In doing so, these conservative defenders are defining capitalism.
What is the author’s actual, articulated definition of capitalism? Or is he exploiting antiracism to score points for his Marxist beliefs?
He spends a chapter criticizing conservatives (which I am not) for providing a (false, corrupted) definition of capitalism that just so conveniently allows him to say, “See? It’s this generic embodiment of racist, classist evil”. And it conveniently allows him to not define capitalism. According to the author, the world can only be saved by being both anti racist and crushing the “predatory” racist system of — wait for this devious system — human beings freely and without coercion building, creating, exchanging, cooperating, producing, consuming, investing and otherwise interacting cooperatively?
If Americans are ignorant about the readily apparent evils of capitalism, I’d suggest he is ignorant about the the piles of bodies laying at the feet of Jacobite socialism and communism. In fact, he might have mentioned that at the same time W.E.B. duBois was bravely fighting for the proletariat, duBois was also apologizing for and memorializing Stalin. Given the author’s strident focus on examining one’s priors, I trust that future editions of this book will correct his oversight, or at least excuse mass murders, the Holodomir in Ukraine, class and ethnic purges, mass arrests and incarceration of “undesirables”, and more, all executed perfectly.
