Public Lecture by Julia Ott – Associate Professor of History and Co-Director of the Robert L. Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies, The New School
Most theories of capitalism set aside slavery as something utterly distinct because under slavery, workers do not labor for a wage. An historical and empirical investigation, however, reveals that the factory and the plantation co-evolved in such a way that we cannot understand them as artifacts of two discrete economic systems. Similarly, classical liberalism and neoclassical economics both view property—and property rights—as the foundation to capitalism, but historically, socially-recognized rights and entitlements — in the form of race, specifically, whiteness — have produced and structured claims on economic value.
