations who steal from us and those young white fellows on Wall Street who speculate on currencies."

 

(3) Mazrui (Uganda/USA)(Alternatives, approx. 1995):

raised the question whether racism in the world(-)system is "structural" or "overt" and answered his question with "both. . . and" -- it is, in his opinion, structural and also (very much so) overt.

 

These observations are not new to WS scholars. I quoted them as an introduction to a question, namely --

 

I want to develop the argument that the global wage structure (core-periphery, high-wage/low-wage countries) is not only based on economic facts (productivity differential, economic laws of motion) but also on embedded racism stemming from 500 years of European/Western colonization of the world. The argument is analogous to gender issues - namely, women's wages are not lower than men's wages because of (erroneously assumed or exaggerated) lower productivity of women, but because of socially embedded sexism. Parallel to that, the argument would be that Third World wages are not lower than First World wages because of (erroneously assumed or exaggerated) lower productivity of Third Worlders, but because of racism embedded in the world(-)system. [Example, a Mexican autoworker is as productive as a Canadian autoworker but receives a much lower wage. India's programmers are as productive as Canadian programmers but receive a lower wage.] An implication of my hypothesis is that the global wage differential between core and periphery countries is not "natural" and is not solely based on economics, but is socially constructed (historically grown) under the influence of racism embedded in the world(-)system.

 

My question is about literature -

I would appreciate references to literature which argues in this direction, especially, with respect to the global wage structure (looking for theoretical, statistical-empirical, or historical studies, including case studies).

 

With greetings from Canada,

Gernot Kohler

email: gkohler@accglobal.net