Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 12:19:49 +0100
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Immigration


In message <199708151104.MAA19380-AT-spock.tinet.ie>, Karl Carlile
<expresspost-AT-tinet.ie> writes
>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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I think Karl is just talking gibberish here. 

-- 
James Heartfield


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