In this thesis I deal with a critique of theories of racism, through which I present some foundations for a Marxist theory of racism. The focus of my critique is on the naturalisation of racism conceived as a set of ideological constructs, which are false in relation to the real world. In contrast, I argue that racism involves signifiers of inferiority, which refer to actual material differences and unequal relations of power characteristic of class societies. Taking into account the specifically capitalist differentiation of the economic from the political, I argue that racism only becomes an independent form of domination in capitalism, rather than merely a legitimation of social hierarchies based on ascribed statuses. While affirming racism as an autonomous form of domination, I criticise approaches that see racism as a structure standing alongside the capitalist structure. At the same time, I renounce idea of the capitalist valorisation process as a place of neutral economic logic free of prejudice. In the context of the valorisation process, I define racism as a lower price of labour power of part of the working class, which can be understood only in the context of pre-existing social stratification. Capitalist value is therefore not inherently racist, as if it were a racist subject, but it nevertheless reproduces inequality as a consequence of previous production cycles.
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