Does “Racial Capitalism” Explain Poverty in the Global South?

Ibram X. Kendi argues that Western exploitation--or what he calls “racial capitalism”-- explains why so many countries in the global south are poor in spite of having rich natural resources. Kendi writes that centuries of Western exploitation “…makes countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo one of the richest countries in the world belowground and one of the poorest countries in the world aboveground” (Kendi, 2019, p. 163). The problem with Kendi’s explanation is that it fails to explain the vast differences in wealth between Europeans and the region we know today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo before the Europeans ever made any significant contact. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson write that in the 1400s and 1500s, the Kongo was incredibly poor when the Portuguese and the Dutch first arrived, stating that “Technology was rudimentary by European standards, with the Kongolese having neither writing, the wheel, nor the plow” (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012, p. 87).

If the Kongo and other African regions were rich in resources before the arrival of Europeans, Peter Bauer asks “Why have the Africans not developed their mineral resources? Why did they have to wait for Europeans to explore, develop, process, and market them?” (Bauer, 2000, p. 76). Bauer observes that when we look at material progress over time, we see that it is not unusual for nations with few resources to become wealthy and nations with abundant resources to remain in poverty. Indigenous peoples in North America had vast resources but little material wealth, and yet nations like Japan, Germany, or Britain had few natural resources but eventually developed much wealth. Natural resources are useless if you do not have the means to use them. Thomas Sowell notes that “The natural resources we use today were even more abundant in the era of the cave man, but the people of that prehistoric era were culturally not yet able to use most of those resources” (Sowell, 2016, p. 89). There are certainly many factors that contribute to the relative wealth and poverty of nations, but Bauer argues that some important factors for material progress include “…personal qualities, social institutions and mores, and political arrangements which make for endeavor and achievement…” (Bauer, 2000, p. 76).

References

Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2012). Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. Currency.

Bauer, P. (2000). From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays. Princeton University Press.

Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an Antiracist. One World.

Sowell, T. (2016). Wealth, Poverty, and Politics: Revised and Enlarged Edition. Basic Books.