Introduction to the Special Issue on Capitalist World-Economy in Crisis

Abstract

While managing the working class has been a central concern of capitalist ruling classes throughout history, contemporary restructuring in the face of slowed growth, declining profit rates, climate change and environmental degradation makes the question of maintaining social order, and hence of policing, more important than ever before. We decided to focus this special issue on the various modalities of policing to secure, maintain, and reproduce existing racialized class structures at this moment of world-systemic crisis. In this introduction, we try to situate the urgency of understanding the relationship between policing, pacification, and legitimacy in the larger context of the capitalist world-economy in crisis. We then turn to a summary of the contributions to highlight the main themes that emerge in this Special Issue. Just two months into a global health pandemic, the world watched as a white police officer slowly choked to death a working class Black man over an alleged $20 counterfeit bill outside of a Minneapolis corner store. George Floyd’s death sparked militant protests throughout the United States not seen since the urban rebellions of the 1960s. Taking direction action, the Black-led and ISSN: 1076-156X | Vol. 27 Issue 1 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2021.1054 | jwsr.pitt.edu