The (Lost) Art of Black Political Economy, Part 2
Marguerite Ross Barnett unveils a new theory of racial public policy
Welcome to The (Lost) Art of Black Political Economy, an ongoing series highlighting Black thinkers' intellectual contributions to the field of political economy. The works discussed will range from economic theory to policy to history. We hope you enjoy.
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Our understanding of Black oppression in America, and hence the remedies we prescribe for it, is incorrect. Or at least, it’s incomplete. This is the central contention of the late political scientist Marguerite Ross Barnett in her 1976 essay, A Theoretical Perspective on American Racial Public Policy. The essay is the first contribution to a compilation book, Public Policy for the Black Community: Strategies and Perspectives (edited by Professor Barnett)1.
By the mid-1970s, mainstream political commentators were already declaring the Civil Rights era a victory. Famed white public intellectual Daniel Patrick Moynihan is a case in point. Professor Barnett recounts how Moynihan, who had the ear of key political figures at the federal level, argued that income equality between Black and white families under the age of 35 had essentially been achieved. At the same time, commentators argued that many of the programs developed in the ‘60s had been unsuccessful, a waste of federal spending. This “contradictory” position, as Professor Barnett calls it, ultimately led to a situation of “benign neglect”, which the professor defines thusly:
“In its most hopeful form benign neglect expresses an assumption that left alone Blacks will progress as ‘other ethnic groups’ have.”
This position was held despite evidence to the contrary. Professor Barnett quotes from the Black Economic Research Center, whose report (analyzing data from 1947 to 1971) indicates that while incomes had risen in absolute terms (Black workers earned more in the 1960s than they did in the 1950s), relative income decreased everywhere except the South. This means the incomes of white workers during that period increased at a faster rate. Additionally, the political progress made in the ‘70s, including the election of Black mayors in major cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, was “more chimerical than real - the trappings of power rather than ‘real’ power.”
These mayors and other Black political officials could not enact any new, racially progressive programs or legislation. Even worse, the programs already on the books weren’t working. Here’s Professor Barnett:
“…we now have anti-discrimination policies in many areas including education, housing, and employment. Yet these are exactly the crucial areas where discrimination continues.”
So, how do we explain this? Seeming progress that leads to more obstacles, confusion in defining “success,” and a liberal political class that had already moved on were all symptoms of a deeper malady. For the professor, the root of the benign neglect disease lay in our theories of the position Black people hold in the United States. There was, of course, the continuation of racist ideology, transformed for a new generation. But even among liberal and progressive scholars, their understanding of anti-Blackness in America was off the mark. In particular, Professor Barnett targets the two most widely used models for racial public policy: institutional racism and the ethnic group model.
The Structure of Racist Politics
The institutional racism model articulates how businesses, government departments, and other entities perpetuate inequity, even if no one involved is purposefully discriminatory. This process occurs over time, as historical wrongs are never corrected. The racism is thus baked in, so to speak. The model held wide acclaim in public policy circles. It was the most popular tool to analyze the failure of racial public policy to improve the conditions of Black people.
Nonetheless, there are issues with this approach. For one, it’s purely descriptive. More rigorous questions are left unanswered. Professor Barnett offers several:
“How does institutional racism operate in different contexts? Are there important institutional differences (e.g., universities versus labor unions)? Has institutional racism varied over time? What causes either synchronic2 or diachronic3 variation?”
A descriptive, static model cannot answer these questions, which deal with “the dynamics of social change.” The professor continues, writing:
“What is missing from the theory of institutional racism is a theory of racism...Inherent in an elaborated theory of institutional racism - one capable of linking past patterns to the dynamics of differentiated contemporary change - would be an analysis of the structural position of Blacks.” [emphasis mine]
Without that structural analysis, institutional racism is a superficial notion at best. The ethnic group model isn’t much better. Black people in the post-Civil Rights era are analyzed similarly to groups like Italians, Germans, Irish, and others who emerged in the Northeast and Midwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The immediate problem here is that white ethnic groups developed their political and economic power simultaneously. That particular moment in American history presented an opportunity for industrial jobs that didn’t require high levels of education or expertise (what is commonly referred to as “unskilled labor”). A similar opportunity was not available in the 1970s (nor is it today).
This is the empirical reality. On a theoretical level, white ethnicity holds two features that Blackness does not:
White ethnic groups are welcome participants in the American political system, or “politically integrated.”
Their daily lives align with the “American creed.”
The American creed has two core pillars: individualism and egalitarianism. They stand in opposition to collectivism and hierarchy, respectively. The egalitarian ethos is embedded in the Constitution itself - “all men are created equal,” and so on. This equality is bestowed upon individuals, not families, tribes, or other collectives. As Professor Barnett explains, this individualism is true not only for America but for western philosophy generally. The centrality of individual rights emerged with the Industrial Revolution and the supremacy of capitalism.
The United States version of industrial capitalist society holds no consistent hierarchy among white ethnic groups. The Irish might run one city, while the Polish run another, and the Italians a third. Additionally, there are what the professor describes as “ethnicity-free arenas” throughout the country. All of this amounts to a political culture where white ethnic groups don’t struggle over fundamental societal questions; they compete over the distribution of resources. This is accomplished through interest groups or political parties, among other means.
The Black political experience is incompatible with this model. Racism mistreats all Black people collectively, not as individuals. Here’s Professor Barnett’s definition:
“In contrast, racism is a pervasive ideology that ranks Blacks as a group below all others because it assumes the inherent genetic inferiority of Blacks.” [emphasis mine]
Its origins trace back to “a rationalization for African slavery.” But why the need to rationalize at all? Egalitarianism and individualism. These were fundamental to western philosophical notions of freedom and human rights. One could not build a society based on these ideals while enslaving an entire group of people. Unless, of course, they weren’t people. The founders of the United States, such as Thomas Jefferson, wrote extensively about the “natural” intellectual inferiority of Black people. Jefferson, in particular, was more concerned with the moral dilemma faced by white slaveholders than the actual conditions faced by enslaved Africans. As the professor writes:
“Racist ideology asserts that whites have not debased Blacks, Blacks have been debased by nature.”
The 19th and early 20th centuries gave rise to scientific racism. The theories of Black inferiority developed from vague references about nature to biological taxonomy. As one book from the time made the point, we were a “man-like ape,” closer to chimpanzees and gorillas than “civilized” (read: white) humans. Politically, Black people were never meant to participate as active agents, if at all. America was and remains a “white man’s country.”
Black people in the U.S. are then best understood through collectivism and hierarchy, enforced by racism. However, being socialized in this country, Black people internalize individualist and egalitarian ideals in varying degrees. The professor explains further:
“To the extent that general cultural models are internalized, a tension is created between the ideal of America as a social arena characterized by free, individual choice, on the one hand, and the realities of Black existence, on the other. This tension is crucial because it helps situate the Black middle class.”
As the primary beneficiaries of the post-Civil Rights political landscape, the Black middle class tried to maintain dual loyalties - to Black reality and the American creed. Bridging that gap while holding off white opposition contributed to the emergence of racial public policy models of institutional racism and the ethnic group. It also led to contentious debates among Black political figures as to how to move forward.
Towards a Black Political Theory
Black politics have four central features, according to Professor Barnett: understanding of power, issue prioritization, process of social change, and ideology. Regarding power, Black folks are split into two camps. One sees power as “divisible,” and thus can be acquired through integrationist, electoral politics. The other camp sees power as a “zero-sum game” where there is a winner and a loser; all or nothing. Viewing power as zero-sum can itself produce two effects: dependency for those who acquiesce to the status quo, and a focus on fundamentally restructuring society for those who don’t. As the professor states:
“…in comparison with other groups in American society, Black communities produce an inordinately large number of talented individuals and organized groups concerned with fundamental systemic change.”
This concern determines the issues Black political figures focus on. Contrary to white ethnic groups and others, Black intellectuals have written disproportionately about fundamental systemic change (the continuation or destruction of capitalism, the federalist political form, states’ rights, etc.). Having been shut out of mainstream political decision-making, Black political figures also rely on alternative methods more than other racial and ethnic groups. This includes having a single charismatic leader, resorting to violence, and “articulation of political utopias.” Black political organizations are not single goal-oriented either, a feature common to ethnic groups in the U.S.
Isolation and forced collectivism have, lastly, produced a relatively large degree of nationalism among Black political thinkers. This nationalism is unlike others, however:
“Black nationalism retains a form of Black collectivism by differentiating between internally generated, culturally rooted (positive) collectivism and externally generated stereotypically based (negative) collectivism.”
Given this general layout, public policy issues for Black people boil down to two categories:
Long-term unresolved issues
“Persistent” failure in public policy prescriptions
These, in turn, revolve around questions of Black identity. Are we “an ethnic group, ‘minority’ group, race, or nation?” The answer to that question determines which side one takes regarding the features of Black politics and the public policy proposals that follow. Related to the political question is the economic question. Here again, the integration vs nationalism divide rears its head. Do we build internally first, solidifying our resources, or acquire more from the larger society through protest?4 Is there any meaningful political progress to be made without economic concerns, or vice versa? These questions still live with us in 2025. Even specific strategies and issues, such as school integration and reparations, haven’t progressed much in over a century. Politically, Professor Barnett notes, we are trapped:
“Lack of autonomy has led to an oscillation between two models: an ethnic model which achieves a certain legitimacy through the illusion of individual achievement, and a nationalism model which conforms to structural imperatives5 but runs counter to (and in fact challenges) important aspects of the encompassing American creed.”
This cycle explains (in part) the continued failure of racial public policy to address Black material conditions. But what exactly is meant by “failure”?
Before answering that question, we must define the racial public policy models. For the professor, there are six types:
Civil rights approach that removes historic barriers and restrictions
Affirmative action, which builds on the first type while more aggressively promoting equality goals
Discrimination in reverse, which eliminates technical, or meritocratic criteria from the selection process (racist whites often conflate 2 and 3)
Non-racial public policy addressing inequality generally, which would (in theory) disproportionately assist marginalized groups
Restructuring the constitution to transform legal and political relations between racial groups (e.g., the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments)
Revolutionary public policy, which would fundamentally restructure the society
We can go further. Policies can be divided into ethnic, collective, and structural categories, in addition to the policy models above. Professor Barnett provides a definition:
“Ethnic policies would be those which provide divisible benefits; collective policies those which provide indivisible benefits (i.e., benefits which accrue to the entire racial group qua group); and structural policies those which would attack the structural basis of racial inequality. Specifically, structural policies would attack hierarchy and the (negative) stereotypical aspects of collectivism.”
The racial structure of the society imposes limits on the success of ethnic or collective policies. Some policies won’t work at all without first changing the American social structure. Failure, then, would amount to policies that don’t align with the objectives defined implicitly by the type (one of the six), and explicitly by the goals established. An ethnic policy cannot be considered a failure using collectivist criteria. And neither can be held to the standard of structural policy. Politics indeed is a complex craft.
With these definitions, however, plans can be developed. Using Professor Barnett’s theoretical work, policy-makers can be honest and transparent about the goals and priorities of each proposal. And eventually, the cycle of Black political and economic stagnation can be broken.
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Professor Barnett recognized how the more racial public policy changed, the more it stayed the same. Her own time (1970s) was itself reminiscent of an earlier age. She ends her insightful analysis with a warning:
“Immediately after slavery ended, Blacks made dramatic political gains, only to see them eroded year by year until the compromise of 1877 finally reconciled southern whites and northern whites at the expense of southern Blacks.”
She saw how conditions for the Black masses were deteriorating at the same time politicians (and some activists) were patting themselves on the back. Her warning to the post-Civil Rights, post-Brown v Board of Education generation, unfortunately, went unheeded. Then came Reagan. It has also not been heeded by us (the post-Obama generation). Then came Trump. And the cycle continues.
Synchronic means coincidental, or not connected to long-term phenomena
Diachronic means occurring over time or historically induced
This was the crux of the debate between Booker T. Washington (internal economic development first) and W.E.B. DuBois (political protest for rights first)
“Conforming to the structural imperative” means not struggling against the political and economic status quo. Professor Barnett is referring here to so-called bourgeois cultural nationalists.