krishna bound

4y

i really hate immigration discussions because i feel like people are fundamentally incapable of having them in good faith

Lein

4y

I think just focusing on accepting migrants is not enough because the conditions that motivate then to move have to be addressed along with their status inside the country to ensure they're not brutalized and exploited with impunity or used to push wages down. But I never see any good arguments for border militarization which is what people against immigration period always end up arguing for.

krishna bound

4y

for the record i'm not really that anti-immigration but i think it's a complex issue. i don't buy most right wing arguments about preserving ethnic culture because it doesn't make any sense even within their own framework of belief - I similarly think the idea of "we're being replaced by immigrants" is basically just a COPE for as @Scratchin_Bandit said chickens coming home to roost. And while I think to an extent some people say that's too in line with "sins of the father" designations, that's clearly not the case since most anti-immigration types believe that even non-ethnic nationals are in the same category as new ones, validating that themselves.

with that said, i also do think there's a lack of engagement with topics concerning immigration on the left because a lot of stuff is auto-dismissed as falling under right wing cope & seethe arguments rather than other claims. i agree militarizing borders doesn't really make much sense which is indeed what most arguments spiral into, but i do think that more attention needs to be paid to arguments about how immigration is often weaponized by financial institutions specifically knowing most arguments against it will be ethnic and therefore harder to legitimize

krishna bound

4y

for the record i'm not really that anti-immigration but i think it's a complex issue. i don't buy most right wing arguments about preserving ethnic culture because it doesn't make any sense even within their own framework of belief - I similarly think the idea of "we're being replaced by immigrants" is basically just a COPE for as @Scratchin_Bandit said chickens coming home to roost. And while I think to an extent some people say that's too in line with "sins of the father" designations, that's clearly not the case since most anti-immigration types believe that even non-ethnic nationals are in the same category as new ones, validating that themselves.

with that said, i also do think there's a lack of engagement with topics concerning immigration on the left because a lot of stuff is auto-dismissed as falling under right wing cope & seethe arguments rather than other claims. i agree militarizing borders doesn't really make much sense which is indeed what most arguments spiral into, but i do think that more attention needs to be paid to arguments about how immigration is often weaponized by financial institutions specifically knowing most arguments against it will be ethnic and therefore harder to legitimize

Lein

4y

The good guys

Lein

4y

How is immigration weaponized by financial institutions?

Scratchin Mamba

4y

I'll say that if in theory, all things being equal, after a certain amount immigration would lower the living conditions of the working class of the people living in the country people are migrating to (which I don't think is the case at the level we're seeing now), that's still not enough for socialists to oppose it since it would help those workers who migrate to that country even more, and since socialists are supposed to be internationalists, that means we can't put the needs of one nation's working class over those of another.

krishna bound

4y

my stance has always been that immigration isn't inherently bad or anything and over-militarizing borders is basically COPE, but internationalism is best promoted through joint-country relations to ensure mutual stability rather than the contribution to domestic markets. I think maybe my stance on this would be different if the reality of current geopolitics were far from what they are now. However in current geopolitics immigration is usually keyword for "come contribute to our capitalist market and get a small increase in quality of life (hopefully) in exchange for contributing to global exploitation". Of course I get this is a catch-22 because it's not like the US is going to aid countries and allow them to form a nationalist identity which also believes in strong internationalism (i.e. Cuba), so it's really a lose-lose. Immigration will always be inevitable under capitalism however due to the need for market growth so any rightoid who thinks truly they want to end it is free to start swearing on mao's red book

Scratchin Mamba

4y

Oh of course, internationalism is much better achieved through other means, but opposing immigration for the reason that it could hurt your own national working class while not considering the plight of those workers who are immigrating goes against the fundamental principles of internationalism, that's just the stance of nationalist anti-immigration parties in Europe.

Womanpuncher69

4y

ZHOU PUTS IT UP
ITS GOOD
ZHOU ENLAI FROM DOWNTOWN

Lein

4y

I kinda get the famine stuff but I'm surprised that liberal overpopulation discourse had that much influence on them. I guess once they privatized agriculture and it decreased productivity they settled on orienting population around productive capacity instead of orienting productive capacity around population.

Now all the things people have said would happen because of overpopulation have happened because of capitalism and their one child policy.

Lein

4y

European rightists talking about how immigrants are replacing them then when you search up demographics it's like 99% white 1% other

Lein

4y

Is it that widespread? With such a tiny immigrant population how has it become such a huge issue.

krishna bound

4y

it's an overall lose-lose imo, the situation is such a quagmire i don't think there's a winning stance on immigration in isolation unless it's paired with other consistent policy

krishna bound

4y

without getting too much into the economics of it specifically or into any type of faux-conspiracy, it's not really a secret big financial institutions like mass immigration because among other things it raises GDP and simultaneously drives down labor cost (on a short term) - these are things they basically outright admit if you look at lobbying firms. immigration is generally seen as a net market positive (at least in mercantile states like the US); obviously more immigrants = more workers + more consumers. most big companies like immigration because most immigrants fill jobs not taken by nationals, especially ones in the lower chain of pay or unskilled labor. It's obviously deeper than this as well when you get to other more sinister things like more immigration = (unfortunately) harder unionization or easier finding of scab labor. None of this should be taken in isolation as a critique of immigration itself, but this stuff also isn't really secret or anything; big bank CEOs will say this stuff openly and big lobbying firms will also openly state this stuff. With that said, it's also very much weaponized because it's hard to argue against because of the fact the kneejerk reaction to immigration discussion is to go to the rightoid cope arguments, which these people are fully aware of (and the fact so many rightoids say this is drowns out actual discussion). Like most lobbying firms will straight up provide talking points for politicians and those talking points are often like "if questioned on immigration accuse of racism"

krishna bound

4y

it's an overall lose-lose imo, the situation is such a quagmire i don't think there's a winning stance on immigration in isolation unless it's paired with other consistent policy

Scratchin Mamba

4y

It's definitely not a lose-lose lmao, immigrants aren't leaving their countries because their life is so great, even living in poverty for western standards is a great improvement for the vast majority of them, especially if they're refugees from war or political repression.

SEGA GOON

4y

Well the solution is this: "Legal prohibition of bosses employing foreign workers at a wage less than that of French workers" (French Workers Party programme)

krishna bound

4y

I didn't mean it's a lose-lose for the immigrants themselves, I mean it's a lose-lose from a political motive perspective

SEGA GOON

4y

A big part of the Marxist theory on profits et cetera is based on population size. Population size is also linked to the rate of profits falling argument.

The more workers you have, the more opportunites for surplus value extraction arise, which is the ultimate source of profit. And if your birth-rates are slow, you dip into the international labor supply aka immigration

krishna bound

4y

so much of marx's a***ysis of economics was extrapolated from the exact same people who libertarians base their view of economics on it shouldn't really be surprising that there's an overlap in this type of market a***ysis there between marxists and libertarian businesses. like i'm pretty sure what you're saying specifically is directly from Adam Smith

krishna bound

4y

so much of marx's a***ysis of economics was extrapolated from the exact same people who libertarians base their view of economics on it shouldn't really be surprising that there's an overlap in this type of market a***ysis there between marxists and libertarian businesses. like i'm pretty sure what you're saying specifically is directly from Adam Smith