Love and Revolution!

5.8.15

Love and Revolution!: In the United States, there has evolved three systems or modes of production including, slavery, feudalism, and capitalism. These are economic systems of production that should not be confused with their secondary characteristics, ie., violence, torture, and brutality. These characteristics are common in the commercial form of the system; however, on a domestic level, these secondary tendencies may never arise, even if they lie dormant. On the other hand, the simple mechanics of feudal slavery is the labor of the slave (serf) is tied by contract and law (13th Amendment) to the land. In Amerikkka, this relationship was called “sharecropping.”

In her analysis, Gilmore glosses over the primary mode of exploitation of former slaves, by only describing the secondary characteristics as segregation and Jim Crow Laws which were institutions administered, by the state, to support the bonding of Black labor-power to the land for the prevailing class of industrialists and the rising bourgeoisie. Yet, not once does she mention sharecropping by name. The entire 100 year period, where this system prevailed, was characterized by lynching, KKK terror, the Black Codes and Jim Crow and led to a charge of genocide in 1951, state law was the chief mechanism to enforce the economic institution of sharecropping. The repression and enforcement of this mode of production did not end until technological advancements in agriculture rendered sharecropping obsolete by the mid-sixties. The decline of sharecropping, ultimately ushered into history the era of mass-incarceration. We see the rise of mass incarceration with the passage of Nixon-Clinton Crime Bills and the fabled “war on drugs” they organized.