Review of Radical Political Economics

http://rrp.sagepub.com
Keeping People in Their Place: An Exploratory Analysis of the Role of Violence in
the Maintenance of "Property Rights" In Race and Gender Privileges In the United
States
MaryC. King
Review of Radical Political Economics 1999; 31; 1
001: 10.1177/048661349903100301
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://rrp.sagepub.com/cgi/contentlabstractl31/3/1
Published by:
Publications
http://www.sagepublications.com
On behalf of:
II
Union for Radical Political Economics
Additional services and Information for ReView of RadIcal Political EconomIcs can ba found at:
Email Alerts: http://rrp.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://rrp.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions:
Review of Radical Political Economics, 31 (3): 1-11
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
e 1999 by URPE
ISSN: 0486-6134
Keeping People in Their Place:
An Exploratory Analysis of the
Role of Violence in the
Maintenance of "Property
Rights" in Race and Gender
Privileges in the United States
Mary C. King
ABSTRACT: Economists' accounts of the experience of women
and people of color in the United Ststes completely omit the role
of violence against them. This paper begins the process of
incorporating violence into economic analysis. suggesting that
violence maintains property rights in race and gender privileges.
This paper presents the analytical underpinnings for this
conceptualization, surveys the extent of race and gender violence
in the United States, and sketches a research agenda investi-
gating the dynamics of race and gender violence.
INTRODUCTION
Any student of the histories of people of color in the
United States cannot help but be aware of the extreme level of
violence with which people have been "kept in their place."
Violence against women continues at levels that overwhelm our
resources for combating it. Surely this violence has played a role
in derIDing and maintaining the' economic status of women and
people of color in the United States, yet economic theory does not
address violence. Economists have expended oceans of ink on the
economic, political, and social factors underlying differential
access to human capital available to people due to race and
The author would like to thank Johanna Brenner, Clifford Lehman,
Art Neal, Doug Orr, and Harold Vatter for their constructive critiques.
G1 ...
from tho SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.
Review of Radical Political Economics
gender, but nowhere do we confront the economic consequences of
violence, even that which is obviously economically motivated.
This paper is intended as an initial exploration of a
framework with which to incorporate a recognition and analysis of
race and gender violence' into economic theory, history, and
empirical work. I propose analyzing this violence as action taken
to maintain "property rights' in race and gender privileges.
Property rights in white supremacy have included the 'ownership'
of the best jobs, occupations, land and education by the white
community, enforced by the state, private organizations, and
individuals in the form of intimidation, imprisonmeIlt, destruction
of-property, beatings, rape, and murder. Property rights in male
supremacy similarly include ownership of occupations, assets,
and education, as well as of reproductive services and sexual
access, maintained by force within the home as well as in the
wider community.
The fITst section of the paper develops a working definition of
violence. The second section presents the analytical underpin-
nings of this view of the economic meaning of violence. The third
section reviews the extent of race and gender violence in the
United States, historically and currently. The fourth section
sketches a research agenda investigating the economic conse-
quences of race and gender violence.
DEFINING VIOLENCE
I define violence with respect to two dimensions, the
relationship of the perpetrator to the state, and the scope of
actions to be understood as violence.
Donohue and Levitt [19981 assert that violence is a method
for allocating resources in the absence of markets founded upon
legally enforceable contracts and property rights. This under-
standing of violence cannot encompass the role of racial and
gender violence in U.S. history. State sponsored violence has kept
people "in their place.' The American government has madeuse of
violence-or the threat of state violence-to enforce the legal
apparatus of slavery, the exclusive access to higher education of
white men, and the disenfranchisement of women and people of
color. Extra-legal but tolerated violence on the part of state
officials, such as police brutality, has kept people in their place.
Finally vigilante and domestic violence have played a large role in
our history, the perpretrators operating often with near impunity
and even the covert sanction or unofficial participation of the
2 September 1999
Keeping People in Their Place
An assessment of the economic meaning of race and
gender violence in the United States must include the full
spectrum of state-sponsored, state-tolerated and illegal violence.
'I emphasize physical violence, "rough or injurious physical
force, action, or treatment, and threatened physical violence
Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition
19f1i8J. Harassment, stalking, verbal abuse, and humiliation can
also!legitimately be considered violence, or to imply the threat of
violence. Institutions that maintain high poverty rates,
pOC?Ii housing, inadequate medical care, and inferior education are
clejU"ly construable as socially sanctioned violence, perpetrated
particularly upon ethnic minorities and women, as well as working
claSs white men, and could be included. More for the ability to
bound my focus, particularly given the limits of this paPer, rather
thari as a matter of principle, physical violence and the threat of
physical violence will be emphasized.
I:
PROPERTY RIGHTS IN RACE AND
GENDER PRIVILEGES
: A prominent scholar of property rights, Yoram Barzel,
that the term property rights conveys two meanings in
eCIilIilomic writing, economic property rights and legal property
Barzel defmes economic property rights as "the ability to
enjoy a piece of property.;.the individual's ability, in expected
terms, to consume the good (or the services of the asset) directly
or: to consume it indirectly through exchange, whereas legal
property rights are "essentially what the state assigns to a person'
(BF,;el 1997: 3).
, I White supremacy and male supremacy can be understood as
conveyed certain socially conferred property rights in
Banet's economic sense to whites and men in the United States.
have expected to monopolize preferred jobs, businesses, .,
schools, and land. Men have expected to occupy the political and
economic positions they desired, and have expected that, women
sIWuld raise their children and perform all household work. '
: I The notion of property rights in whiteness has been
in legal studies by critical race theorists Derrick Bell
arid Cheryl Harris. In a particularly rich article, Harris (1993)
the idea of whiteness as property. Theoretically, Harris
that whiteness falls well within a tl;"aditional legal
url4erstanding of property that allowed that property may be
mhaphysical as well as physical, rights as well as things.
f.
;! I
SePtember 1999


3
Review o/Radical Political Economics
Whiteness is also encompassed in modem theories of property,
which include socially constructed property in the form of jol:is,
entitlements, occupational licenses, contracts, subsidies ... intel-
lectual property, business goodwill, and advanced
potential from graduate degrees" (Harris 1993: 1728).
The concept of property rights in whiteness is easily extended
to gender; "it's a man's world." Until quite recently, men have
enjoyed the exclusive right to govern and police society; to enter
most occupations and educational institutions; to own property,
including one's wages; and to ... custody of children. Women were
effectively denied the ability to participate in society and to
support themselves and their children without the sponsorship of
a man, and have occasionally "passed" as male to gain these
privileges. Women are still struggling for admittance to govern-
ance, many lines of work, and the ability to move independently in
public space.
THE EXTENT OF RACE, GENDER, AND
CLASS VIOLENCE Jl'I THE Ul'IlTED STATES
Racial Violence
A common experience of people of color in the United
States has been th(llack of legal standing in the court system. The
consequence was widespread indifference to crimes against people
of color. In 1854 the California SupreIll.e Court went so far as to
strike down the conviction of a white man for the murder of a
Chinese, as the evidence had come from Chinese witnesses (Chan
1991).
Native Americans
Howard Zinn (1995) describes the actions of "Columbus and
his successors' as genocide. Policies of war and massacre were
followed in the late 19th and the 20th centuries by decades during
which Indians were confmed to reservations and murdered or
cheated with relative impunity (Amott and Matthai 1996). More
recently Native American communities have confronted the
placement of Indian children with white families, sterilization
abuse, the violent repression of the American Indian Movement,
and a law enforcement atmosphere many regard as prejudicial to
Indians (e.g., Amott and Matthai 1996; Churchill and Vander Wall
.1990; Crow Dog and Erdoes 1990; Matthiessen 1984, 1983).
4 September 1999
Keeping People in Their Place
African Americans
Clearly the history of violence against African Americans in
the United States must start with an acknowledgment of the
existence, extent, and brutality of 246 years of slavery. While
economists have argued that slaves would have been relatively
well treated by economically rational owners seeking to gain full
value from their capital, even Fogel and Engerman state, "Force
was not an incidental feature of slavery. Without force the
alienability of the title to the human capital of blacks would have
been worthless ... (Fogel and Engerman 1974: 237). Whippings,
rape, and murder, as well as overwork of pregnant women,
forcefully attenuated breastfeeding, and purposefully poor nutri-
tionof children, figured in low overall life expectancies (Jones
1985; Steckel 1986a, 1986b). Jones (1985) asserts that cruelty
derived ... from a basic premise of the slave system itself: the use of
violence to achieve a productive labor force" (Jones 1985: 20).
The decades following emancipation are marked by vigilante
and violence, rapes, lynchings, race riots, and attacks on
successful businesses and farms. In response to the 1892
lynching of the three black proprieters of a Memphis grocery, Ida
B. Wells stated that, .. .lynching was merely an excuse to get rid of
Negroes who were acquiring wealth and property and thus keep
the race terrorized and 'keep the nigger down
m
(Jones 1998: 333).
Sharecropper, labor, and civil rights organizing 'Yere consistently
met with violence, often by legal authorities (e.g., Carson 1981).
Allst!>n and Ferrie (1993) note the interest of Southern landowners
in maintaining an environment of racial violence, as sharecroppers
were bound to landowners who could provide some measure of
protection and intercede with authorities.
.Currently, police brutality, hate crimes, and harassment of
African Americans in occupations lIuch as firefighting continue to
be routinely reported in the news. The apparently racially-based
discrepancies in policing and sentencing related to America's War
on Drugs implicate the s:tate in the violent control of black
communities and the destruction of the economic potential of
thousands of young people.
Chicpnos
. The first and largest group of Latinos to reside in the United
States became American citizens by virtue of the 1848 Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty brought the northern half of the
territory of Mexico into the United States and recognized the
earlier annexation of Texas. Any of the 80,000 to 100,000
Mexicans who failed to leave became U.S. citizens, with
Sep(ember 1999 5
Review of Radical Political Economics
guarantees that they would retain their property rights (Defreitas
1991; McWilliams 1978; Zinn 1993). Most of what the Mexicans
owned was lost in ensuing decades, in part through violence
including scores of lynchings (Acuna 1981). Especially notorious
were the Texas Rangers, a paramiliatry group that operated as
paid thugs for Anglo landowners (Samora, Bernal, and Pena
1979).
Official and semi-official violence against the Mexican Ameri-
can community has recurred regularly. Particularly infamous are
the 1943 "Zoot Suit Race Riots" of Los Angeles, five nights during
which hundreds of American sailors savagely beat young
Chicanos. The marauders were followed by the police, who
arrested the Mexicans (McWilliams 1978). Events in Los Angeles
touched off "'zoot suit' disturbances in San Diego; Philadelphia;
Chicago; and Evansville, Indiana, and major race riots in
Beaumont, Texas; Harlem; and Detroit (McWilliams 1978: 256).
Police brutality, excessive fC?rce on the part of immigration
officials and vigilante beatings of immigrant workers continue
today, as do very high incarceration rates of Latinos.
Asian Americans
The second half of the nineteenth century was characterized
by recurrent violence against Asians. Chinese were murdered
throughout the West for their gold; others were targets because
they were perceived as an illegitimate source of competition for
jobs or bUsiness, as were Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos after
them (Chan 1991).
Asians are still vulnerable to violent attack motivated by the
perception of economic competition, both domestically; as has
been the case for Vietnainese fishers in California and Texas, and
internationally, as in the case of Vincent Chin, whose murder was
apparently motivated by animosity at the success of the Japanese
autos in this country (Chan 1991). The idea that Asians
illegitimately take work or wealth from more deserving members of
the community is part of what underlay the targeting of Korean
grocers during the rioting in Los Angeles in 1992.
Gender Violence .
Violence Against Women
Violence against women primarily takes two forms, the threat
of sexual assault outside the home and domestic violence,
including sexual assault, within it. Rape, and the threat of rape,
has functioned to keep women uin their place" by making many
public and semi-public spaces, many occupations, and all arenas
6 September 1999
, !
Keeping People in Their Place
outside the home after dark off-limits to women without a male
escoit. uWomen learn that there is a series of boundaries in the
physical and social worlds which they must 1).ot cross if they wish
to remain safe" (Pain 1991). Women "deserve what they get" if they
preslime to enter a bar or party unaccompanied by a man, remain
on t11e streets after dark, hitch-hike, or enter a male occupation.
While women are vulnerable to sexual assault from police
and prison guards, the primary roles of the state in the history of
violence against women appear to be (a) tolerance of violence
agaiJ1.st women in the home, (b) indifferent enforcement of laws
sanctioning violence against women outside the home, (c)
tolerance, even encouragement, of violence against women by the
armed forces, and (d) the always present threat of state violence to
back 'up both women's exclusion from political and social
institutions and men's "rights to their children, their wives'
earnings, and even to commit their wives to psychiatric care.
Much violence against women has been concentrated in the
home, where battering, or the threat of it, may assure that women
provide housekeeping, childrearing, and sex. What many of us
prefer to think of as caring labor" removed from the self-
interested forum of the market place, is often motivated by fear
(Folbre 1995). The linguistic roots of the word family reflect the
historical Roman institution familia, a man and. his slaves,
including his wife and children (Stordeur and Stille 1989: 33).
Many men still assume that they "own their wives. "In an
intimate heterosexual relationship, the assumption of ownership
will lead a man to assume that he has certain rights concerning
his 'property' ... [includingj the right to punish his wife if she does
not comply with his wishes or meet his expectations (Stordeur and
Stille 1989: 33).
. Women are killed by their abusive partners most often at the
poiI!t at which the woman is making an effort to leave the
household. The prevalence of domestic violence presently cannot
be accurately assessed. It is certainly true that community
resources to combat domestic violence are not nearly adequate in
the United States at the present.
Violence may also play a role in the maintenance. of
particular occupations as the property of men. Harassment of
women in the trades and uniformed services has included sexual
assault, as well as neglect of training or supervision, and even
sabotage, causing dangerous "accidents (Eisenberg 1998; Martin

II
, I
September 1999
( I
i I
J'
II
7
Review of Radic41 Political Economics
VIOlence Against Gay People
Another aspect of gender violence that enjoys the same
degree of social sanction is violence against gay people. Whether
or not violence against lesbians and gay men represents an
assertion of some sort of property right in heterosexual
privileges-either in the ownership of particular occupations and
public spaces, or in reinforcing conventional gender roles-or
whether such violence is better, understood' purely as an
expression of bigotry is difficult to say. Research on topics relating
to sexual orientation is as yet quite undeveloped among
economists (Badgett and Hyman 1998).
THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE
VIOLENT El'IFORCEMENT OF PROPERTY
RIGHTS IN RACE AND GEl'IDER PRIVILEGES
The full economic consequences of the violent enforce-
ment of race and gender privileges in U.S. history are incalculable.
The cumulative impact of generations of economic marginalization
in all forms, including denial of access to education, training,
occupational attainment, unionization, land ownership, business
ownership, and Credit, cannot be estimated. Perhaps the only
reasonable assumption that can be made is that in the absence of
racism and sexism, and any sCientifically sound judgement that
intelligence and drive are distributed differently among different
groups of people, no identiftable demographic group would hold an
economic status much different than any other.
The economic consequences of some particular acts may be
estimated. The losses sustained by women kept in the home can
be accounted: 'lost wages, coerced household services, and
reduced additions to the GOP. The value of real estate transferred
in suspicious circumstances from Chicanos to Anglos after the
annexation of Northern Mexico could be evaluated, as could the
value of resources transferred from Indian land even after treaties
were signed. These research projects are enormous because they
are largely untouched, with the exception of the efforts to appraise
the losses to African Americans due to slavery (e.g., America
1990).
Another project of great interest is to investigate the dynamic
relationship between racial and gender violence and economic
variables such as unemployment, wage inequality, race and
gender wage gaps, residential segregation, mortgage discrimina-
tion, indices of occupational attainment of women and people of
8 September 1999
....
Keeping People in Their Place
color, and GOP. Scholarship of this sort might illuminate the
circumstances during which violence is most prevalent, perhaps
when subordinate groups are making gains or when dominant
groups are frustrated in their aspirations, and the economic
conse-quences for the wider economy in terms of growth rates and
overall inequality.
CONCLUSION
The magnitude' of violence against women and people
of in the United States has been horrific. Much of this
violeQ.ce has had obvious economic motives and consequences,
but economists have completely overlooked violence in their study
of discrimination and disparities. This paper has asserted that the
purpose of the violence has been to retain property rights in race
and gender privileges, and the result has been to widen disparities
in economic status by race and gender. Further research is
required in order to begin to understand the significance of
viole.t;lce in keeping people of color and women "in their place. n
REFERENCES
Acuna, Rodolfo. 1981. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos.
New York, N.Y.: Harper and Row.
Allston, Lee J. and Joseph P. Ferrie. 1993. Paternalism in
Acultural Labor Contracts in the U.S. South: Implications
fQr the Growth of the Welfare State. American Economic Review
8;3(4): 852-76.
Richard. 1990. The Wealth of Races: The Present Value of
B.e,nefits from Past Injustices. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood
Press.
Amoit. Teresa and Julie Matthaei. 1996. Race, Gender, and Work:
.Ii; Multicultural Economic History of Women in the United States.
2nd ed. Boston, Mass.: South End Press.
Badgett, M.V. Lee and Prue Hyman. 1998. Introduction: Towards
Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Perspectives.in Economics: Why
ahd How They Make a Difference: Feminist Economics 4 (2):
49-54.
Yoram. 1997. Economic Analysis of Property Rights. 2nd
eli: Cambridge: Cambridge University 'Press.
:
, I
. '
September 1999
9
Review of Radical Political Economics
Carson, Clayborne. 1981. In Struggle: SNCC and the Black
Awakening o/the 1960s. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
Chan, Sucheng. 1991. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History.
Boston, Mass.: Twayne Publishers.
Churchill, Ward and Jim Vander Wall. 1990. The Cointelpro
Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Domestic
Dissent. Boston, Mass.: South End Press.
Crow Dog, Mary and Richard Erdoes. 1990. Lakota Woman. New
York, N.Y.: Grove WeidenfeJ.d.
DeFreitas, Gregory. 1991. Inequality at Work: Hispanics in the U.S.
Labor Force. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
Donohue III, John J. and Steven D. Levitt. 1998. Guns, Violence,
and the Efficiency of Illegal Markets. American Economic
Review 88 (2): 463-67.
Eisenberg, Susan. 1998. Still Building the Foundation: Women in
the Construction Trades. Working USA. May/June: 23-35.
Fogel, Robert William and Stanley L. Engerman. 1974. Time on the
Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. New York,
N.Y.: W.W. Norton.
Folbre, Nancy. 1995. 'Holding Hands at Midnight': The Paradoxa!
Caring Labor. Feminist EConomics 1 (1): 73-92.
Harris, Cheryl 1. 1993. Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law
RevieW 106 (8): 1707-91.
Jones, Jacqueline. 1985. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black
Women; Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present. New
York, N.Y.: Vintage Books.
___ . 1998. American Work: Four Centuries of Black and White
Labor. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton.
Martin, Molly. 1988. Hard-Hatted Women: Stories of Struggle and
Success in the Trades. Seattle, Wash.: Seal Press.
Matthiessen, Peter. 1983. In the Spirit. of Crazy Horse. Nt;w York,
N.Y.: Viking Press.
___ . 1984. Indian Country. New York, N.Y.: Viking Press.
McWilliams, Carey. 1968. North from Mexico: The Spanish-Speak-
ing People of the United States. New York, N.Y.: Greenwood
Press.
Pam, Rachel. 1991. Space,. Sexual Violence, and Social Control:
Integrating Geographical and Feminist Analyses of Women's
Fear of Crime. Progress in Human Geography 15 (4): 415-31.
Random House Dictionary 0/ the English Language, College ed.
1968. Laurence Urdang and Stuart Berg Flexner (eds.). New
York, N.Y.: Random House.
10 September 1999
Keeping People in Their Place
Julian Samora, Joe Bernal, and Albert Pena. 1979. Gunpowder
. Justice: A Reassessment of the Texas Rangers. Notre Dame,
Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.
Steckel, Richard H. 1986a. A Dreadful Childhood: The Excess
of American Slaves. Social Science History 10 (4):
427-65.
__ '_" 1986b. A Peculiar Population: The Nutrition, Health, and
Mortality of American Slaves from Childhood to Maturity.
Journal o/Economic Histqry XLVI (3): 721-42.
StorUeur, Richard A. and Richard Stille. 1989. Ending Men's
V;ic?lence Against Their Partners: One Road to Peace. Newbury
Pai-k, Calif.: Sage Publications.
Zinri, Howard. 1995. A People's History of the United States, 1492-
Present. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y.: HarperPerennial.
I!
Marte. King
Economics Department
POrtmd State University
P.O.'Box 751
Portland OR 97207
king!n@pdx.edu
1
i I
i'
1999

11