******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
I'm actually arguing from the tendency for wages to equalize at equal skill levels --- If there are open borders, then the international working class will move to higher wage (and higher SOCIAL wage) countries --- putting downward pressure on both --- Without a socialist (=workers') government to force capitalists to pay good wages to all, a social democratic government will be constantly facing a fight to keep capitalists from undercutting current wages by hiring the newest immigrants --- Will the population receiving the benefits of the social democratic "welfare state" permit immediate entry into the group of recipients? It is not LOGICALLY impossible -- it just would probably take as MUCH political mobilization as an outright seizure of power from the capitalists --- Think of how slavery ended -- not with solidarity between non-slaveholding Souhern whites and slaves but with a military conquest by the North followed by (in some states over a decade of) occupation by the union army to prevent ex Confederates from creating a system that was almost as bad as slavery --- AND THAT EFFORT was ultimately defeated. (by 1877 it had been defeated politically ---the short-lived trans-racial alliance of poor farmers under the Populist Party pre-1896 was also defeated --- leading to almost 60 years of Jim Crow -- which was also defeated not by a white-black alliance in the South but by federal law enforced by federal troops ---) In effect, I am arguing that OUR SIDE has a rough road ahead making the pro-solidarity argument in favor of open borders --- (by the way -- before the Labor Aristocracy argument you have Marx's writings that British workers needed to fight in solidarity with immigrant Irish workers -- RESISTING the tendency to oppose Irish immigration into Britain because the Irish would work for lower wages --- he famously stated in a letter to Engels (don't know the cite, sorry) that Britain not only had a Bourgeois Landowning class and a Bourgoisie proper but was developing a Bougeois working class --- "For a country that exploits the whole world, this is not surprising." (or something like that). it is not surprising that the period in which the US working class made its most significant gains vis a vis capital was between the Depession and the 1970s --- during which time as a result of draconian immigration laws adopted in the 1920s (as well as World War II and the depression) --- the percentage of the population that was immigrant fell dramatically --- only to begin rising after the immigration reform of 1965. Yes -- we must "storm heaven's gate" but we have to really work hard to make the solidarity case --- On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 1:03 PM A.R. G <amithrgu...@gmail.com> wrote: > > the social democratic model of high real wages and a strong > "social wage" created by some version of the welfare state (more generous > in Europe than in the US for sure) is unfortunately inconsistent with an > open borders reality > > Hi, > > Can you send some literature on this? I am assuming you are referring to > Lenin's idea about the labor aristocracy? On what empirical grounds do we > judge that social democracy is inconsistent with "open borders"? > > Amith R. Gupta > > > On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 8:02 AM Michael Meeropol via Marxism < > marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > >> ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** >> #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. >> #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. >> #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. >> ***************************************************************** >> >> Though I am mostly persuaded by comrade Chacon's arguments against the >> Nagle article (which I haven't read) I do believe that we on the left face >> a conundrum --- the social democratic model of high real wages and a >> strong >> "social wage" created by some version of the welfare state (more generous >> in Europe than in the US for sure) is unfortunately inconsistent with an >> open borders reality --- >> >> Obviously, the solution to the "push" that leads people to risk (and lose) >> their lives fleeing North Africa, Middle East wars, Central Ameican death >> squads and criminal gangs needs to be removed by massive revolutionary >> changes in the global South ---- the US and Europe can do a lot to >> ameliorate the situation --- (the US mostly does more harm than good, of >> course). >> >> But until real wages in the world become equal with a "race to the top" >> rather than a race to the bottom there will be a tension between open >> borders and (global north) working class incomes ---- >> >> Pushing solidarity is important but there is no question that this reality >> makes it doubly harder ... >> _________________________________________________________ >> Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm >> Set your options at: >> https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/amithrgupta%40gmail.com >> > _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
