Ken writes regarding Mark's comments, and immigration-
<You ask elsewhere for the reader to imagine a (successful) capitalism
with an absolutely declining population level. Indeed, unthinkable! And
yet, there have been one or two people on this list who boldly and
brashly advocate massive, unrestricted immigration as a "socialist"
measure. I would ask all who take this question seriously (which
presumably includes the bulk of this list) to comment on immigration
policies in light of this understanding of the relationship between the
size of the "surplus" popu;lation, the downward pressure on wages, and
the increase in the accumulation of capital.>
Ken, nobody is an 'advocate' of massive, unrestricted immigration as a
socialist measure, as you put it. The question is what to do about
people arriving on THEIR own, under capitalism? Because they will.
You seem to believe that immigrant arrival to the US, is somehow
responsible for the continued stability of capitalism here, and the fall
of American wages. Therefore it must be struggled against at all
costs. This belief implicitly condones capitalist enforcement of
immigration law, and to favor making those laws stricter and yet more of
an impediment to the world's poor.
I find this to be a rather bizarre program for a pacifist, Christian
socialist, as I believe you would charecterize yourself. Or at least
you have done, in private correspondence between the two of us.
What is most disturbing, is your effort to reduce down your support for
enforcement of capitalist immigration laws, to some sort of strict
economic and population control necessity. A supposed pragmatism
that refuses to look at other factors beyond the economics of the
situation, as you see it. No time for Christian charity here.
And to make things worse, you have not proven even the economic case of
immigrants supposedly lowering US wages, making unionization impossible,
and stabilizing capitalism indefinitely in the US. These are merely
your assertions without any proof or substance, that grotesquely
exaggerate the supposed fault of immigrants, without factoring in even
other economic reasons, let alone the social reasons.
What I find absurd, is that immigration flow to the US has worked to
stabilize Mexican capitalism, more than any supposed negative effect it
has had in the US. But since you are strictly concerned with this
question only within the confines of the US borders, any effort to
expand this dialog to what effect population flow has been having in the
Third World, will probably appear totally superfluous to you. You
never have mentioned these considerations that I know about.
Ultimately, what all advocates for enforcement of laws restricting
immigration cannot get away from, is that enforement requires police
abuse. Oh, oh, but let the police and immigration authorities do
their work in a kind manner! Place the enforcement on the
corporations, instead of the poor!
This naivete, is on the same caliber of NGOs that place faith in
capitalist policing of the world, to maintain a more humanitarian world
environment. We, the socialist Left, are going to call on
'progressive' governments to enforce 'progressive' laws to force
corporations to stop the flow valve of immigrants.... and TOTALLY?
Why not just go ahead and overthrew these corporations while we are
about it? Is there really some sort of midway point in keeping
people out of 'our private property', if they just keep insisting in
coming in?
There are basically two things that can be done. And I learned this
at a swimming pool area surrounded by Section 8 Housing. You invite
the kids to come in, or you call the police after the repeated threats
that have limited effect.
Ken, you shall want to know, that the response of the apartment complex
management and my immediate neighbors, was to get rude, threatening, and
indignant with me. "We paid extra so as not to have to have those
kids around". They didn't care about the kids. End of
argument. To them it was nothing but just stupidity and ignorance
on my part. the effects of too much good will.
Actually, when the kids came in repeatedly, the environment improved.
We swam together, and played together. When I got overruled, and
the kids were kept out, a wave of vandalism soon made things dangerous.
Does this just reinforce your belief, this little story, that US
capitalism will fall if we put up a bigger, more impenetrable wall?
Or is there another point that you can see in this analogy?
The point I want to stress, the basic argument of the neighbors was the
same as yours. Private property- Stay Out. Even when it wasn't
THEIR private property!
Tony Abdo
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