# XV: There Are No Inferior Races explained — Moribund Society and Anarchy > Chapter companion for Moribund Society and Anarchy by Jean Grave. ## What happens The chapter argues against the concept of inferior races, linking it to colonial exploitation and class oppression. It critiques scientific attempts to justify racial hierarchy, refuting arguments based on antiquity, climate, and failed education experiments. The author contends that all races have equal potential and that claims of superiority merely serve to justify exploitation and extermination. ## Themes in this chapter ### Critique of Private Property The chapter links racial exploitation to capitalist exploitation, arguing that the worker is treated as a beast of burden for the 'elect.' ### Human Nature and Society The chapter challenges the idea of inherent racial inferiority, arguing that environment and opportunity shape development. ### Militarism and the State Critique of colonial violence and state-sponsored extermination of indigenous peoples under the guise of racial superiority. ## Character check-ins ### Unknown Narrator The narrator speaks as a worker, rejecting the notion of inferior races and defending the potential of all peoples. ### The Workman Referenced as 'we workers' who do not believe themselves lower than exploiters, asserting equal capacity for cultivation. ### Their Masters Implied as the capitalist and political class who use race inferiority arguments to justify exploitation. ### The Anarchists Implied as the collective voice opposing racial hierarchy and colonial violence. ## Key lines > Does it mean, then, that for the capitalist, and even for certain savants, the worker is but a beast of burden whose sole role consists in creating prosperity for the 'elect,' and reproducing other beasts of burden who in their turn may work out the happiness of the descendants of the 'elect,' and so on? The capitalist and some scholars view workers as mere tools to generate wealth for the elite, perpetuating a cycle of exploitation. _The narrator equates racial and class exploitation, arguing both are justified by claims of inferiority._ > If it had sought to bring them up to a higher phase of development, it could only have done so after the course of a long evolution; but it has never desired to educate; it has desired to exploit, and exploitation becomes extermination in the long run. The white race never intended to educate other races, only to exploit them, which ultimately leads to their destruction. _The chapter concludes that racial superiority claims are a pretext for genocide._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/moribund_society_and_anarchy_se/chapters/xv-there-are-no-inferior-races - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/moribund_society_and_anarchy_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/moribund_society_and_anarchy_se/chapters