Englert begins by outlining the history of colonialism and, closely related to this, the development of racist ideologies that sought to justify colonialism. Here he draws heavily on the analysis of writers like Gerald Horne whose books on settler colonialism in the Americas I have reviewed before. Englert's account of colonialism reminds the reader of the sheer horrors of that colonialism, and the cynicism by which racist ideas were constructed in order to make it acceptable. Indeed Englert notes that the attempts to downplay colonialism's genocidal policies continue today, for instance in the focus that is often placed on "disease" as a killer in the Americas. This, he points out, was important, but "its role is often overstated - or at least extracted from a more general picture of settler violence and murder". It is this violence that is key to understanding what happened in colonialism, and the construction of settler colonial states.
Settler colonialism in general does not separate colonialism from the rise of capitalism. As Englert notes, "the accumulation of wealth in the Americas, based on the murder, enslavement and dispossession of Indigenous and African peoples, kick-started the rise of European empires on the world stage... which laid the ground for an accelerated emergence of capitalist relations of production and the intensification of exploitation at home."
This is important because there is a close link between the impact of colonialism and the development of "settler states" and the progress of capitalism, and its exploitation, in the heart of the colonial powers themselves. The dispossession of hundreds of thousands of peasants from land in Europe, was closely associated with the rise of industrial capitalism, as well as the movement of settlers to places like the Americas and Australasia.
Settler societies emerged, most strikingly in the colonies that would become the US, which attempted to develop polities free from a reliance on the Indigenous populations. Their economies would be primarily dependent on settler smallholders and European bonded labourers on the one hand, and impotred enslaved African populations on the other.
This highlights a problem for settler colonial theory, in that the experience of colonialism itself was different around the world. Some colonial projects had a genocidal policy towards indigenous people - eg in New Zealand, others saw indigenous people as making up the enslaved people for the rise of capital.
The centrality of racism to colonialism is important, in part because it helps understand how it was possible for relatively small powers to violently dominant much larger land masses by mobilising the dispossed against the indigenous people. The construction of "whiteness" which gave settlers an identification with their own ruling class, despite being the victims of an exploitative relationship with them, was part of making the settlers buy into the process. While there was solidarity between the oppressed within Settler societies, and indigenous people, it wasn't the norm, though it was not uncommon, as this important piece from Australian socialists makes clear.
Racism, Englert, argues is so central to the colonial project that fighting racism has to be linked to "ending the underlying process of domination that gave birth to it. Only by ending the social reality of settler domination can the ideology that normalises it die". Marxists or revolutionary socialists would not disagree with this. That racism is part of capitalism, and for racism to end, so must capitalism, is something that has been associated with revolutionary ideas since the days of Marx and Engels. Englert reminds us, however, that we have to ensure that all racist ideas are included within this. He criticises "much of the literature on Whiteness for failing to address Indigenous dispossesion alongside the enslavement of African populations in racism's emergence and reproduction".
The existence of racism, against Black and indigenous people, underminded the struggle of white workers for their own emancipation. But, Englert takes this further. He argues that settler colonialism means that white workers had, and continue to have, an interest in furthering it. This is undoubtably true of the past. Englert lists a number of occasions when the unity of Black and white workers threatened the structures of colonial power enough for violent measures to be taken to prevent such unity again. He also notes the large number of times when white workers, and their organisations - including trade unions and left parties - organised against black workers.
Englert argues:
Far from challenging the process of settler expansion, settler workers repeatedly played a key role in intensifying racial segregation and Indigenous dispossesssions. Settler class struggle was fought simultaneously against settler bosses and Indigenous workers. Settler labour movements demanded both an increase in their share of value extracted from their own labour power, as well as from the colonial loot extracted through the dispossession of Indigenous peoples. From Australia's labour-led "White-Australia" campaign to the French labour movement's near-unanimous opposition to Algerian indendence, across the colonial world, settler workers fought for the exclusion and dispossession of Indigenous and racialised people, and did so while deploying socialist, communist, or even internationalist rhetoric.
While acknowledging that there have been significant and succesful attempts to challenge racism by activists and the left in all of the settler states, does Englert's argument here remain the case? In a key part of the book, Englert discusses the nature of Settler Colonialism, and writes about "settler quietism" which he explains is "the fact that all settler classes, despite their internal social tensions and conlicts, depend on the Indigenous population's continued dispossesssion, as well as on the settler state to impose their dominance and distribute the colonial loot. Even when the situation escalates to internal military confrontation, peace can be re-established not through structural change but through the intensification of colonial violence, to the settler population's collective benefit."
Here, Englert is arguing that in settler colonial states, all "settler classes" benefit from the structures and activity of Settler Colonialism, which allows the ruling class to buy off workers. But is is that still true today? There is perhaps an argument that this is taking place in Israel, where the displacement of Palestinian people, is allowing material benefits to some Israeli workers in terms of land. This is an argument made by Englert. But is it true of the settler colonial states of Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand today? I am unsure. Englert continues:
Similar to the case of racism... land distribution and economic advantages to settler workers serve as powerful tools for stabilisation of settler rule. They also facilitate the economy's continued functioning as well as the reproduction of both the settler state's and capitalist class's power. In that sense, settler workers participate in securing their continued exploitation, in exchange for land and comparatively better working conditions.
I don't think it is tenable to say this is continuing everywhere and Englert offers no numerical evidence to suggest it is happening. So either Englert's arguments don't fit, or there isn't such a thing as settler colonialism. To argue the theory as no value would be entirely wrong. As Englert's book makes clear, the theory does offer many insights, even while it doesn't necessarily have a single agreed "line". What I think needs to be added to Englert's analysis is a more detailed exploration of settler colonialism as a process that takes place over time - and frequently a long time. What happened to Native Americans until the Massacre at Wounded Knee when the frontier was declared "closed", and what that meant for "settler classes", is different now to how the continued repression and oppression of Native American people impacts on working class Amercians (Black and white).
But the process itself also matters. It is undoubtably true that people from working class backgrounds went to colonial countries. But those settlers who were "bought off" with land in the early days of (say) Canada or North American colonial history, were no longer workers. Buying them off like this, transformed their class position. They became farmers or smallholders. This is not the same as saying "settler workers" benefited as workers from the continued disspossession of indigenous people and land - and consequently secured their own continued exploitation. It is not correct to say that this process continues in (say) Australia. Israel/Palestine is a different case, which highlights the necessity of understanding specific settler colonialisms in their wider context, particularly that of the global imperialist system.
In general, with the exception of Israel and the case of South Africa under Apartheid, I don't think it is right to argue that workers benefit from settler colonialism. In Australia settler colonialism allowed some of the settler lower orders to avoid becoming wage labourers in that continent. But the workers who did not benefit like this remained workers, and saw no benefit from settler colonialism. Indeed, the racism that went alongside, undermined their position and their ability to fight for better conditions. Englert says that white Australian workers get "land and comparatively better working conditions" out of these relations. But this is simply not accurate. Englert would need to provide more detailed examples to justify this point today. Clarity on this is important, for if "settler workers" do benefit from settler colonialism, than it makes the process of workers' self emancipation either harder or impossible.
Workers everywhere have every interest in defeating racism, and the system that uses it, and they can only do so through completely unity with indigenous people, and principled opposition to all forms of racism.
These are significant criticisms of Englert's book, but it is made in the spirit of arguing that the book is a contribution to the debates that seek to understand a world where imperialist powers continue to destroy the lives of billions of people, dispossing, oppressing and exploiting them in a unrelating drive to accumulate capital. Much more discussion and clarity is needed.
Related Reviews
Horne - The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism
Horne - The Dawning of the Apocalypse
Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth
Clayton-Dixon - Surviving New England
Tully - Crooked Deals and Broken Treaties
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