Elvira Basevich (University of California, Davis) will give a presentation entitled “W.E.B. Du Bois on Worker Domination: On Black Chattel Slavery, Wage Slavery, and Second Slavery” as part of the activities of the Philosophy of Work Network.

The activities of the Philosophy of Work Network are open to researchers and graduate students with research interests in this area. Please write to the organizers, Denise Celentano (denise.celentano@umontreal.ca) and Pablo Gilabert (pablo.gilabert@concordia.ca), to receive the zoom link.

Abstract

This talk defends the neglected concept of “second slavery” in W.E.B. Du Bois’s critique of Reconstruction and capitalist political economies in the late 19th- and 20th-century. It proceeds in four steps. First, it distinguishes the concept of black chattel slavery from wage slavery and, second, presents the normative core of Du Bois’s account of black chattel slavery. Next, it illuminates the afterlife of slavery by systematizing Du Bois’s remarks about a “second slavery” that persisted after legal abolition. It defends the following key features of second slavery, which disproportionately target nonwhite laborers alone: the loss of equal public standing as rights-bearers, resulting in insecure labor rights, and the racial division of labor. Lastly, it concludes by considering the implications of the abolition of second slavery today for building an interracial labor movement.