We as Panthifa believe that capitalism and racism are inseperably linked and require each other. We define capitalism as modes of production and work that maximazie profits instead of benefiting workers. Profit that remains after mining/gathering/harvesting, production, transport and sale of resources was stolen from workers and consumers. In this system our work and consumption is turned into surplus value that through several steps always ends up with he richest.
We can’t subvert these structures while they exist. The forced distribution of resources that is maintained by police and military denies us access to essentials like shelter, food and water when we try to deny participation.
The obligation to participate and the uncontrolled growth of the economy that produces for profit and not for people is not sustainable, proven for example by the climate catastrophe that’s already hitting exploited regions.
The wealth of industry nations feeds off this exploitation. Oil, rare earths and metals, gold, diamonds, everything that is of value in this capitalistic world, was stolen from countries that couldn’t militarily withstand colonization. This is the ultimate form of gain: Selling stolen resources always yields 100% profit and rapid growth over more than 500 years of colonialism. The perceived superiority of Europe and the US is based in this, which get’s misinterpreted as “capitalism working”.
This exploitation is so obvious that it should force any empathetic person into an unignorable drive for instant resistance. This is where racism comes into play: Due to the racist degradation of Black People from day 1 of our lives, white people lack this kind of empathy. While individual white people are not the cause of this, the structures of society show us that suffering and death of thousands at our borders and billions worldwide, right now in our present, doesn’t push european politics and the white majority into action.
The reason is: Racism is profitale. Racism is profitable for every industry, all of media, for politics, for every individual that isn’t affected by racism itself.
The industry profits off of cheap/free resources, newspapers and TV profit from increased circulation and ratings when they spread and stir up racist sentiments and parlamentary politics and the white majority society profit off of gain and growth that they exclusively accumulate.
Liberal antiracist aspirations will not change this: Every talkshow with a sole Black Person justifying their existence, every antiracist book that becomes a bestseller for a few weeks after a Black Person was murdered, every antiracist workshop in a single department of some corporation that had a racist incident does nothing except increase ratings, profit for the publisher that’s simultaneously publishing racist old white men and fake accountability for corporations that pretend to be diverse; they push the racism discourse from the structural to the individual.
We will never defeat racism by explaining it to whites or “convincing” a “majority” of the neccessity of antiracism. Instead we need to make racism unprofitable with our whole existence, power and might. As long as racism doesn’t cost the perpetrators, we will keep going in circles.
We explicitly don’t expect you to change your consumption: A TV programme doesn’t care if you watch it, a corporation doesn’t care if you buy it’s products, a party doesn’t care if you vote for it. The collapse in their profit must be more direct, in the form of open protest, resistance and disobedience. We can’t develop political power before the day to day work of racist institutions is disturbed and they actively lose money. No incident of racism can go unanswered.
