Is capitalism racist?

The police murder of George Floyd in the US sparked Black Lives Matter protests in every continent in the world. Combined with the global pandemic and the climate catastrophe – both of which are highly racialised - they have led many people to fundamentally question the deepest structures of our political economy. A recent article in the British magazine the Spectator, frets that the 34,000 people who have recently donated a million pounds to Black Lives Matter UK are unwittingly endorsing an organisation that ‘wants to dismantle capitalism’, thinks climate change is racist, wants to abolish prisons, wants to get rid of borders and wants to get rid of the police. But what if the 34,000 are not so unwitting, but actually agree with those ideas? In this episode of ourVoices, we’ll be taking a deep dive into how capitalist markets and nation-states perpetuate structural racism. And we’ll be looking at fresh ideas for how to transition to a new political economy based on repair, healing and justice. We ask whether our political economic system – capitalism – is itself racist. And, if it is, what can we do about it?

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ourVoices is a podcast from openDemocracy which explores the ongoing crisis of our economic system – and promotes intelligent debate about what should replace it. We bring together some of the most exciting thinkers from around the world, and give a voice to those who are putting new economic ideas into practice from the ground up.