From: "Karl Carlile" <expresspost-AT-tinet.ie>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Immigration
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 1997 12:03:46 -0700


A Karl CARLILE POSTING:

KARL: Hi James!

JAMES: The free movement of labour is a right that ought to be
defended.

Chris and Rob turned this into a reform or revolution question, which
seems a bit premature to me. Defending the free movement of labour does
not imply that you endorse the free exploitation of labour: only that
for so long as capital has the right to move freely across borders,
workers need that right too. So in that sense it is completely
meliorative.

KARL: I shall have to correct you here James. There is no such thing in
politics as a "completely meliorative" matter. In politics all issues
have a class character.

The question of the right of workers to move freely across borders is a
political question with implications for the development of the class
struggle. Clearly the development of the class struggle is inseparably
connected with "a reform or revolution question". The right of workers
to move freely across borders is a right that must be fought for
irrespective of whether capital has or has not got this right. Indeed
some would argue that it does not. If we look at the history of the
development of capitalism we can correctly conclude that it does not
have that right. Capital was not free to move across the borders of the
Soviet Union. Indeed capital was not free to move across the borders of
the Irish Republic in the early fifties. Japan is another example of
where capital has not been free to move across its borders. And then
there is the classic case of nineteenth century inter-imperialist
rivalry.....

You suggest that the fight for the free movement of labour is not an
endorsement of the free exploitation of labour. I am afraid that this
is just what it is. It is therefore not a demand that revolutionaries
can justifiably fight for. However revolutionaries are justified in
calling for the free movement of people. The two are qualitatively
different demands.

JAMES: Of course mass emigration can be a real disaster for a society -
look at Ireland.

KARL: Again I must correct you here. Mass emigration was not
necessarily a real disaster for Ireland. Again in this context,
unpolitcal fuzzy terms such as "disaster" carry much ambiguity.
Disastrous for whom? Irish capital! British capital! American capital!
The working class etc.! Anyway  emigration  was not necessarily a
"disaster" for Ireland. It was the restricted nature of Irish economic
development that, to use such an ambiguous term, was a "disaster"
manifesting itself in the form of mass emigration. An examination of
the Great Irish Famine of the mid nineteenth century, entailing mass
emigration, shows that it actually played a positive role in assisting
the future capitalist economic development of Ireland. 

JAMES: It is not an obviously revolutionary demand that people ought to
be free
to move where they want. As Chris rightly says, all you are doing is
facilitating the exploitation of labour. But it does challenge the
right
of the state to regulate our lives. (Immigration controls are like
affirmative action policies in that way)

KARL: To identify, as you do above, people being "free to move where
they want" with "facilitating the exploitation of labour" is grossly
mistaken. They are qualitatively different phenomena. The demand that
"people ought to be free to move where they want" is clearly
revolutionary in character. For people "to be free to move where they
want" entails a social revolution. To be free to move where one wants
assumes that the correspondingly required resources both exist and are
accessible to all people. Clearly under capitalism that can never be
the case.

In discussing this issue it is imperative that it is kept in mind that
there obtains a distinction between a formal right and substantive
right. When revolutionaries call for the right of people to move where
they want they are inscribing a substantive demand on the political
canvas which may imply a formal right. Having said this, even this
language used by you is rather clumsy. Since it is not even physically
possible to go where one wants. However I am being generous here as to
your meaning. 


So greetings,
Karl



----------
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
To: marxism-thaxis-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: M-TH: Immigration
Date: 14 August 1997 03:51

I wholly endorse Yoshie's point about a marxist position on
immigration.

The free movement of labour is a right that ought to be defended.

Chris and Rob turned this into a reform or revolution question, which
seems a bit premature to me. Defending the free movement of labour does
not imply that you endorse the free exploitation of labour: only that
for so long as capital has the right to move freely across borders,
workers need that right too. So in that sense it is completely
meliorative.

On the other hand emigration controls on the part of a national
adminstration trying to build up its resources against the more
developed nations, seems pretty piece-meal too. Of course mass
emigration can be a real disaster for a society - look at Ireland.

It is not an obviously revolutionary demand that people ought to be
free
to move where they want. As Chris rightly says, all you are doing is
faciliating the exploitation of labour. But it does challenge the right
of the state to regulate our lives. (Immigration controls are like
affirmative action policies in that way)...................




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