Capital, Competition, and Discrimination: A Reconsideration of Racial Earnings Inequality

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Abstract
Where as neoclassical economists have responded to the theoretical irreconcilability of competition and discrimination by abandoning serious consideration of the latter, radical political economists have generally embraced the neoclassical formulation of competition while simultaneously arguing that capitalists benefit, and white workers lose from discrimination. This paper offers an alternative formulation. By deploying a specifically Marxian notion of competition, the author both restores a logical place for discrimination in competitive capitalist society and examines the material conditions conducive to the reproduction of racial conflict. In so doing, she challenges the notion that white workers unambiguously lose from discrimination and identifies the conditions under which racially dominant workers gain from the reproduction of racial inequality.

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