Capitalism

and Prison
Abeolition

Many of us are taught about social injustices
ks racis and seiom a disriminatory words
and.actions that some people infict on other people.

bigger than individual people doing
o Saying man and harmul thing.
Social injustices are woven into the
Tabric of society through sustems
which produce inequaiity.

THIS IS THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY

In order to understand how mean and discriminatory thou
actions are produced, we must first understand how social inequality is
Pprodced *materially* through systems.

Our ideas ;n heavily influmaf bg‘:;‘ material waru.’Fnr example, if

a group of le is ically poor, some. e may come to

T e T
g

Today, most waterial inequality s produced by a political and economic
system called “capitalism Capitalism puts most of the world’ wealth and.
resources into the hands of a very small group of people - less than 1% of the
Fuman race!

L own a5 much weaith Just = of us own a5

and resources as about mich wealth and
750 million people. resources as 3/2 of the
“planet's popuiation.

In order to get rich in a capitalist system, you need to sell stuff, or

“commodities”
All commonitis are made of two main ingredients
) Raw Materials and 2) Labor

Labor =

Q@e%g@

"My labor wil

e oo Watch closely!

This s whers the
injstice beginst!

Raw waterials come from the environment...

o, | chin il o
S vnforest and frc ook
che st peple n order o
Pl iy ostont A i patg
i workers o mal amotod
e whagecr | do pay
S wi b i prfs

italists to make the most money, they need to exploit
eople and the enyironment a5 mch a5 possibe, s & cheaply 4 posible

€5 0 competitie sgtem, o 1
“dont ot pecpl o th
envronment someone s il

The laws of the state back up the capitalist in exploiting the land and
people. When we talk about the state, we are not just referring to
places like “Colorado” or “New York” A “state’ is a political institution
that holds a “monapoly on violence.” That means they get to decide.
what kind of violence is okay and what kind of “violence" is not okay.

:

JIVOITIL,

A Hordari fail cross the S borde in 3033, Ery e, many
o o G eyt B g o s i S S
o et

2008, US, soldiers aid familys horn during the US. invason o
common US. imparalst practice.

The state’s “monapoly on
vioence' i enforeed by the
institutions of the police and
the military. These institutions
answer to the state, and are
not accountable to the
communities that they patrol.

Capitalism needs the state to
wmake it possible to “own’” land.,
people and things as “private
property’” and enforce the
conditions of inequality.

Slave patrols existed in the Us. from 1704-1877 (173 years). There is a
direct lineage between these slave patrol institutions and the police.!

n

The exploitation of peaple for cheap labor divides society into

1) The

two main classes:

itais elass, o small elite who
of the waaith i society,

2) The working clss, who do most.
of the actual work in sogiety, and
“make up the majority o the
‘popuiation

A system which divides the world between handful of bilionaires and
Literally Everyone Else is inherently unjust. But inequalties exist within
the working class as well. Within the working class, there are different
vaces, genders, classes, nationalities, ctc. Social categories like “race”
and “gender” are crucial to how capitalism woris

The Wecking Class.

This zine will review some of the history of the ereation of race, as well
as 4 key ways that race is used as a tool within capitalism:

2 @ £, @
To divide workers. o structure labor. To shift blame. To manage and hide
unemplogment:

et
e
5
et
Pt
e Trce
ekl
EErr
o
g
el

(=3

Robin DG, Kelley

Black Maraist scholars like Cedric Robinson and Robin D.G. Kelley argue
that capitalism developed as an inherently racialized system, which uses

differences between people (iike skin color, for example) to justify
exploiting some people over others 1

Since youre
v, hardly
ven have £
P gou T
W e for

European peaple who were racialized and discriminated against (ike
irish, Jeish and Siavi peaple) orignalyarvived n the Amerias as

indentured servants, working in horvid conditions with hardly ang pay
or rights. Many of the first Africans came as indentured servants too,
though others were stolen and enslaved.

Ay

Problems began when these exploited laborers banded together o resist
or escape their masters. For example, indentured Europeans and enslaved
Africans would run away together, or join into Indigenous commanities

To solve the problem, European landowning elites gave the people who
Tookad ort ke thims oo advontages Sy Aan anc hpirons
people, such as the right to own land. They invented the racial categories
“white” and "Black” as a divide and conquer strategy to cor

resistant, exploited labor force.

“The iivention of whiteness allowed people who were now labeled as
“white” to identify wore with the capitalist landowning elite, rather than
with ather exploited peoples and non-white members of the working class.

Good thing we're all white!
e have 5000 mch in common!

17

At the same time, the invented category of Blackness was used.to justify
the massive and violent transatlantic slave trade, which provided the
abor needed.to build the Foundation of a powerful capitalst state. These
oppressive structures contnue today, ervting profound mateial and
pgcholgical impacts on Aficars and Afrcan dascendants,particularty

in the Americas, Europe, and. Western Africa.

~0
comansn SN
)

Similar systems of domination are not unique to the Americas, and they
can't always be boiled down to light-skinned versus dark-skinned races,
though they almost always serve to structure the relationships of labor. Wikle
he eale of th tranatiantic lve trade is unmatched, Cvibations eluding
Egyptians, Greeks, the Chinese, Vikings, and West African Kingdows also
enslaved people from other civilizations, and believed those people to be
naturally inferior. Racial systews continue throughout the world today.

Rpartheid o i povar. e Ttal s bakad v aring it o ot that
v mads any sere. Racio s no I, Conider thi. Shese peopl e
aad o bock n St Aic. | dons ey wrs g o scing
Vack Theg wers il hinse. Bt ik lans feré werent snoueh CHis
people £ darrant dviing & whole parats sTcation. Aporieid dspi
i preciion, B knons what 5o it him 5ot govermmant
e ity e bl L T
Intersstingly,a th same i, Japanc peope ware e a5 it he esson
T s s . the St Al sovartonent anid 53 tablh good roatins
e e Sapaness i orde 10 fmpors he Fans cas and im0 apaniss
peopic e g hororary “whis stauc” whik Cries paapl iad back |
s e o imagin being s St African ol s el codint £l the
ifortnc buti Chink ond Sapandse bt s Job was o ke sur it
peapic of the vrong cotor werent don the wrong g, e s Ason persen
eting om & whtes-on bnch, what il he a5”

. “He ge off that bench, you Chinaman

“Excuse me. tm Japanase.”

Ok, 1 apolegie, sir. | dids't mean to be racis.

As another example, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Kerala
India in 1959 to connect with people's movements abroad. King shared
that when he was introduced at a school, the Principle said, “1 would like,

o present to you a fellow untouchable® From the United States of

America
(and for the moment, | was pesved, | was
Shocked, that | would be introduced a5 an.
untouchable. But pretey soon, my mind
o bk crss o Amaricnand 1 Stared
Ehinking abou the face that there were 50
mang places that couldn't go because of
the color of my skin ] And | had to say
o maself, | am an untouchable, and every
Negro in the United States is an
unbouchable.

Reverend
Martin Luther King Jr.

= “Untouchable” refers to the lowest of the Fixed social
clssas in the caste system of idia. Caste s detarmined
o birth, and cannot bt changed.

Journalist 1sabel Wilkerson argues that racial
hierarchies in the United States should be thought
of as a caste system similar to that n India.

‘She describes,

“Caste is the bones, race is the skin. . Caste is

Fixed and rigid. Race is flid and superficial,
subject to periodic redefinition to meet the needs
of the dominant caste in what is now the United.

States. 4

justifies different levels of c:

Racism not onl
il the working class, mak

also serves to

g

B

S
ey

apitalist

foitation, but it
it harder for people to

unite and overthrow the capitalst clas.

The Working Cass.

Race is also used as
a tool to shift
blame away From
the capitalist
system and
towards
indiidls. For

example, wi
people in the US.
become
unemployed due to
corporations
moving overseas
(to exploit cheaper
laborers), they are
told “immigrants
are stealing their
o

Additionally, race i used as a way to structure labor, separating people into
different types of labor and levels of exploitation. Race serves as a way to
make these structures seem “natural,” as IF people of certain races were just
born to do certain jobs! Often the most diffiult, exhausting, ad dangerous
jobs are underpaid and racialized (as well as gendered).

Latine people

Latin and lack women boise P " eqiual Filds,
eaning and doing chidears o bebind oh secne i restaurants

A few people are an exception to the rule. Their stories are often
Wide

used to hide the fact that there is a racially structured society,

The racial structuring of labor serves the purpose of fucling race -based
igisions within the working clacs. °

i friend achis
irated from
Foduras nd was
mprionad i o
5 detetion
Conr or 7
ottt Nachis
il that the
oy o the
Lciriy guards at
froysckopind
Black, amploged
o montor the
igrant prionars.
Vil Nachis o]
e abost the ~
Sirong and-Black | Thi s one xample of how the
Gai || i o iy can cas rae- b
iy B s ions e people who a o
Lot commanity o
hald

tion O}
st nto this,
S taceration. 1S

i to waintaining the
i st

e ot PO

UASS JONCARCERAVIALY

“Mass incarceration” refers to the impri i extreme
arount of paple. The Unied Staces e the Hghést navearaion
rate in the world. Even though the US accounts for just 5% of the
planet’s population, it confines almost 25% of the worlds
prionersi Th vast wajorty of these pisoners are ow'income
and people of colo

U Tncarcera¥ion rates by race
08 put mcararated 09,000 Hhh )

2

In order to understand the driving forces behind mass incarceration, we

st first understand something called “the reserve armsy of labor.~ The

st ary oflbor s another way o saging “unemplased peole.” For

the capitalist system to function, there must be a pool of people who can
i work and are willing to work—but do not have job.

Unemplogment is necessary for capitaism because it ensures that all of the
eomploged workers are casily replaceable.

f workers are replaceable, then they will be scared to demand. Hgher
wages, safer conditions, and.better benefits, because their boss could fire
‘them and. hire one of the unemployed people to take their place.

“might not pay
ik, but 4

IF there werent any extra unarmploged workers, then bosses couldn't

fire anyone because there would be o one £o replace them. Workers

could demand better conditons without fear, and capitalists coudnt
‘demand such cheap labor.

Bt i we lok closer, el e that i the capitalstsstem, th rservs
army of labor is based on race. In the US, for example, Latinx people

are unemployed more than white people, and the difference is even
‘greater for Black and Indigenous people.

e

2a¥tivnynay

g Blade st whies | Asin
These patters are reproduced. through racialized housing and education

systems which funnel youth of color From poor-neighborhoods o
underfunded schools to low paid jobs or UNEMPLOYMENT.

Often the infrastructure and. quality of lfe can be completely different for
people living within 10 miles of each other. You can see this iF you walk
From the Upper East Side of Manhattan to East Harlem, or from Berkeley
to Richwond California, or Chicago's North Side to the South Side.

As mentioned carlier, the racialized nature of the system makes it seem
fike uermplogmant i natural tai of the groups o pegpe who re
nimploged vather shan o matural persoF e coptbus sppeon

Theyve just looki
&mg«m

“This structure serves to make people of color, particularly black and
Indigenous people, more disposable i the eyes of the capitlst sstem and
state - all while making the capitalist system look lie it fai for
evergone

Bt the st can run nto some problems. What hagpers f here
e too mang unemploged pople, (the reserve arw of abor is to0
large)? The state may have to start providing more social services
than they have money set aside for.

the government simply denies
social services to unemploged people, it will be
even more obvious that the capitalst system
values profi¢ over life. There are already about
70,000 people who are houseess i the
United States (as of 201.9)1 This number
would continue to grow.

The state nasds to maks i seem ke captalim s working for the

people, but it can't do that if there are huge numbers of poor folks
exposing the injustices of the system.

IF enough people are

struggling to survive
under capitalism because.
are unable to find

work, they will question.
the Fairmess of capitalism
and could rise up to
overthrow it. For this
reason the Black Panthers
believed that it would be

l le who
overthrow capitalism.

“ “Lumpen” is short for
lumpenproletariat,
which is a word for
unemploged people.

The students focus thei rebellions on the campuses, And the Working
Class focuses ts rebellions on the factories and. picket lines. But. the ]
Lumpen finds tslf in the peculia postion of buing unabl £ fnd &

J0b and thercfore is unable o attend the Universtcs The Lurmpen has

R0 choice but to manifest its rebellion in the Universiey o the streets '

To maintain order, the state criminalizes poverty.

No LoTERING] (NO PEEING] (NO FARE
N EVASION,

At the same time that capitalism creates poverty, it criminalizes the

condition of being poor. Race-based narratives are used. to distract from

eh sstens creaing poverty . instad. bame poor peapl and people
o

Color for their life circumstances.

This creates the illusion that capitalist society i Functioning well,
except for a category of people who are “disturbing the peace.”

Many actions people take to survive poverty are arrestable and jailable
“crimes". This means that poor and unemploged people are particularly
targeted by the police.

People are put behind bars for doing what they must o survive poverty,
and the scale of systemic poverty is hidden behind the bars of prisons.
imagine if the 2.3 millon people who are currently imprisoned in the US.
were instead unsheltered on the streets ~ it would be even more apparent
that capitalism is ot serving the needs of the people 1

“Not Normal"

Black Maraist scholar Ruth Wilson Gilmore has studied and. theorized
this relationship deeply. She explains that the 1970's was the first
time in US. history that US. corporations began moving their factories
to other countries in order to exploit workers at a cheaper cost and
increase their profits=

As more and wore jobs were outsourced,
the nurber of unemploged people in the
US. skyrocketed, especially among
low-income workers of color who had
been working in manufacturing.

These newly unemployed people were
majoricy Biack, Latnk, ind ndioenous,
because capitalism is a fundamentally racial
em i which these populations are more

likely to hold low-wage, easily outsourced jobs

But what would become of these newly unemploged people? Would the
government provide them with social support? Would new jobs be
created for them?

The graph below provides the answer. In respose to the increase in
unemplogment of these communities, the incarceration rate increased by
700% between 1970 and 202041 :

Milions of these
US Tncarcerotion newly unemploged
peopl were
[easen crimivalized,
maving them offthe
Serets and into the
risons.

Sant

e e e e e e e e 7

Through this context, we can understand the prison as a WAREHOUSE
for unemploged people, who are overwhelmingly Black and Brown.
Incarceration gets them off the streets, reduces the risk of a mass
uprising of the unemploged, and. replaces state -funded social services
like food stamps, unemplogment benefits, and. low -

with prison. as a cheaper option.

The state justiies the prisons by calling the unemployed people inside
the “rivinals” The racialved Rarvatie of the “dangerous Lemial s
reinforced through mainstream media, pop culture, books, and movies.

1 SALES SERVICE
JVIDED AR RADIO - ANTENMAS

The racial structures of society reproduce race-based ideas about groups
of people. At the same time, the ideas reproduce the racial structures.

Poiice harass and eriminalize S We are categorized: to be associated

s b e i o
R T LT e ey e

care, a good education,
and other nacesstis, because the
conditions e live i are racialzed.

b ar waling, &ting or dping
pubic therafor dproportionatly
diesting umempioged popi of clor

When people of colo are denied access to
The state i then able to ustify the nacessitis of Ife, our conditions and.
Funding polce surveilance, and responses are lamecl o deas of culture

increased criminalization of thise o race, vather than the capialst

Same communties Sustim, which benefits
unemplogment and mcarcerstion.

L2

While most people would agree that this cyele

of criminalization o mass incarceration s

unjust, many are [eft wondering, “If we get

rid of prisons, what do we do about

Bk bt do ue bo wurderers and sex offenders?”
abovk mordevers and

Sen oftenders?

Acivist scholrs ke Angla D
R wikon Gimore, o Marase
Kaba propose Framework 60 grapple
e 5 guasion and v, ol
Prison Abbiion Prison Abolions
S auastion, “How 4o we e
prions cmwacesiary n ther words,
Fourdo e ranchormsocity 5 moek
peopies eeds (nsand o uing ther
b0 to prft and erminlic
poverts? i do e rase youth so
Bty ko how o resco confict
it (vt nsead o visoring s
Vnlnce? o 4ot tach o

% repect the bodis ond the
BoT 7ot Gt o g
ham a3 sexual cjecy How dokour
Carrent ocitycrate e corditons
for e very behavios £ crminles?

Mariame

Some societies around the world are already working towards a vision of
prison abolition. For example, in The Autonomous Administration of North
and East Syria (also known as Rojava) — an anti-capitalst, feminist,
ecological, multi—ethnie society — conficts and social harms are addressed by
community-based Peace and Consensus Committees 1

These committees do not focus on punishment or blawe, but instead

work to come to a consensus between conflicting partics. Many cases in

the committees are resolved through dialogue and consensus awong all
parties and the committee raembers.

i Cses o an indiidual hurting other people, the committa wil often

seck to understand the conditions that led a person to harm others. They

are guided by the question, “How can we eliminate the conditions causing

this person €0 harm?" instead of “How can we now harm this person who
harmed others?"

The Peace and Consensus Committee may vequire the individual to
address their harm by doing community work. including working for
the people who were hurt by their actions. Other requirements could be
e oking n cooperati o dageg pablc sergiscor vt
cases, relocation to another community 1

As another example,
Portugal
decriminalized all
drugs in 2001,
treating drug
addiction as a medical
lssue instead of a
crime. Their

rate s now x lower
than the European
average, and the

These and other examples show that prison abolition is within reach, so
long as we are willing to build societies designed to meet people’s needs
and address root causes of harm. This means ending the system of
capitalism which requires race and mass incarceration as a means of
structuring labor, shifting blawe,diiding peapl, an hiding iy e
cnemploge.

i the pest, te and was caled “privte
roperty” and thee wers peopl
atpons caled th polce who were there €5
Kkach most of us aut of . They wold some
it s i e ok it
\f«-«m i1 anc 1 wa gl st 5t

e arethe e who dcde o o "
community runs and,bhow we wil take care o
cach other, Now we feel in our bones the
Freddom of selfdetermination,

D

o

=)
e

Discussion
Questions

&) s iekperina
e N AR WP o~y vy
R Sty genveld, e e

imagi ‘people accountable
LUK U apiealiom regquires OTE WOt ool orowing

socity? at the tims? prions? o awag?

Crmamons

L8 M, Sly .St Puri. Lav and Vilenc nVirgoi nd he Corlias.rvard sy

[2Wha s Racisl Capiam an why s 1t Matr? Presantd by Robin .G, Kl KODK Sestle
et rrricgmnb e b o a7 Sl o s~

21 Nosh, Treor, Bom Crima: Storiss from Sauth Arican Chdhod. v Yok Spigl b G, on
i o oo N, 2037 i

[4] Dumacracy Now Augis 32, 2030, Accesid A 36, 3030,
it oo et eyt i v

Adam. . Prion opuation Duars That of ther Nations* Tt e Yok Tomes. Apr 23,
ik M U3 s po Mations The e Yok Times. Apri
s s o OV AL 25\or amarc 3304 33prisom 13253738 bl

(6] Wagnar, Ptur, US: ncarcrason R Compare g That of Othar Founding WATO Mmburs, i
ol i, 3038, heps v rsonpoie o3 raph NATO, U5 35185t

g e e o ooy e ey i,
FL T A T e i e
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ot i Aot " el

Sequrs Ui ith 33 ilon Puole ncarcarted i th U, rions Ave B s Tha
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b S oo r-on DS e

[36] The Commars of Reov: A Model n Sacietal e Diecion. il 6, 3033, Acesed e 34,
S etps v e o i Emiminne

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