Book review: What Is Antiracism?: And Why It Means Anticapitalism - Arun Kundnani

 A Flawed Union: The Dogma of Antiracism and Anticapitalism in Arun Kundnani’s What Is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism

Arun Kundnani’s What Is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism is a book that attempts to fuse two grand narratives—racial injustice and economic oppression—into a single, inseparable struggle. According to Kundnani, any meaningful opposition to racism must necessarily be an opposition to capitalism itself. But in this insistence, he does not just conflate distinct issues; he entraps antiracism within a narrow ideological straightjacket that dismisses any approach outside his own rigid anti-capitalist dogma. His argument is not only analytically flawed but politically counterproductive, making racial justice an all-or-nothing struggle for socialism rather than a practical fight for fairness, opportunity, and individual dignity.

The Pitfall of Reductionism

Kundnani’s first and most glaring error is his reduction of racism to a mere function of capitalism. He argues that racism is not an independent phenomenon but a necessary byproduct of capitalist structures. This claim is historically untenable. Racism did not emerge with capitalism; it predates modern economic systems by centuries, manifesting in feudal, tribal, and imperial societies long before the rise of markets and free enterprise. The idea that racism is inherently tied to capitalism ignores the historical record of racial prejudice in socialist, communist, and non-capitalist societies, from Soviet anti-Semitism to Maoist ethnic purges.

The book’s core thesis relies on a simplistic narrative: that the economic exploitation of labour, particularly of racial minorities, is the root cause of racial inequality. While economic structures can certainly reinforce racial disparities, Kundnani’s deterministic approach denies the role of culture, ideology, and even human agency. If racism were merely a tool of capitalism, why has racial discrimination persisted in economic systems as diverse as medieval serfdom, tribal subsistence economies, and socialist command economies?

Historical Amnesia: Ignoring Capitalism’s Anti-Racist Trajectory

Kundnani also disregards the empirical record showing that capitalism, while imperfect, has historically been one of the greatest forces for racial integration and upliftment. The expansion of free markets has, in many cases, broken down racial barriers rather than reinforced them. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement was not a Marxist revolution but a demand for equal participation in a capitalist democracy. In Britain, working-class immigrants leveraged economic opportunity to carve out space in society, not by overthrowing capitalism but by thriving within it.

Indeed, capitalism’s emphasis on merit, competition, and innovation has often undermined racial prejudices. The logic of the market does not favor racial exclusion, it favors efficiency and productivity. Entrepreneurs and workers of all backgrounds have found opportunities in capitalist systems that would have been unthinkable in rigidly hierarchical, state-controlled societies. This reality directly contradicts Kundnani’s claim that capitalism and racial justice are fundamentally at odds.

Alienating the Working Class: A Strategic Blunder

Perhaps the most politically damaging aspect of Kundnani’s argument is his complete disregard for working-class grievances that do not fit his ideological framework. By insisting that true antiracism must be explicitly anti-capitalist, he alienates the very people who could be the strongest allies in the fight against racial and economic injustice: the working-class voters, many of whom are disillusioned with both corporate exploitation and radical leftist rhetoric.

In Britain and the United States, many working-class communities, white, black, and minority, are frustrated by economic stagnation, cultural displacement, and political neglect. Instead of offering a unifying vision that addresses these concerns, Kundnani effectively tells them that unless they sign up for a full-scale socialist revolution, their concerns are illegitimate. This is not a path to broad-based solidarity; it is a blueprint for political irrelevance.

A Self-Defeating Ideology

If Kundnani’s aim is to make antiracism a widely accepted, actionable movement, his book does the opposite. By tying antiracism exclusively to an anti-capitalist revolution, he ensures that it remains a niche ideology rather than a mainstream cause. Genuine racial progress requires pragmatic solutions—education reform, economic opportunity, criminal justice fairness, and political representation—not utopian economic upheaval.

Ultimately, What Is Antiracism? And Why It Means Anticapitalism is less a serious intellectual inquiry than a polemical manifesto. It does not persuade, it preaches. It does not analyze, it asserts. And it does not offer solutions, it demands allegiance to an ideology that has little real-world appeal beyond the insular circles of radical academia. If we are to take antiracism seriously, we must reject this all-or-nothing thinking and embrace a movement that prioritizes practical change over ideological purity.