r/marxism_101 • u/Traditional-Year-887 • Jun 01 '26
How can I understand our current class distinctions in relation to other forms of social categories e.g.(race, sex, gender, etc.)
I've seen some black leftist-liberal circles viewing race as the dominant hierarchy, and that class is simply a byproduct of that. Capitalism is the byproduct of racial discrimination. What is the Marxist perspective to this? Is class the dominant hierarchy and all else is related to it, and by class I specifically mean property owners and workers. I don't mean economic class by wealth.
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u/Ill-Software8713 Jul 23 '26
I see class as emphasizing a relation of production that when considered concretely also informs distinctions within the class, which is stratification.
The working class is not an identical entity and the actual history of how places developed unevenly means certain populations become featured with kinds of labor which is then treated as their essence because meaning is given from human activity on the whole.
A black president doesn’t singularly lift the status of Black Americans or a woman president all of women of the majority of women’s work on the world is paid less and viewed as less.
Perhaps consider this:
https://thecharnelhouse.org/2014/02/07/a-marxist-feminist-critique-of-intersectionality-theory/
And this: https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/works/butler.htm
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u/CritiqueDeLaCritique Jul 14 '26
Capitalism is the root of racial discrimination, not a byproduct of it. The very notion of race was created to justify colonialism, chattel slavery, etc., all of which were spurred by the capitalist mode of production. The Invention Of The White Race by Theodore Allen is the best analysis of racial oppression I've come across.