a pro-Brexit green criticizes immigration?
Have many green voters had their wages undercut by mass migration?
Sigh ... wages are undercut by the labor market, by treating labor as a mere commodity rather than by treating every person on the planet as part of a communal whole, sharing equally in the produce. This draws mass migration from places with lower wages to places with higher wages, while drawing mass production from places with higher wages to places with lower wages. If we were organized as a global communal whole, then nobody would be "undercutting" anybody's wages -- we wouldn't have wages per se -- we'd have equivalent shares of what we communally produce.
In the richer countries, the working class is unwittingly complicit in a colonial-imperialist global trade system in which the resources of poorer countries are sucked into the coffers of richer countries via military and economic dominance, while the ruling class simultaneously deploys pro-forma nationalist democracy within richer country borders and authoritarian dictatorship within poorer country borders to manage working class dissent.
Workers in the richer countries live on subsistence industry wages regardless of how much immigration or trade occurs, and are allowed to fight over such "issues" as ethnicity, religion, gender, abortion, and drug use; while workers in the poorer countries are tortured and disappeared if they object to their relative poverty (or anything else).
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So, OK, UK, you got your Brexit, your precious national sovereignty, and you're still led by the Conservatives, not by some locally-grown leftist resurgence ... and guess what, the number of work visas granted by the UK in the year following Brexit INCREASED. By 55% compared to the prior year. Over 200,000 work visas. Not only higher than the previous year, which was affected by COVID, but higher than in 2019. Your government hasn't stopped allowing immigrants into the UK to compete with you for your wages!
And the latest figures for UK imports show that they're higher than in 2018, recovering smartly from the COVID recession.
What the fuck have you accomplished, Brexiteers? The capitalists are still in charge, they're still importing workers to compete with your wages, and goods to compete with your produce. I know many of you were sincere but you were suckerpunched, though you may not realize it yet.
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I don't think international institutions are irrelevent to capitalist exploitation, but they aren't necessary for capitalism to import workers and goods across national borders. Likewise, you can build your Wall on the US Southern Border, and capitalism will still import workers and goods.
All that's going on here is throwing divisive issues at the voters in our pro-forma nationalist democracies, getting us to bicker over side issues while the capitalist exploitation continues. I remember thinking back in 2017 & 2018 that Trump's trade and immigration policies were so incoherent ... not really making a dent in US imports, which continued to increase (adjusted for inflation) in 2017, 2018, and 2019, regardless of his scattershot tariffs. Similarly, the US added over a million legal permanent residents in each of 2017, 2018, and 2019 -- pretty much the same level of immigration as we'd seen over the previous 20 years.
It was all a show for the voters to fight over, the pro-trade vs anti-trade voters, the pro-immigration vs anti-immigration voters.
The trade and immigration continued regardless of the Trump charade. Mass migration of workers from low-wage countries to high-wage countries, mass migration of production from high-wage countries to low-wage countries.
These fights over trade and immigration policy are distractions, like so many of our fights, from the ongoing fleecing of workers all over the world.
You can oppose capitalism locally, you can oppose capitalism globally, but things like Brexit and the Wall -- nationalism vs globalism -- nationalism doesn't stop capitalism. Globalism doesn't stop capitalism either. Where you draw your borders is pointless. You have to oppose capitalism itself. It's not the immigrant's fault. It's not the foreign worker's fault. The labor market makes you compete for your supper regardless. It's great if you win, sucks if you lose. But as with any casino, the house always wins -- the house takes its share off the top.
Sigh ... wages are undercut by the labor market, by treating labor as a mere commodity rather than by treating every person on the planet as part of a communal whole, sharing equally in the produce. This draws mass migration from places with lower wages to places with higher wages, while drawing mass production from places with higher wages to places with lower wages. If we were organized as a global communal whole, then nobody would be "undercutting" anybody's wages -- we wouldn't have wages per se -- we'd have equivalent shares of what we communally produce.
In the richer countries, the working class is unwittingly complicit in a colonial-imperialist global trade system in which the resources of poorer countries are sucked into the coffers of richer countries via military and economic dominance, while the ruling class simultaneously deploys pro-forma nationalist democracy within richer country borders and authoritarian dictatorship within poorer country borders to manage working class dissent.
Workers in the richer countries live on subsistence industry wages regardless of how much immigration or trade occurs, and are allowed to fight over such "issues" as ethnicity, religion, gender, abortion, and drug use; while workers in the poorer countries are tortured and disappeared if they object to their relative poverty (or anything else).
-----
So, OK, UK, you got your Brexit, your precious national sovereignty, and you're still led by the Conservatives, not by some locally-grown leftist resurgence ... and guess what, the number of work visas granted by the UK in the year following Brexit INCREASED. By 55% compared to the prior year. Over 200,000 work visas. Not only higher than the previous year, which was affected by COVID, but higher than in 2019. Your government hasn't stopped allowing immigrants into the UK to compete with you for your wages!
And the latest figures for UK imports show that they're higher than in 2018, recovering smartly from the COVID recession.
What the fuck have you accomplished, Brexiteers? The capitalists are still in charge, they're still importing workers to compete with your wages, and goods to compete with your produce. I know many of you were sincere but you were suckerpunched, though you may not realize it yet.
-----
I don't think international institutions are irrelevent to capitalist exploitation, but they aren't necessary for capitalism to import workers and goods across national borders. Likewise, you can build your Wall on the US Southern Border, and capitalism will still import workers and goods.
All that's going on here is throwing divisive issues at the voters in our pro-forma nationalist democracies, getting us to bicker over side issues while the capitalist exploitation continues. I remember thinking back in 2017 & 2018 that Trump's trade and immigration policies were so incoherent ... not really making a dent in US imports, which continued to increase (adjusted for inflation) in 2017, 2018, and 2019, regardless of his scattershot tariffs. Similarly, the US added over a million legal permanent residents in each of 2017, 2018, and 2019 -- pretty much the same level of immigration as we'd seen over the previous 20 years.
It was all a show for the voters to fight over, the pro-trade vs anti-trade voters, the pro-immigration vs anti-immigration voters.
The trade and immigration continued regardless of the Trump charade. Mass migration of workers from low-wage countries to high-wage countries, mass migration of production from high-wage countries to low-wage countries.
These fights over trade and immigration policy are distractions, like so many of our fights, from the ongoing fleecing of workers all over the world.
You can oppose capitalism locally, you can oppose capitalism globally, but things like Brexit and the Wall -- nationalism vs globalism -- nationalism doesn't stop capitalism. Globalism doesn't stop capitalism either. Where you draw your borders is pointless. You have to oppose capitalism itself. It's not the immigrant's fault. It's not the foreign worker's fault. The labor market makes you compete for your supper regardless. It's great if you win, sucks if you lose. But as with any casino, the house always wins -- the house takes its share off the top.