Brian wrote: Citizenship is based on rights and responsibilities. If citizens do not > have the right to be protected against the wage competition fostered by > neoliberal open-border policies, they will not accept the responsibility of > paying taxes for social programs.
This is economic nationalist mythology, in a nutshell. Each of its key points (the subtraction of migrants from tax revenue, the claim of wage competition, the fiction of open borders) are addressed here: https://mfr.osf.io/render?url=https%3A%2F%2Fosf.io%2Ffgxru%2Fdownload Or perhaps this is an easier link: https://osf.io/fgxru/ As to the "rift between a neo-traditionalist socialist political left and an intersectional political left" mentioned by Florian, this has an earlier antecedent that involves a split along similar lines: the split within social democratic parties over nationalism during the First World war, one part of which aligned with fascism and national socialism. That is, Nagle does not represent an older Left battling against a new, intersectional Left. Nagle's "traditionalist-socialism" is derived from Catholic social doctrines, hence the antipathy to every "identity politics" (really, let's be honest, this is a euphemism for queer, feminist and antiracist politics) except that of nationalism. Nagle repeats every conservative Catholic trope in defense of the (white) patriarchal family to explain (and rationalise) the resurgence of the far Right.* National Affair*, which published her article, was founded by a pro-Trump blogger, who has since lamented Trump's failure to bring about a growth in support for nationalism, and a guy who is a member of the Knights of Malta. This is not to say there is nothing new about contemporary debates and divisions. It is to underline that Nagle is not drawing on some old Left. She seems to have little if any understanding of the history of the Left, only enough to be able to troll the gullible. In addition to the article which began this thread, there have been other responses to Nagle's article, eg: https://libcom.org/blog/shocking-new-development-angela-nagles-left-case-against-open-borders-shithouse-23112018 Which follows on from this: https://libcom.org/blog/5-big-problems-angela-nagle-kill-all-normies-24052018 By the by, this note on Frederick Douglass, is indicative of the way in which Nagle routinely twists matters and facts around: https://twitter.com/libcomorg/status/1067799368420474881 The quote from Marx is not even taken directly from Marx, but lifted from another article, and read out of context. Nagle makes an inferential leap that she hopes no one notices. Marx makes no argument for border controls, nor does he make an argument that there should be border controls to allay the racism of the English. He is making an argument premised on who has power within an empire: that is, for English workers to support independence from the British empire. Nagle is promoting US and European nationalism, today. False equivalence is a problem of logic and a failure of political integrity. Marx would be rolling in his grave at the grifters and charlatans. He was a refugee from an increasingly nationalist Germany. Had borders existed in his time as they do now, he may not have been able to live out the rest of his adult life in London and written the words that these grifters twist around to make arguments inverse to his meaning. best, Angela
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