Frazier concludes that, whether in the black press or in business, âthe black bourgeoisie have shown no interest in the âliberationâ of Negroesââthat is, unless âit affected their own status or acceptance by the white community.â At every opportunity, âthe black bourgeoisie has exploited the Negro masses as ruthlessly as have whites.â Frazier surely overstates things here, but his book is a window into a common phenomenon. To better understand the broader dynamic, we can look to philosopher C. Thi Nguyenâs work on games. As he explains in his new book Games: Agency as Art (2020), confusing the real world with the carefully incentivized structure of game worlds can lead to a phenomenon he calls âvalue capture,â a process by which we begin with rich and subtle values, encounter simplified versions of them in social life, and then revise our values in the direction of simplicity. Nguyen is careful to point out that value capture doesnât require anyoneâs deliberate or calculated intervention, only an environment or incentive structure that encourages excess value clarity. Nguyen stops short of noting that another risk of gamifying values is the unequal distribution of power across participants. But outside of the world of games, power differentials do shape outcomes. Value capture is managed by elites, on purpose or not. In other words, elites donât simply participate in our community; their decisions help to structure it, much in the way that game designers structure the world of games. After all, elites face a simpler version of oppression than non-elites do: whereas working-class black folk are pressed by racial slights and degradation alongside economic problems that might require âsocialized medicineâ to solve, elitesâs economic position makes them comfortable enough to focus on their own status and cultural powerâoften at the expense of non-elites.
Identity Politics and Elite Capture - Boston Review
