Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Racial Contract, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Global White Supremacy
Racism in Philosophy
Cognitive Distortion and White Ignorance
Racism’s Historical Evolution
Summary
Analysis
As radical feminist thinkers have pointed out, patriarchy is much older than racism. This is because racism only came about in the modern era, through the racial contract. (In fact, Mills thinks that the racial contract created the very concept of race, as well as racism based on it.)
Mills puts racism in historical context so that he can explain what kind of ideas and circumstances drove it, and therefore what kind of ideas and circumstances can help end it. Of course, he’s not suggesting that people of different races always lived in harmony before racism—rather, he’s saying that people only started sorting one another into a hierarchy of racial categories in the modern world (meaning after the beginning of European colonialism in the late 15th century).
Themes
The classical social contract theorists, who believed in liberty and equality for all people, were writing from about 1615–1800. At the same time, European colonizers were massacring and enslaving non-white people around the world. This is an obvious contradiction. But there’s a clear explanation for it: European philosophers thought that only white men really counted as people. Therefore, when they philosophized about the social contract, they were really proposing the racial contract. Mills will next examine the key writings of the four major classic social contract theorists—Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant—to show that they openly wanted to reserve personhood, and therefore membership in society, exclusively for white men.
In this passage, Mills states his core argument about philosophy’s responsibility for the racial contract: Enlightenment philosophers proposed the person/subperson distinction that the racial contract needed to function, and then also theorized about the social contract in order to suggest that their vision of society was truly ideal. In other words, the social contract was like a deceptive marketing campaign for colonialism. Philosophers argued that Europeans would create better, more “civilized” societies around the world, when they were really destroying other countries and massacring and enslaving other peoples.
Themes
Thomas Hobbes famously argued that the state of nature is a constant state of war, in which people live “nasty, brutish, and short” lives. He argued that this state of nature never actually existed, but in the next paragraph, he claimed that “savage people” in the Americas were currently living in it. Mills argues that this apparent contradiction is only possible because Hobbes meant that the state of nature never existed for white people (whom he considered rational enough to choose to live under a government).
In Hobbes’s philosophy, people form society in order to avoid living in the treacherous state of nature—and forming society means submitting to the rule of a government. Therefore, he suggested that Europeans were rational because they chose to live under governments, while “savage people” were inferior because they either chose not to live in society or never realized that living in society would be better for them. Because “savages” didn’t realize that it was better to be ruled over by a government, Hobbes’s thinking goes, it would be justified for Europeans to impose government on them. In short, Hobbes’s theory of society leads to a justification for colonialism.
Themes
Although Hobbes makes a clear moral and cognitive distinction between white and non-white people, he was controversial in Europe because he suggested that Europeans hypothetically could have lived in a state of nature—meaning they could fall to the same level as non-white people. But later social contract theories divided white and non-white people more strictly, which shows that over time, “the Racial Contract began to rewrite the social contract.”
The difference that Mills highlights between Hobbes and later Enlightenment philosophers is that Hobbes didn’t believe in an essential difference between white and non-white people—he thought that white people could live like uncivilized savages, and non-white people could live in society (meaning under the power of a government). The fact that Hobbes’s hierarchy was less strict than later philosophers’ shows that racism—or the idea of an inherent hierarchy among different racial groups—actually strengthened over time in European philosophy. This also disproves the common assumption that modern societies automatically become more egalitarian and less racist over time.
Themes
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Next, John Locke imagined the state of nature as a kind of cooperative society based on the natural laws of money and private property. Therefore, he argued that “Industrious and Rational” people had a God-given right to use the earth—by which he meant settling land and establishing farms. Because Native Americans didn’t live in this kind of settlement pattern, Locke concluded that they didn’t have a true right to own their land as property. In contrast, he thought, Europeans had a God-given right to take and settle this land.
For Locke, natural laws were simply the common-sense basis of all legitimate human society. But from a contemporary perspective, it’s easy to see how Locke’s assumptions about how money, property, and God-given rights should work are actually specific to European Protestantism. When Locke didn’t understand non-European civilization, he simply decided that this civilization must not exist at all. In other words Locke preferred to deny other people’s humanity, rather than considering the possibility that there might be other legitimate ways to view the world.
Themes
Locke also defended enslaving people under some circumstances. While these did not include the circumstances in which Europeans enslaved Africans, Locke personally invested in slave traders. The best explanation for this “astonishing inconsistency” is that Locke didn’t see Black people as fully human.
Locke’s position on slavery looks contradictory today, as it is, of course, widely understood that non-white people are human. But to Locke and the people around him, this contradiction wasn’t even noticeable, because non-white people were widely believed to be subhuman. This is not a way of excusing Locke’s bigotry as simply a product of his time—rather, it’s a way of showing how racism was seen as common sense, and how deeply Lock incorporated racist beliefs into his thinking. Instead of ignoring the grave social and historical errors in past philosophers’ work, Mills implies, contemporary scholars should seriously examine how those errors influenced the work in question.
Themes
Jean-Jacques Rousseau famously imagined the “noble savage” living freely in the state of nature. However, he only depicted non-white people as savages. Meanwhile, he argued that Europe was superior because of its special metallurgy and agriculture, which he believed the Americas didn’t have. However, Mills points out that the Aztec and Inca had highly developed metallurgy and agriculture. Based on “massive historical amnesia and factual misrepresentation,” Rousseau defined non-white people as savages and white people as civilized.
Unlike most other social contract theorists, Rousseau praised “noble savages” and looked down on civilization, which he considered oppressive and vile. In this sense, his theory resembles Mills’s, because both of them want to look at how society actually formed (and not how an ideal society would be structured). However, Rousseau’s “massive historical amnesia and factual misinterpretation” make his lofty historical goals irrelevant: although he pretended to write an accurate history, he really ended up writing a prejudiced theory of human hierarchy.
Themes
Finally, Immanuel Kant imagined the social contract as an imaginary agreement among abstract people, whose personhood is defined by their rationality. He also invented the modern concept of race by arguing that people fit into essential and unchanging racial categories. He then argued that race determines rationality (or intelligence). White philosophers generally view Kant’s racism as an irrelevant footnote, but it was clearly important to Kant, who focused much of his career on arguing for the inferiority of non-white people.
Kant explicitly connected race to personhood, which Mills has identified as the racial contract’s moral and legal standard for equal inclusion in society. Although not the first to connect race, rationality, and political rights, Kant was the first of the major social contract theorists to say that membership in society should depend entirely on rationality (rather than historical or cultural factors). Essentially, he argued that non-white people were incapable of rational thinking and were therefore subhuman and undeserving of basic human rights and liberties. This is a far more extreme position than his predecessors’. In Hobbes’s worldview, white people could fall back into the state of nature. Locke, too, implied that non-white people could theoretically start obeying natural laws. And Rousseau suggested that it would be possible for non-Europeans to have metallurgy and agriculture—he just ignored the fact that they actually did. Kant, then, was seemingly the first to say that non-white people were essentially and unalterably inferior to white people. Whereas Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau’s theories imply that white people can “civilize” nonwhite people, Kant’s implies that non-white people would never be able to overcome their inferiority or achieve equality with white people. Beyond laying the foundation for modern genocidal race politics, Kant’s theory of race also shows how racism gradually solidified itself over time, transforming from a vague sense of European superiority into a rigid hierarchy of absolute categories.
Themes
Kant drew up a detailed hierarchy of different races depending on “their degree of innate talent.” He argued that this included their ability to recognize morality and respect others’ humanity. By putting white people on top of this hierarchy, he argued that only white people are fully rational, fully human, and fully capable of joining a social contract. Mills points out that contemporary white philosophers agonize about how some of their idols, like Paul de Man and Martin Heidegger, were Nazis. Meanwhile, they overlook the fact that Kant, the most important modern philosopher of all, invented the racial hierarchy that the Nazis used to justify the Holocaust.
Even though Kant is famous for making clear analytical distinctions, his ambiguous concept of “innate talent” generally isn’t seen as scientifically valid today. Again, this shows how racism presents itself as common sense, and how common sense constantly transforms over time. Mills views Kant’s theory of race as the prototype for contemporary racism because Kant was the first to neatly organize people into racial categories and then put those categories into a strict hierarchy. Because this worldview is inflexible, it’s conducive to extreme political measures like genocide or slavery. In contrast, for Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, non-white people’s potential equality with white people meant that they were simply less human and still had some political rights. This is why Mills concludes that Kant laid the philosophical groundwork for the Holocaust: he was the first to explicitly argue that non-white people are subhuman and do not deserve equality, human rights, or basic political freedoms.
Themes
Mills concludes that the racial contract “underwrites the social contract,” meaning that it “restricts and modifies” the community to whom the social contract applies. As the racial contract changes across time and space, the scope of the social contract changes, too. Therefore, both the racial and social contracts are “continually being rewritten” as political and historical conditions change.
The racial contract is like the fine print under the social contract: if the social contract describes a just society for human beings, the racial contract specifies who really counts as a human being. This is why white philosophers can sincerely believe they’re developing theories of justice that apply to everyone, yet never mention slavery, colonialism, or global inequality. They aren’t really talking about everyone, but they don’t realize this because white supremacy distorts their worldview.
Themes
Mills divides world history into three periods: first is the time before white supremacy. Next is the era of “formal, juridical white supremacy” during colonization, slavery, and legally enshrined segregation. Finally, there’s the present day, in which “de facto” or informal white supremacy reigns.
Mills’s three periods again show how the racial contract adapts over time to preserve white supremacy. The shift from the second to the third historical period—formal to informal white supremacy—is crucial for understanding Mills’s argument. This is because this shift has enabled contemporary politics and philosophy to claim race-neutrality while still perpetuating white supremacy.
Themes
In today’s epoch of informal white supremacy, the racial hierarchy is no longer written into law. Nevertheless, white people continue to dominate the globe because of social, economic, political, and cultural power that they acquired through colonization, slavery, and segregation. Most white people no longer explicitly believe in white supremacy, and non-white people formally have rights. But the racial contract still functions implicitly, through informal mechanisms like widespread discrimination, misallocation of resources, and a general public acceptance of deep inequality, both globally and within nations.
During the era of formal white supremacy, the notion of a racial hierarchy was common sense to most white people. Now, discrimination happens more subtly, and race-neutrality appears to be the new common sense. By encouraging white people to assume that racism no longer exists, this common sense prevents them from taking steps to correct the inequality that still exists. Therefore, to Mills, race-neutral ideology is clearly just another cognitive distortion that helps white people justify their power and privilege without having to give any of it up.
Themes
Globally, modern capitalism makes it difficult to see how Europe and North America’s wealth depends on the rest of the world. Many white thinkers attribute Europe’s success to its unique rationality and the rest of the world’s poverty to “local folly and geographical blight.”
Race-neutrality implies that global imbalances in wealth and power between white and non-white people are not the product of white supremacy, but rather of inherent historical, cultural, or biological differences. Ironically, this ultimately leads back to another argument for white racial superiority. This shows that contemporary white race-blindness doesn’t mean that white supremacy or the racial contract have ended: these ways of thinking and of organizing society have just become subtler over time.
Themes
Within multiracial nations, white people pretend that non-white people are political equals yet continue to systematically discriminate against them and mobilize political resources to deny them actual equality. As a result, while non-white people constantly confront implicit racism, white people simply deny that it exists—just like fish who can’t see the water they’re swimming in.
These examples show how contemporary race-neutrality is really an attempt to rescue white supremacy by disguising it. Here, Mills also points out that white supremacy makes white people unaware of what they’re doing. This helps explain why white philosophers—as well as the white public—often believe that they are truly defending equality and justice, when they are actually advocating for racial inequality and injustice.
Themes
When white and non-white people debate the importance of race in society, Mills argues, they’re really debating whether the racial contract exists. As a hypothetical theory of how society should work, the social contract replaces difficult realities with idealized abstractions. Namely, it abstracts away from racism and instead talks about the structure of society as though racism didn’t exist. As numerous non-white scholars have pointed out, this creates a kind of imaginary neutrality that hides actual racism.
Abstraction is important in philosophy, which is essentially based on grouping information and experiences together into concepts, and then determining the relationships among those concepts. However, Mills points out that philosophers often bring their biases and prejudices into the abstraction process. For instance, they base their theories on concepts that are only relevant to certain groups of people, but which they imagine to be universal. Often, this is because they cannot imagine seeing the world from the perspective of a non-white person. As a result, their theories are not only disconnected from people’s real experiences—they’re also far less useful in the real world, because they don’t speak to many of the most important social and political problems facing humanity.
Themes
This imaginary neutrality is what allows the world’s most influential white philosophers to write up elaborate theories of justice and society without ever mentioning racism or slavery. Mills concludes that these white philosophers are still thinking within and according to the racial contract. Instead of recognizing the racial contract’s existence, history, and effects, they instead imagine that racism never existed and pretend that the present situation of severe global inequality is a “neutral baseline.” Often, they even pretend that there is no historical or economic connection between the First World’s wealth and the Third World’s poverty.
The examples that Mills provides here illustrate how bias often leads philosophers to justify inequalities rather than challenging them. By discussing society and justice without historical context, they pretend that racial inequality is a minor glitch in the history of progressive societies. But the racial contract has always included white philosophers and will always include them as long as white supremacy persists, so they do not even see it—they see the social contract instead. This leads them to continue assuming that the social contract is a useful metaphor for the experience of people living in society, when in reality it doesn’t describe the lived experiences of most people.
Themes
The racial contract also evolves by shifting the definitions of whiteness and non-whiteness. Over time, whiteness generally expands to include more people, although certain groups (like the Nazis) occasionally try to shrink it. Indeed, Europeans frequently discriminate against other Europeans, such as “the Irish, Slavs, Mediterraneans, and above all, of course, Jews.” This shows that there are internal hierarchies inside the categories of whiteness and the category of non-whiteness. This also proves that race is social, not biological, as groups get classified differently depending on the context.
Although most people identify with the same racial group throughout their lifetimes, on a broader historical scale, these categories are flexible social constructs that adapt to specific social and political conditions. The levels of privilege within whiteness do not disprove Mills’s argument that white supremacy divides the world between white and non-white people—after all, there are also many divisions of privilege within non-whiteness. Rather, this just means that certain groups’ whiteness is precarious: they can be excluded from the racial contract at any time.
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