Johnson Ch.3

In this passage Johnson's main point was that Capitalism is the main cause of racism.
He explains that the main goal of Capitalism and Capitalists is to turn money into more money. Capitalists buy everything needed to produce services and goods all to make more and more money. He says that Capitalists hire workers and pay them in exchange for their work. Because capitalists don't actually produce anything themselves in order to make a living they charge more for the product than they pay the workers so they can come out on top. Johnson basically explains that the workers really have no other choice than to work for less than the amount they produce. The factories and places they are working are owned by capitalists so either way it goes they would be working for one capitalist or another. They can work for the capitalists or not work at all. Capitalists are always trying to find ways for workers to produce more goods for less or the same price so they can again make more money. This is why now more and more technology is being used. Capitalism produces high levels of inequality for the households in America. He says this is happening because of the class system that focuses on gaps in the income and the power between the households on top and the households on the bottom. Johnson let us know that after the Civil War and blacks were free they were still held in bondage in a new way that kept them in debt. Even the Chinese were in bondage building the railroads in extremely harsh conditions. Capitalists went so far as to go to Africa, Asia, and the Americas to get workers that would work for cheap labor. To justify this, whites came up with an idea of "whiteness" that defined thier priviledge and how it elevated over all that wasnt included in it. Capitalists have not only used low wages to control black employee's but white employee's also. They also create the scenario that controls a worker that if they try to request higher wages they will lose their jobs and they need those jobs. Capitalism also makes use of gender inequality. For example they use the fact that in the past people have devalued women and that gives them an excuse to pay them less. Johnson says that capitalism is a great example as to why people can belong to a priviledged category and not feel priviledged. He says that the complexity of the matrix of priviledge shows that work for change needs to focus on us and how we think of ourselves in relation to inequalities of power.

I agree with Johnson in this chapter. Capitalism has taken over and it is in a way a cause of racism.