Immigration

[*Viva La Revolucion*]

Ignorance about immigration and discrimination against immigrants seems to be getting worse each day, and it's not just racists or BNP members who participate in the scaremongering. Even people who are otherwise reasonable and decent seem to get furious whenever the issue of immigration is raised - ''we're not racist, but enough is enough...''.

What can we do about this? If I hear someone having a conversation which is about immigrants I usually speak up, but maybe I shouldn't. I probably seem like a sanctimonious idiot walking up to strangers and trying to tell them about the benefits of immigration and how it's the government's fault that there are no jobs. :(

In the UK this issue has become an acceptable form of discrimination and I wouldn't be surprised if hostility and violence towards immigrants rises significantly because of the way politicians are using this to direct the blame away from themselves.

So is there any campaign or organisation that you're involved in that deals with this issue? What do you think should happen about it?

[Sleeper]

Immigration is a tough issue to deal with because the main problem people have with it is not so much a discriminatory sort of bias (at least, the majority of people I know in the U.S.) but the fact that some immigrants will actually use more resources than resources that they produce. As a Socialist, I am generally fine with that (each according to his need) but even Denmark, a Socialist country, has pretty strict immigration requirements.

For one thing, Denmark has a points system whereby you must achieve a certain amount of points in order to go into the country to live. They have preference points for professions where they need people. Of course, you must also speak the language and Denmark has preference points for speaking other languages as well. Denmark has preference points for how well you are educated. (they take your education and equivalate whatever degrees you have to their system) They have preference points for age and they have preference points for how long you have been in a profession.

So, compared to Denmark, the immigration policies and practices here in the U.S. are very loose. It is clear that Denmark is more interested in the, from each according to ability aspect of things with relation to immigration than the, to each according to need.

But, from an Economic standpoint, why not? If they bring in an immigrant who is not going to produce at an equal level to whatever resources they use, is it not detrimental to them? I mean, you don't maintain the kind of standard of living that they have and a LOW 2.9% unemployment rate by having a policy of, "Take all comers."

I suppose if your goal as a Socialist is that the whole world be treated as one nation, then the practice that you mention is discriminatory. I am a Socialist, but I am also an Isolationist (to whatever extent feasible), so I would (as Denmark) want someone to come in bringing more food to the table than they are taking away from it, so to speak.

[rebelmouse]

fuj, sleeper, you are capitalist, people are more important than economy. people have right to move themselves where they want and live where they want, all the rest is your capitalist imagination (accepting of borders, accepting of unequal position of domestic and foreign slaves what is decided by fascist capitalist governments, etc). Denmark is fascist country, the same as other countries. fascism is discrimination of foreigners on the basis of nationalisty, such discrimination exist from the time of roman empire where foreigners could not be equal with roman citizens. present system is continuation of slavery and feudalism.
foreigners burned denmark already 2 times, that's enough to say. I can not get filling for teeth already 2 months, because I don't have health insurance and I don't have it because of political decisions about foreigners and job market. and I am more than 2 years in denmark and all the time I am pushed by political decisions to use social system (even using of it is limited) instead to work and pay and enjoy like other people. foreigners are excluded from welfare of western system, after they exclude us, they spy us to make full prisons with us. secret agency in denmark don't spy danish criminals, they spy poor foreigners (and Muslims and Autonomen). in any case, their political decisions push foreigners to become criminals and fascist are happy to arrest us and make propaganda against us in newspapers. Denmark is fascist and who support Danish politics about foreigners, he is enemy of my existence (life and health) and of my freedom and human dignity.
even No One Is Illegal in Scandinavia are right hand of secret agency and they filter foreigners, they don't want to help to someone who is illegal and who is not politically good for their fascist government. that's so when such groups have activists who are not against the state, it means they can believe that secret agency do something good and they will help them, plus they have priests mixed in work with foreigners. No One Is Illegal should be created again, without such activists and church, in whole Scandinavia. present No One Is Illegal groups became part of fascist politics and they have no rights to call themselves anymore like that. they should change their name in any other NGO name.
the only possibility for foreigners is to burn, we are discriminated in million places, especially from those who keep money for the state, therefore we don't get medical or dentist help. one more time: money is not more important than people. any foreigner in my country should get help which he needs. there is no discussion about it. fascism must be abolished.

[Sam_b]

Denmark, a Socialist country

No it isn't.

On immigration, leftists should be uncompromising: that restricting people's freedom of movement and settlement based on being outwith a national border is an act of racism, and that the only solution is to call for an open-borders policy where immigrants and welcomed.


If they bring in an immigrant who is not going to produce at an equal level to whatever resources they use, is it not detrimental to them? I mean, you don't maintain the kind of standard of living that they have and a LOW 2.9% unemployment rate by having a policy of, "Take all comers."


This is downright reactionary.

[tnt]

Immigration is a tough issue to deal with because the main problem people have with it is not so much a discriminatory sort of bias .


so I would (as Denmark) want someone to come in bringing more food to the table than they are taking away from it, so to speak.

so imigrants are accepted and even more...desireble if they bring profit...how is that excluded from discrimination?
doesn't it exactly cover capitalistic ideal of open borders...put in small everyday discussion
i think before you propose such a briliant solution how to prevent people leaning over to hostile adittude towards imigrants you should consider fact that they are discriminated from the whole start so they are not able to please you on the way you expect it

[Sleeper]

I'm going to make this pretty simple.

For one thing, I'm not a Capitalist. The point that I am making is that, as a Socialist, I base things on the average standard of living for the citizens. Therefore, if an immigrant comes into the country and uses more than he produces, the average standard of living for the natural-born citizens drops infinitesimally.

Now, if you make that a couple hundred thousand immigrants a year, in theory, the decline of the standard for the natural-born citizens becomes a little bit more than infinitesimal, does it not?

On the other hand, if we have a country that has such an over-abundance of resources that we are at no risk of substantially negating the standard of living we already have for our citizens, in other words, if we can have more resources used where some may not be re-produced and still assure close to the same quality of life for our natural-born citizens, then we could take all-comers for all I care.

We're talking Economics here. If you have a nation of five million (for example) and your resources are y then the average allocation (because there would be slight income disparity) for each person is y/5,000,000 = x

Now, if you add another five million people without a significant increase in resources, then the average allocation would be y/10,000,000 = x, or y/2.

So, it's not about profit or any bullshit like that, it's about maintaining a certain standard of living for the citizens you already have.

[9]

I'm going to make this pretty simple.

For one thing, I'm not a Capitalist. The point that I am making is that, as a Socialist, I base things on the average standard of living for my citizens. Therefore, if an immigrant comes into the country and uses more than he produces, the average standard of living for my natural-born citizens drops infinitesimally.


Why do you value the well-being of a working class person more or less depending upon which side of a made-up line he was born on?
Socialists are supposed to be internationalists.



Now, if you make that a couple hundred thousand immigrants a year, in theory, the decline of the standard for my natural-born citizens becomes a little bit more than infinitesimal, does it not?No. We do not blame workers for the ills of capitalism. The poor standards of living for the working class are the product of capitalism, not immigration.



On the other hand, if we have a country that has such an over-abundance of resources that we are at no risk of substantially negating the standard of living we already have for our citizens, in other words, if we can have more resources used where some may not be re-produced and still assure close to the same quality of life for our natural-born citizens, then we could take all-comers for all I care.
I live in the states. There is an over-abundance of resources here. And yet the standard of living for working class people is still basically shit because we don't control those resources; the bourgeoisie does. The capitalist class is our enemy, not immigrant laborers. Advocating immigration controls only serves to divide the working class along ethnic and national lines.

[Sleeper]

Why do you value the well-being of a working class person more or less depending upon which side of a made-up line he was born on?
Socialists are supposed to be internationalists.


The line is not exactly made-up, if you look at a map it is, but a very real division exists both politically and socio-economically. Now, if you could find some way to have a Socialist Pact of countries with common socio-economical ideals then I would be all for people moving back and forth as much as they want to.



I live in the states. There is an over-abundance of resources here. And yet the standard of living for working class people is still basically shit because we don't control those resources; the bourgeoisie does. The capitalist class is our enemy, not immigrant laborers. Advocating immigration controls only serves to divide the working class along ethnic and national lines.

I also live in the United States. If the United States were to become a Socialist country we could definitely have a looser immigration standard than a place like Denmark does. Just look at our agriculture, we make more than we use and we export almost as much as we use ourselves.

There just comes a certain point where some countries (if not all) would have to say, "Look, we can't take on more citizens without reducing the standard of living for all within our borders." Either that or you would have to have internal population control, and I'm sure you know what that entails. I'm going to go with the lesser of the two evils here which is immigration control.

Now, when you talk about Internationalism, if we could get to a point where the entire World was a, One World One Nation sort of thing, then I'm completely cool with that. However, we're nowhere near that point yet, at least we're nowhere near the point of having a Socialist One Nation World.

By the way, I noticed you didn't quote any of the basic Economic Math, a little tough to argue, isn't it?

[9]

By the way, I noticed you didn't quote any of the basic Economic Math, a little tough to argue, isn't it?

Not at all; I didn’t quote it because it continues the same fallacious line of reasoning as the rest of your post, which I’d already addressed. The premise of your “equation” is false; it incorrectly presupposes that resources are allocated more or less equally to everyone in a given area, on the basis of availability, which I’ve already told you is simply not the case. And if you believed it to be true, you'd be living the good life because, as I've said, there is an overabundance of resources in this country; so if you think you're getting a fair share of it (i.e. if you're not of the working class), what interest would you have in changing the present scheme of things to begin with?

I will address the rest of your post later tonight when I have the time.

[Sleeper]

Not at all; I didn’t quote it because it continues the same fallacious line of reasoning as the rest of your post, which I’d already addressed. The premise of your “equation” is false; it incorrectly presupposes that resources are allocated more or less equally to everyone in a given area, on the basis of availability, which I’ve already told you is simply not the case. And if you believed it to be true, you'd be living the good life because, as I've said, there is an overabundance of resources in this country; so if you think you're getting a fair share of it (i.e. if you're not of the working class), what interest would you have in changing the present scheme of things to begin with?

I will address the rest of your post later tonight when I have the time.

I'll just tell you straight-up that I am the head of a household of three (two adults, one child) that is good for about $33,000/annually before taxes. Based on a normal 40-hour work-week on a fifty-two week year that's going to be about $15.87 an hour. Of course, I don't work forty-hour weeks, I work 65 hour weeks and do not get overtime because I'm salaried. On top of that, my wife works about fifteen hours per week. That comes out to about $7.93/hour for the hours that we actually work.

So, you decide whether or not I'm working class when, as a family, we make about 70 cents an hour over minimum wage.

Let me expand upon my point, though. Let's say that you and nine friends decide to get some pizza and pizza is $1/slice. Now, all of you guys decide to pony up, so you each go into a room with a closed box with a hole in the top and agree to dump the contents of your wallet in the box. The result is $50, so you can get fifty slices of pizza.

One of you says, "Well, shit, we can't eat fifty slices of pizza, so let's help some people out that may be hungry."

So what you do is you go around letting people who may be hungry know that you've got some pizza for them. As you do this, some people start joining your march to the pizza place because they have nothing to eat and no money.

But, you're in San Francisco and there're an assload of homeless and hungry people. You fail to stop admitting people into your pizza parade and by the time you get to the pizza shop, you have 100 people in your group. Now, everyone only gets half a slice of pizza and nobody is satisfied.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

The assumption in the sentence above being that you (country) has enough to satisify the needs of all. When you cease to have enough to satisfy the needs of all you have failed as a Communist or as a Socialist country.

That's why if you want to guarantee a certain standard of living you have to do some management. So, what you figure out is that two slices of pizza is the bare minimum to satiate someone. Now you know that you can help out by feeding those without food and without money, but you cannot allow the group size to exceed 25 or needs will fail to be met.


The premise of your “equation” is false; it incorrectly presupposes that resources are allocated more or less equally to everyone in a given area, on the basis of availability, which I’ve already told you is simply not the case.

By the way, you did realize that the equation was meant to posit a Socialist country, so what is quoted above is kind of the idea, if the country in question were Socialist.

I'm not arguing for current U.S. Immigration or Economic policy, I sure as Hell would never argue for current U.S. Economic policy.

[9]

@ Sleeper:

You haven’t addressed my point, though; you are continuing to formulate your arguments on the false premise that resources are allocated equally to everyone in a given region – independent of economic capability (costs of resources, etc.) – on the basis of availability and abundance. This is simply not true, which is the whole point here.
I have said – and you yourself have conceded – that there is an overabundance of resources in the US. And yet you’ve gone on to tell me you have to work 65 hours a week to put food on your table! Do you see the disconnect? If you do, you understand why your arguments are based on false assumptions.
Additionally, the overwhelming majority of immigrants come here to work (as part of the proletariat). Workers produce surplus value which far exceeds the wages they receive. Furthermore, contrary to the “immigration-induced economic doomsday” lies propagated by the bourgeois media to stir up nationalism and racism and further divide the working class, immigrants actually pay far more in taxes, as a whole, than they receive via public services. So even if the premise of your argument were true (and I’ve explained why it is not), it would still make no sense for you to support any form of immigration controls.

Also, “from each according to his ability to each according to his need” is a description of “a higher phase of communism”, not the present state of affairs (i.e. capitalism) – quite the contrary.
So I’m not understanding the relevance of your quote as a description of the scenario you provide, seeing as your scenario has nothing at all to do with communism.

[9]

By the way, you did realize that the equation was meant to posit a Socialist country, so what is quoted above is kind of the idea, if the country in question were Socialist.

Wait.. what? You kept saying before that immigration would be fine in a "socialist country" but that, with the present state of affairs, we couldn't afford to be internationalists (I'm paraphrasing). So... have you changed your position on that, then? (< great if you have, I'm just trying to straighten out exactly what it is you are arguing now)

[Sleeper]

Wait.. what? You kept saying before that immigration would be fine in a "socialist country" but that, with the present state of affairs, we couldn't afford to be internationalists (I'm paraphrasing). So... have you changed your position on that, then? (< great if you have, I'm just trying to straighten out exactly what it is you are arguing now)


I haven't changed my position on anything. The U.S. can afford to be Internationalist if we were a Socialist country, at least, at this point we could. My point is some countries, such as Denmark, probably could not because they don't have a sustainable amount of resources depending on how great the population becomes.

It is also possible that there may come a time, if the U.S. were Socialist and had an, "Open-Door," policy that we could no longer take all comers and would have to be a little more selective about it, like Denmark is. Now, is not that time, though. We, as a country, have plenty for right now for everyone and then some!

I also apologize for phrasing myself poorly.

[rebelmouse]

people decide alone how much of pizza make them satisfied, there are people who need more and who need less in order to be satisfied. it is the same about generally living, some people need TV/car/etc and some people don't care for it.
I am agreed with Apikoros that you make false presumptions and you gave yourself right to decide how much people need and what kind of economic standard they have.
beside it, workers should make revolution and take from riches back what riches stole from poor, then you will see that all people will be rich. and after they take from riches, they can continue to produce for whole society: from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

so, there are enough resources and profit from it, but in present system it finishes in pockets of corporations/riches and government. abolishing of the state and of exploitation and new distribution of goods will bring us to: from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

therefore we are fighting for realization of anarchism/communism but surely not for limitation for immigrants. as it is said, such limitations are discrimination and it divides people who should fight together against the same enemy: ruling class.
therefore your topic at forum is without sense. you should open such topics at some forum of parliamentarian socialist (who are financed by corporations the same as neoliberals). I think for many members of this forum, for me surely, parlamentarian socialists are capitalists.

[Dr Mindbender]

I'm going to make this pretty simple.

For one thing, I'm not a Capitalist. The point that I am making is that, as a Socialist, I base things on the average standard of living for the citizens. Therefore, if an immigrant comes into the country and uses more than he produces, the average standard of living for the natural-born citizens drops infinitesimally.


As a 'socialist' you should be examining first and foremost the factors which cause immigrants to want to leave their countries in the first place, not the circumstances for which they are scapegoated for by the bourgeoisie press and media.

That is why socialists should be unmoveable on the immigration issue; what we are arguing for is a world without scarcity and destitution. Any thing less than that is reformist treason.

[Sleeper]

As a 'socialist' you should be examining first and foremost the factors which cause immigrants to want to leave their countries in the first place, not the circumstances for which they are scapegoated for by the bourgeoisie press and media.

That is why socialists should be unmoveable on the immigration issue; what we are arguing for is a world without scarcity and destitution. Any thing less than that is reformist treason.

The only thing that I need to be convinced on is that my theory doesn't hold that if you have x amount of resources and y amount of people that increasing y doesn't decrease the average value of x.

If someone could prove that theory wrong, I'm all for it.

By the way, I'm also for spreading Socialism to other countries to whatever extent is possible.

Anyway, tell me why I should be unmovable regardless of the circumstances. That I should be unmovable I've heard, so tell me why.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Open the borders. Anyone else?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

All the anti-immigration talk makes so much sense in a cause-consequence sense. If your country is genuinely overloaded, then steps need to be taken.

However, the simple fact is that everything these anti-immigration types have said about overcrowding, economic strain and so on has simply not been corroborated by the truth. Indeed, anybody familiar with even the basic premise of population Economics and a bit of Malthus will understand that in Capitalism, due to the inevitability of recession, migration patterns often swing in roundabouts. This is why the number of Polish people migrating into the UK, for example, has slowed in the last year or so.

Above all, we as Socialists should always contend that migration and freedom of movement is something that should be afforded to any person. Indeed, the only dilution to this argument would be if the overcrowding scenario were to become a reality. However, there is little historical evidence to suggest this will happen any time soon for any prolonged period. Indeed, a sharp upward pressure on immigration seems only to be realised for a couple of reasons - a natural/man-made disaster of an epic scale (take the Rwandan genocide) or a change in immigration law. With both, the figures, and logic, suggest that the upward pressure is merely a short term phenomena. Indeed, both can be explained very simply in rational economic terms. The former will see emigration from the newly destitute place until either the area is rebuilt (in the case of natural disaster) or political stability is restored (in the case of man made disasters, such as genocide - the example of Rwanda). The latter will see equilibrium restored after an initial 'shock' period. The movement of Poles to the UK and the Mariel Boatlifts are both good examples of such.

Indeed, even the most reactionary of anti-immigration 'thinktanks' in the UK, ImmigrationWatch, conducted research in the past couple of years which came to a set of empirical conclusions, most important of which was that economic migration to the UK results in each UK citize being £30 richer every year. Now of course they spun this as 'only £30', you can probably guess the type of nasty rhetoric they used. However, as this, according to our more understanding and humane doctrine of Socialism, is an issue of peoples' basic freedoms, it would seem only logical to say that only in the situation of overcrowding or indeed huge economic regression, deriving from open borders policies, should such policies be re-evaluated.

On a final point, the point of sheer hypocrisy must be raised. The Capitalists do all they can to blame the immigrant minorities for the wealth of problems, economic and social, which in essence have Capitalism to blame. Recessions, unemployment, housing shortages are all examples of this and we are all probably familiar with typically xenophobic tabloid headlines.

[MarxSchmarx]

I agree that as a matter of principle, working people have no country, that immigration laws serve to divide us, and that they are merely tools of the capitalist class to entrench their powers.

But well, sleeper's arguments are frequently invoked by the right to justify class oppression, so let's meet them head on.

The only thing that I need to be convinced on is that my theory doesn't hold that if you have x amount of resources and y amount of people that increasing y doesn't decrease the average value of x.

If someone could prove that theory wrong, I'm all for it.Yeah too bad that x amount of resources don't go to y people. 0.99*x goes to 0.15*y, 0.01x goes to 0.85y. But if the 0.85y consisted of more militant workers that would strike and won't have to worry about la migra, why, 0.15x would go to 0.15y, 0.85 x going to 0.85 y.


I haven't changed my position on anything. The U.S. can afford to be Internationalist if we were a Socialist country, at least, at this point we could. My point is some countries, such as Denmark, probably could not because they don't have a sustainable amount of resources depending on how great the population becomes.Yeah, such self-sufficiency was tried in another dense, industrialized country. It's called the Juche ideology, you might want to see how well that worked out.

Denmark is a "success" only because Danish capital was allowed access to imperialist markets paid for with French, American and English (not to mention Zairian, Bolivian, Nigerian, Indonesian, Algerian, Jordanian, etc...) blood, not because of Copenhagen's relatively restrictive immigration laws.

[Sleeper]

Yeah too bad that x amount of resources don't go to y people. 0.99*x goes to 0.15*y, 0.01x goes to 0.85y. But if the 0.85y consisted of more militant workers that would strike and won't have to worry about la migra, why, 0.15x would go to 0.15y, 0.85 x going to 0.85 y.


Once again, the argument was meant to assume a Socialist country, not a Crapitalist one. So, the argument was meant to assume that .85x goes to .85y, but also that if there is an increase in y without an increase in x that the realized amount going to y declines.


Yeah, such self-sufficiency was tried in another dense, industrialized country. It's called the Juche ideology, you might want to see how well that worked out.

Are you talking about North Korea? What Kim Jung-II says the political ideology for the country is in theory and what the political ideology for the country is in practice are two very different things.


Denmark is a "success" only because Danish capital was allowed access to imperialist markets paid for with French, American and English (not to mention Zairian, Bolivian, Nigerian, Indonesian, Algerian, Jordanian, etc...) blood, not because of Copenhagen's relatively restrictive immigration laws.

Strawman argument. When did I say that Denmark is a success because of their immigration policies?

Besides, DemSoc has already convinced me of the rightness of your position.

[Dr Mindbender]

The only thing that I need to be convinced on is that my theory doesn't hold that if you have x amount of resources and y amount of people that increasing y doesn't decrease the average value of x.

If someone could prove that theory wrong, I'm all for it.



You're modelling this hypothesis on a false dichotomy because capitalism is based on the economics of scarcity.

Furthermore, there are more variables in the equation than x and y so your model is massively over simplified. You also have a =number of idle bourgeoisie, n= number of productive workers and p = number of proletarians who arent allowed to produce thanks to job scarcity.

If you didnt have a situation whereby a is consuming x too disproportionately and only part of your potential workforce n+p was doing anything, then an increase in y is going to be less of an issue.

[MarxSchmarx]

Sleeper, I reiterate that I am addressing your points (which come up a lot when discussing immigration), not trying to sway your views on anything.


Are you talking about North Korea? What Kim Jung-II says the political ideology for the country is in theory and what the political ideology for the country is in practice are two very different things.


That was kind of my point. Self-sufficiency as a policy of a single country doesn't work, so we can't really use the continued use of "sustainable resources of a country" viz. its citizenry as a metric for policy. Juche was instituted by the guy's father, Kim Il Sung, and in the 60s and 70s conscious , concrete efforts were made to realize many of its key tenets, including self-sufficiency.



Denmark is a "success" only because Danish capital was allowed access to imperialist markets paid for with French, American and English (not to mention Zairian, Bolivian, Nigerian, Indonesian, Algerian, Jordanian, etc...) blood, not because of Copenhagen's relatively restrictive immigration laws.Strawman argument. When did I say that Denmark is a success because of their immigration policies?


i never attributed this to you. What you said was:



It is also possible that there may come a time, if the U.S. were Socialist and had an, "Open-Door," policy that we could no longer take all comers and would have to be a little more selective about it, like Denmark is.Implying taht whatever else one may think of Denmark's immigration policies, the US may benefit by eventually adopting an immigration policy like Denmark's.

My only point was that Denmark's immigration policy is not a response to a finite amount of resources that the country cannot expand, because Denmark CAN expand its resources considerably, and that its ability to do so (for the reasons mentioned) I venture would do more to raise the average standard of living than restrictions on immigration.
Put another way, Denmark's immigration policy has far more to do with outright xenophobia and racism than any concern about sharing the national pie. To attribute such a policy as desirable is to parrot a mistaken right wing assumption about the rationale behind danish immmigration laws. And America even in the distant future would have even more potential to expand its wealth, and would therefore gain little from a restrictive immigration policy.

[Sleeper]

Marxschmarx,

You make good points. I guess what I really meant was that there may come such a time that the immigration policy may become necessary, but it probably wouldn't as I have found out reading these posts.

Also, I have determined (after reading responses) that freedom of mobility is paramount to the Socialist cause, people must be permitted to go where they believe they will live the best and happiest life.

Self-sufficiency of a country could work, if you have the agriculture and other natural resources to support such an endeavor. I think that the U.S. (if it were Socialist) could theoretically do it if we were not so dependant on oil.

I apologize for accusing you of making a strawman argument. It was my own misunderstanding of what you said that led to that and entirely my fault.