Valuation in the service economy

I am currently taking SES 2999: Special Topics in Sociological Research in Education: Anti-Poverty Campaigns, Community Development & Popular Education taught by a Ryerson Professor Grace-Edward Galabuzi. I tend to think he’s very Gramsci inspired. He alludes to “war of position and war of manoeuvre” a lot; he never says it explicitly though- potentially so we can develop our own ideas of how we think social change should happen without “tainting” our ideas.

Anyhow, he is a progressive thinker on the racialization of poverty. He wrote the book Canada’s Economic Apartheid: The Social Exclusion of Racialized Groups in the New Century. It is well worth the purchase, and if you want to sell out to big corps, Chapters/Indigo, you can get it for less than $25. It is not groundbreaking or as controversial as I potentially thought it would be (for “apartheid” is a pretty loaded word) but it is an incredibly accessible book that is intelligently written. His basic [oversimplified] thesis is that poverty is due to the exclusion of racialized groups in the workforce. Furthermore, we have social relations and ideologies in place which devalue the work and abilities of racialized groups to the degree that racialized groups do not have the same access to the workforce.

He argues that multiculturalism and embracing different cultures is a false image in Canada. I have met many people at OISE that have repeated those ideas. Many speak about how we are much more racist than the United States- we just hide it better within systemic racism. I go back to my teaching days where I used to talk to the kids about the “Canadian mosaik” versus the “American melting pot”. I learned that myself in grade school and I passed that discourse down to my own students. I regret it upon further contemplation. I digress.

The thesis is specific upon “racialization” and I am very glad that he does not confuse it with any other closely related word. Race is definitely not the same as ethnicity. Race is a construction whereas ethnicity is not. Race does not exist, however racism, racists, and racialization does. We are all of the human race and “race” as we know it (white, black, brown etc) is a social construction that is created to make us believe we are genetically, or otherwise, different. Many ideologies also incorporate power relations (i.e. White people are superior to other races). So using the word “racialization” is perfect. Racialization means to impose constructions and interpretations of race. “The overall impact is to rob racialized group members of the opportunity to participate fully in Canadian life and damn them to lives of exclusion” (Galabuzi 2006: xi). There is a bit of William Julius Wilson in there too, I think- the idea that poverty breeds social relations embedded in poverty, which maintains poverty.

Galabuzi’s statement also oddly (or not so oddly) reminds me of Professor Abbie Bakan (who I heard speak at Marxism 2008). Bakan just wrote an amazing article “Marxism and antiracism: Rethinking the politics of difference” (Rethinking Marxism 2008) and has an amazing thesis on why racism should matter to Marxists. It is important to revive other forms of oppression other than class oppression in Marxism because classical Marxists, such as myself, can get carried away on the tradition of the duality of the bourgeois and proletariat. Her thesis reintroduces the concept of vertical oppression and horizontal oppression. The capitalist system not only divides us economically such that there are owners and workers, but divides the workers using “special oppression” (horizontally). Capitalism is a resilient system. Special oppression works to divide the proletariat horizontally; special oppression is organized ideology that is highly integrated into our society such that workers will alienate other workers. Racism is a form of special oppression. It is a way to depress class consciousness.

Back to the main point- As we are moving towards a service-based economy (as opposed to a goods-producing economy) do forms of “special oppression” magnify as we attempt to value service labour? What I mean is that we have a very established system on the pricing of goods, whether they be raw or manufactured. It has been established over a long time and it is relative to other goods. We have a pricing system that, more or less, does not fluctuate that much (excluding oil…and now I suppose wheat- but that is another story altogether). My interest lies in the development of how we are going to value the service economy. Now the service economy is itself two-tiered. There are the high-end workers who work in R&D and technology and they earn the big bucks. And then there is the other end of the spectrum of the low-level wage earners, who are in precarious non-standard work. As Galabuzi states, the racialization of the labour market means that more racialized people will funnel downwards into low-level work. I’m sort of thinking out loud when I say this, but do we devalue the work or devalue the people who do the work? And are we seeing such a polarization because the growth of the service industry is so new and because capitalism can polarize it”?

I’m not sure I just made sense. But this is just a flavour of the type of stuff I will be posting on this site. It is a place where I can think out loud and formulate ideas even though it can be complete nonsense. I think it is important to keep a log of the development of one’s ideas to mark progress and also look back and see where one’s own biases or ideologies come into play.

Comments, especially scathing critiques and vigourous challenges, are always welcome.