Awatere’s Māori Sovereignty Reveals the Obscured Core of Capitalism

Abstract

The effects of capitalism are ubiquitous; however, the core is obscured behind hegemonic power that serves to continuously disempower and exploit the vast majority of people and the environment. As the neoliberal project unleashes capitalism on a global scale (Neilson, 2020, 2021), Marx’s early prediction that capitalism would spread to the four corners of the globe is reflected in the domination of capitalism in this social formation. However, this domination is by no means a homogenous experience. White supremacy runs through the veins of capitalism, weaving assertions of white superiority through the terrain that is wrenched open by colonial projects. Capitalism as a mode of production was thrust upon Māori in Aotearoa. Capitalism displaced (and displaces) the Māori mode of production, a way of life that is fundamentally antithetical to the individualised, privatised, exploitative mode of production foisted upon these lands by British colonialists and their descendants.