"Capitalism has socialized production. It has brought thousands of people together in the factory and involved them in new social relationships"
About this Quote
Capitalism, James reminds us, doesn’t just atomize people into lone consumers; it also accidentally engineers togetherness. The line has the cool, slightly mischievous edge of a Marxist realist: an indictment disguised as an observation. Capitalism “socialized production” not out of altruism but because profit demands coordination, scale, and discipline. Yet the unintended consequence is social: thousands packed into a factory become more than labor units. They become a public.
The intent is double-edged. James is pointing to capitalism’s genius and its vulnerability. By concentrating workers, it creates the very networks, shared rhythms, and collective awareness that can turn exploitation into solidarity. “New social relationships” is doing heavy lifting here: the shop floor becomes a crash course in interdependence, hierarchy, bargaining, and the politics of time itself. Wages are the surface story; the deeper story is that capitalism manufactures a class that can recognize itself.
Context matters: James, a Trinidadian intellectual steeped in anti-colonial struggle and labor politics, is reading industrial modernity with an organizer’s eye. He’s not romanticizing factory life; he’s mapping its social physics. In the early 20th century, mass production reconfigured cities, migration, family life, and race relations. The factory wasn’t only an economic site but a social machine, forcing people into proximity across regional and sometimes ethnic lines, while sharpening the lines of power between those who own and those who must show up.
The subtext is almost taunting: capitalism’s greatest achievement is building the infrastructure for its own opposition.
The intent is double-edged. James is pointing to capitalism’s genius and its vulnerability. By concentrating workers, it creates the very networks, shared rhythms, and collective awareness that can turn exploitation into solidarity. “New social relationships” is doing heavy lifting here: the shop floor becomes a crash course in interdependence, hierarchy, bargaining, and the politics of time itself. Wages are the surface story; the deeper story is that capitalism manufactures a class that can recognize itself.
Context matters: James, a Trinidadian intellectual steeped in anti-colonial struggle and labor politics, is reading industrial modernity with an organizer’s eye. He’s not romanticizing factory life; he’s mapping its social physics. In the early 20th century, mass production reconfigured cities, migration, family life, and race relations. The factory wasn’t only an economic site but a social machine, forcing people into proximity across regional and sometimes ethnic lines, while sharpening the lines of power between those who own and those who must show up.
The subtext is almost taunting: capitalism’s greatest achievement is building the infrastructure for its own opposition.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
|---|
More Quotes by L. R. James
Add to List
