‘—

Property, Capital, and Prostitution

Roderick Ferguson states that by analyzing the statuses and identities of black queer prostitutes we could reveal capitalist economy, the state and the western ideology operating as a force that generates the intersection of multiple forms of oppression such as definitions of inferior cultures, race, class, gender and sexuality. Non-white subordinated groups are the working class of the capitalist system. This class is created by the constrains and limitations imposed by the state, and at the same time the state promotes the order and the normativeness of white heterosexual ideals.

In order to discuss the cultural factors and causes of inequality, poverty and subordination of black queer we should look into the economic development of capitalism, we should observe the ideology of western society and see how they are intertwined with state regulations and production of knowledge.Ferguson critiques the capitalist economy and its mode of production as responsible for social formation and class segregation. The capitalist system creates antagonism between wealth,  order and refinement, and poverty, disorder and decline. Capitalism and the rules of the state contradict each other in some way, but this clash is constantly reproducing the identities of white and nonwhite people. Also, patriarchy, race, division of labor, definitions of normative and deviant sexuality, social class, gender, age, and segregation are some of the variables that Ferguson places into perspective to reveal that U.S. ideals are aligned with the aim of capital accumulation and capitalist property relations.

Ferguson examines historical materialism as the starting point of division of classes and division of labor, when a surplus mass of workers are deprived form their means of production and willing to sell their labor power to survive. With industrialization, demands for labor and merging racial diversity in urban centers  in the U.S., Mexicans, Asian, and African American workers create fertile ground for the expansion of capitalism and exploitation of workers. The state implements programs to control nonwhite populations which are fixed into a  racial profile. Mexicans are americanized into domestic service, Asian and African Americans are segregated from middle class neighborhoods and  regulated by laws that prohibit interracial marriage. Capitalists produce more capital employing subordinated groups in the market and also by limiting their opportunity generates a surplus mass of workers that are willing to work for wages, sell their bodies and adjust to the circumstances of poverty because they have no other choice. Nonwhites are excluded from economic freedom, culturally and racially excluded  from the politics and economic spheres of society.