2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Sanders: A Man with A Hammer, Who Sees Nails Everywhere [View all]kennetha
(3,666 posts)But the thing is that in fact the landless white person had almost nothing to gain from slavery in reality, economically speaking. But he did have something to gain from the system of white supremacy -- the status of "not being black."
How much was that worth economically? Not a helluva lot.
Point being, the guy at the bottom of the white hierarchy was willing to accept a "bargain" that was contrary to his economic interest, but served some other, darker interest of his, that he was willing to trade off against his economic interest.
Even when slavery ended, and share cropping and Jim Crow segregation came to replace it, reintroducing slavery by another name, the white worker still felt himself such a beneficiary of white supremacy that he was willing to foreswear all solidarity with the black other, just so that he could hang on that status of not being black.
My only point is that economics is not all. It's one thing among others in a stew of competing factors.