Global Racial Capitalism: How Race Matters to Global Justice

Alnusf, Marzouq

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-2a3x-ny78

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Global Racial Capitalism: How Race Matters to Global Justice

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Does race matter globally, beyond national and regional contexts? If yes, then how exactly? I argue that race matters globally and develop an account for understanding that significance. I call the account “global racial capitalism.” In chapter 1, I offer background to motivate and defend the thesis that race matters globally. I use empirical data and historical case studies to argue that there is good evidence to believe that race has been significant globally, both historically and presently, and both in objective structural patterns of global affairs and in philosophic thinking about them. In chapter 2, I take up the question of how to make sense of that significance. I examine two accounts in philosophy that address the global significance of race, which are by Charles Mills and Nancy Fraser. I then argue in favor of an account from racial capitalism and flesh out my own conception of it, emphasizing its global aspect. In chapter 3, I draw the normative entailments of my account with respect to global justice. I begin by explaining the structural aspect of my account with respect to global justice, then elaborate the notion of “global racial hierarchy” as the locus for normative theorizing. I argue that it raises problems for existing accounts of global justice and I focus on John Rawls’s as an example. The dissertation is distinguished by features including (1) being the first to bridge global justice and philosophy of race in a detailed way; (2) offering one of the most detailed explorations in philosophy of scholarship on race globally in general beyond the global justice literature; (3) offering one of the clearest and most detailed conceptions of racial capitalism; (4) drawing on and synthesizing various philosophic traditions, including the analytic, Marxist, Black radical, and decolonial traditions; (5) being a thoroughly interdisciplinary work of social theory; and (6) giving normative and practical guidance when it comes to global affairs that involve race.

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