Re: Common Dreams xenophobia

["David B. Shemano" <dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Carrol Cox writes:

>> Twenty+ years ago I came across one of the rare instances when a WSJ
>> editorial seemed to make sense. The editorial claimed that never in
>> history had a mass migration such as the u.s. was experiencing been
>> stopped by any means whatever. Perhaps a bit extreme, but I suspect it
>> was pretty correct and efforts to keep the uncivilized horde out of both
>> the u.s. and out of europe are going to fail unless/until radical
>> changes in the social conditions of Latin America, Africa, mideast,
>> south and southeast asia change fundamentally.

I doubt this is correct.  The US successfully limited immigration with the 1924 immigration laws.  The large scale immigation in recent decades appears to be a policy choice, not inevitable.  Just look at Japan, which has a policy of essentially no immigration.  Europe chose a policy of immigration in the 1970s, primarily because its declining populations couldn't sustain their welfare states.  If the Europeans (or Americans) want to be like the Japanese, they could.

I think the discussion of unionization and immigration was a bit flippant.  Undoubtedly, racism plays a part in certain views.  However, as good Marxists, focus on the underlying economic realities.  I think it is common sense that, in the medium to long term, unions can only increase the price of labor by limiting the supply of workers.  While an increase of workers through immigration may increase union membership, which will increase union dues, it will be a certainty that the price of labor will be lower than in the absence of the immigration.  To me, this creates a contradiction between unions and their existing workers.  As Mr. Proyect's excerpt demonstrates, the economic realities were apparent from the beginning.

David Shemano