My original entry under this
extremely current title was written eight years ago in the context of the
general theme of the section in which it appears: Contradiction in Terms, that is, the particular section of my book
dealing with questions of economics. Needless to say, the economics of labor
cannot be separated from the accompanying social issue. Here is the punchline
of that original entry:
***
“How
does American capitalism today, in the act of maximizing profits, solve the
problem of social dissatisfaction, which is the inevitable labor reaction to
the employer pushing the profit margins?
By essentially
suppressing the nation’s traditional working class, while using the demagoguery
of immigration in a way that encourages illegal immigration in large numbers,
to keep importing an alternative workforce from among the poor nations south of
the border, who, it is believed, will be only happy to improve their economic
situation and would not be causing their employers problems with social unrest
and all sorts of demands-demands-demands!
This
solution, however, has set off a number of ticking bombs, and they all keep
ticking away…”
***
This emphasis on the social
issues of immigration does not change the fact that we are dealing here with an
underlying economic problem of the labor force. As the reader will be able to
clearly see very shortly, my original treatment of the issue of immigration and
modern migration trends as such was focused predominantly on the economics of
labor migration.
Make no mistake, the focus on
economics does not preclude the necessary involvement of social and political
issues, all tied together in the predominantly economic package. At the same
time, there exist certain purely political considerations, which have nothing (sic!) to do with economics, and
that issue needs to be looked at quite separately and in isolation from the
economic factors.
But first things first. Let us
touch upon the economic aspect of immigration, even though much of this discussion
may turn out rather trivial. Indeed, there is a very familiar term for it,
known as economic migrant, or economic refugee. Many people without strong
roots in their own country believe that their home must be some place where
they expect to live better. And so they move to a “better place” out of purely
economic motivation, even if they frequently conceal the economic motive behind
convenient political talk.
It goes without saying that
skilled-labor immigration to the United States and to other developed
capitalist nations is in a different class from low-skilled immigration. There
are surely common threads, but it makes better sense not to bundle them
together.
Skilled-labor migration is
largely self-explanatory and relatively conflict-free, in so far as it causes
little if any social unrest and alienation. Indeed, elite labor force is gens
una sumus of sorts and it is seldom viewed with hostility or even within the
context of migration currents.
The economic dimension of low-skilled
and unskilled labor migration, including illegal immigration, is a different
story altogether but even so, it is pretty much straightforward. There is a
clear-cut tendency on the part of profit-oriented capitalist entrepreneurs to
either bring cheap foreign labor force into the country, or to take their
business to the cheap labor force outside the country. It is also clear that
illegal workforce inside the United States promises higher overall profit to
the employers, with lower wages and hardly a nod to basic social programs, for
which reason illegal immigration flourishes, despite all hypocritical protestations
regarding its inadmissibility. It does not take a Nobel Prize Laureate to
figure out that the real culprits of illegal immigration are not the illegals,
but those who welcome the illegals into the country.
We can go on and on and on
talking about this, but as I said before, this discussion will be touching all
familiar bases and in that sense will eventually drown in its triviality. For
which reason let us now change the angle of our discussion. Out with elementary
economics, in with by no means elementary politics.
To be continued…
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