From: "chris wright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: AUT: Re: Relationship between Immigration and capitalism
Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 09:57:07 -0600


A friend of mine has a scathing critique of this in his PhD dissertation.
It is very anti-immigrant.  I will try and find the discussio of it for you.

Cheers,
Chris
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Handelman" <mhandelman1-AT-yahoo.com>
To: <aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>; <psn-AT-csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2003 10:12 PM
Subject: AUT: Relationship between Immigration and capitalism


> I found this section very reactionary in an otherwise
> excellent book, "Turning Back: The Retreat from Racial
> Justice in American thought and policy" by Stephen
> Steinberg. The author is obviously on the Left (his
> critique of neo-conservatism, and "culture of poverty"
> theories is excellent) but his views on Immigration
> seem quite reactionary. I'm wondering what other
> people make of it.
>
> In order to try to keep it in context, I'll read the
> small part before the reactionary bit:
>
> "Any serious effort to resume the unfinished racial
> agenda must begin with the detailed policy agenda laid
> out by the Kerner Commission in 1968. At the top of
> this agenda was a series of proposals dealing with
> employment, consistent with the promise of the
> Employment Act of 1946 to provide useful job at a
> reasonable wage for all who wish to work." Specific
> proposals included beefing up the enforcement powers
> of the Equal Employment Oppotunities Commission,
> creating new jobs in both the public and private
> sectors, providing subsidies to employers to hire and
> train the hard core unemployed, and launching programs
> of economic development and social reconstruction
> targeted for poverty areas and the racial ghettos."
>
> So far this is fairly moderate left (social
> democratic) program, which while I am well to the left
> of this program, I wouldn't deem it "reactionary".
> Here comes the reactionary bit:
>
> "Two other policy initiatives follow from the analysis
> in this chapter
>
> 1. Immigration policy must take into account the
> legitimate interests of native workers, especially
> those on the economic margin. After all, the meaning
> of citizenship is diminished if it does not include
> the right to a job at a decent wage. For African
> Americans who have toiled on American soil for
> centuries, and whose sons and daughters have died in
> the nation's war, for the case for national action is
> especially urgent . Today we are confronted with the
> spectacle of these oldest of Americans again being
> being passed over by new waves of immigrants. It is
> difficult to escape the conclusion that present
> immigration policy not only subverts the cause of
> racial justice, but given the immense human and social
> costs of the racial status quo, is also antithetical
> to the national interests."
>
> This seems to me to be a rather reactionary perhaps
> even nativist position. But then we see an attempt to
> mitigate the reactionary elements to this position:
>
> "To be sure, other principles weigh on the formulation
> of immigrant policy. Many Immigrantsespecially
> Mexicans who are migrating to territory once possessed
> by Mexicohave historical and moral claim for access
> to American labor markets. Also to be considered is
> the proud liberal tradition of America as an asylum
> for the dispossessed [mh: what about the McCarran Act
> of 1950?]. Like the Immigrants of yore, the new
> immigrants contribute immeasurably to the "building of
> America," its culture as well as its economy. These
> factors hpowever musr be balanced against the
> deleterious effects that the continuing volume of
> immigration has on groups on the economic marginnot
> only African Americans, but immigrants themselves and
> their children."
>
> Now we see a return to the moderate left position:
>
> "The point about immigration is that it must be made
> part of a comprehensive human resource development
> policy that is committed to the improvement of
> employment opportunities and wages of marginal
> workers. The 1990 Commission on the Skills of the
> American Labor Force found that most other
> industrialized nations have comprehensive human
> resource development systems in place that include
> extensive job training, job placement, income
> maintenance programs. As Vernon Briggs has commented:
> "...none of these other industrialized contries saw
> immigration as a means of bolstering the skill and
> educational levels of the respective workerforces.
> Instead they have decided to invested in their
> citizens through these human resource development
> policies and have adopted or strengthened restrictions
> on immigration...."
>
>
> I wrote up a few points to explain why I think this
> reactionary:
>
> 1) Why should we treat native workers better than
> immigrants? Doesn't this violate the principle of
> equality (if all people have the right to freedom of
> movement, than why exclude immigrants?) Isn't that
> racist to exclude certain people from having certain
> human rights (I parhaps shouldn't use liberal ideas
> like "Rights" but I think it highlights the problem)?
>
> 2) What's this "national interest"? People have
> different interests, so how can there be a "national
> interest"? For example the interest of a worker is
> very different than that of a capitalist.
>
> 3) Immigrants have far more in common to African
> Americans (stigmatization, economic oppression), far
> more so than say African Americans and say white
> capitalists, so why should African Americans ally
> themselves with white capitalists to put greater
> immigration restrictions in the name of some nebulous
> "National Interests", rather than African Americans
> work with immigrants to oppose the people who really
> oppress them, the capitalists (ie capitalist keep both
> immigrants and African American wages down, so they
> make more profit).
>
> 4) The fact that the US government/capitalists bears a
> lot of the responsibility for forcing people to
> immigrate (US imperialism). Thus, it doesn't seem to
> be in the spirit of "Justice" to advocate
> criminalizing immigration, when the US state caused
> forced immigration in the first place!
>
> 5) Immigration restrictions are primarily the domain
> of the xenophobic Right. Nandita Scharma, a Sociology
> Professor who was at UBC (I don't know where she is
>  now), suggested that the function of immigration
> restrictions, is not to limit their movement per se,
> but rather to make them more desperate so they will
> resort to getting into the US illegally. Because they
> are not "citizens", the capitalist class can exploit
> them much more easily (eg not paying below minumum
> wage), and push everyone's elses wages down (they are
> being used as a form of scabs). Thus the point of
> immigration restrictions is to create a "reserve army
> of cheap labour" that can be easily exploited, and
> undermines the economic conditions for "native"
> workers, whether they be whites, blacks, hispanics
> etc.
>
> 6) The Left on the other hand, tries to link up social
> struggles, instead of just working on "Open the
> Borders campaigns", one must also engage in class
> struggle to fight all oppression. For example, if
> surplus value wasn't being extracted by another class,
> no one would be economically exploited. Thus if we
> want to fight racism, we have to combine both "open
> the borders" campaigns, class struggle and anti-racist
> struggles.
>
>
> Maybe Steinberg's position shows what happens when you
> throw out a marxist class analysis, and all you have
> left to fall back is on is a type of nationalism.
>
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