Racism is a more specific case of a general human problem. That is the problem of not pushing to dismantle that which creates advantage for me and mine at the expense of you and yours. It is played politically all the time. It is played economically all the time. It is played tribally all the time. Part of it is the zero-sum game mentality — that something that advantages you comes as a loss to me. And to be fair, in many things there is a zero-sum game at work. This occurs whenever there is an inelastic boundary that defines the amount of a ‘resource’ that is available, and competition — red in tooth and claw — which creates winners and losers. The result of that is that the winners write the history and the structures that allow them to continue winning. A symptom of that is taller pyramids with very small apexes at the top, and submission by those further down the pyramids. Those at the base are the fungible humans, the throwaways, the expendable who travel in steerage. Those towards the middle are highly motivated to not be at the base, and they either win by holding or rising, or lose by sinking. The bad news is that the shape of the pyramid is tending towards narrow and tall, rather than wide and short. Add to this the understandable tendency to favour those closest to ourselves, and brutish competition and tribalism become the norm — driven by fear and greed.
This is the essential problem of capitalism which structurally favours competition over cooperation. And yes, communism, with centrally planned economics, suffers from the pyramid being so wide and short that many are frustrated when attempting to be creative and innovative. There would seem to be a shape of pyramid that provides an optimal balance, and I think that it tends more towards cooperation that competition. Now, people are locally social, and our will to address inequality diminishes with distance. We also have a vestment in things that we perceive of as working well for us, even if others who are largely out of sight bear the burden. However, something that needs to be kept in mind is that there are some aspects of structure within states and societies that need to remain and remain strong, and failure in that results in movement towards becoming a failed state. The fear of that creates a rigid response to ‘the other’, and especially amongst those who are not educated to think critically, and even amongst those of us who are, the emotions are the stronger driver, and especially fear — which is easily stoked when the level of general anxiety is at a chronically elevated state.
We live in an anxious age. There is anxiety about environmental degradation in general and climate change in the particular. There is anxiety over the future with respect to personal economic security as AI and robots will displace more and more people from economic participation. There is anxiety with regard to immigration, and especially if those who are coming into our state carry with them cultural values that are antithetical to our own. (Islamic mass migration from Syria is a major contributor to European far-right nationalist movements. Add a few terrorist events such as the Charlie Hebdo attacks that underline some very basic differences in values, and societies become primed for the next fascist strongmen.) Some of the problems of social disruption from immigration can be addressed with selection of individuals who are less rigid in their adherence to cultural values that are not miscible with ours. Some of it can be managed through dilution via geographic distribution, and the rate of immigration.
In Canada — where I live — we are fortunate. Geographically removed by oceans from the most troubled parts of the world — assuming the U.S. does not go through extreme turmoil and meltdown — affords us a degree of insulation, and hence, the luxury of feeling more secure. Even so, the general anxieties that I wrote about are not absent, though some of them are less intense, and that gives us some time to find ways to adapt sanely. Building confidence in and vesting the citizenry in the structures of government, including the judicial is essential. This is one of the reasons that such things as judicial and prison reform are very important, and countries like the Scandinavian states and Netherlands have a lot to teach us, if we can absorb those lessons. When, however, those who only care about their positions at or near the top of the pyramid use their positions to further advantage their very small group at the expense of others through the use of power and influence, the society and state is heading towards the Abyss in a vicious cycle. We are navigating against the headwinds of a narrowing socio-economic pyramid, rising general anxiety, and a tendency towards proud ignorance and stoked tribalism over critical thinking.
In short, the table is tipped and tipping further over time. This affords our society and human societies in general a very limited window to make changes that counter this dangerous pattern of behaviour, and it is one that is made probable by our instinctive and emotional response to a building general anxiety that is not going to disappear for many decades — if not centuries — even under the most optimistic scenarios. In conclusion, the causes are deep, old and instinctive, and that makes them hard problems.