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Has capitalism always partnered with race?
This book examines how capitalism operates through racialised structures across different moments in global history. Moving beyond conventional class-based analyses, the book deepens our understanding of capitalism’s effects by exploring how race has been used to value, control and exploit populations.
From slavery and colonial dispossession to global divisions of labour, sex tourism and consumerism, Prasad offers a vital critique of how capitalism not only damages those it devalues but also shapes the way we all live—and the condition of the planet itself.
“Capitalism's Dark Complexion magnificently interrogates capitalism’s racialized foundations, advancing critical, historical insights into global systems of valuation and structural inequities”, Todd Bridgman, Victoria University of Wellington.
“In gripping and clear prose, Capitalism’s Dark Complexion moves from Atlantic slavery to contemporary sex tourism, from Adam Smith to Black Lives Matter, revealing how racism has been part of capitalism from the beginning. This is an important book”, Angela Zimmerman, George Washington University.
“This book offers a comprehensive and thought-provoking analysis of the often-overlooked relationship between racism and capitalism, along with its implications for the Global South”, Ernesto Noronha, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.
“A powerful, historically grounded analysis that reveals how capitalism has always been racialized, reshaping markets, labor, consumption, and inequality across the globe”, Bobby Banerjee, City St George's, University of London.
1. Capitalism’s Dark Complexion: Race, Markets and a Global System of Valuation
2. Profiting from Human Capital: Chattel Slavery and the Commodification of Black Bodies
3. Dispossession by Any Means: Native American Encounters with Racialized Capitalism
4. The Colour of Sweat: Racialized Global Divisions of Labour
5. All-Consuming Racism: Divided Markets, Coloured Desires
6. Exhausting the Racialized Body: Extracting Pleasure and Life from Populations of Colour
7. No End in Sight: New Frontiers in the Collaborations between Race and Capital