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The red corner
Saturday, December 29 2007 - 07:11 PM Persevere. Listen to non-commercial listener-sponsored Pacifica Radio (tune to 90.7 FM, KPFK, Los Angeles; 98.7 FM in Santa Barbara County (As per usual, any and all childish comments – i.e., those trafficking in the personal – will be deleted. I thank you all.)
Capitalism: '...the borders remain porous'
RealSteve: “I’d pay extra taxes to implement the ”http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/217565.php">’Scottsdale Plan’ in Palmdale, and to implement the 287g Program in our jail. Coupled with a secure border, some penalties for employers hiring people without proper papers, I think the problem would solve itself." —quoted from the twenty-forth comment post within the thread This we need
But these and the many other proposed or already-enacted reactionary measures will not tend to solve the issue of undocumented immigration due to the fact that such Draconianism ignores the social context of this phenomenon; addressing but its social consequences. For it is abundantly clear that that social context is the capitalist system’s private ownership of the means of industrial production and its accompanying economic exploitation of workers that creates sorrow and uncertainty for nearly all workers, and that is forcing an ever increasing number of workers to depart their native lands in order to assure their very survival as well as that of their loved ones.
Beyond that, laws having to do with immigration and nearly all other matters are proposed and enacted at the behest of the capitalist class. Let us take NAFTA – the North American Free Trade Agreement – enacted in January of 1994, for example:
By way of allowing massively-subsidized American agricultural capitalists to compete with – to pulverize small-sized and medium-sized Mexican farm operations, NAFTA has forced literally millions of Mexican farm workers out of the industry and into a desperate cycle of squalid poverty that has caused many to migrate to the United States; to, in many cases, forgo the now seven-year waiting period required for one to migrate to the United States legally because many of these people possess the temerity to also wish to forgo death by starvation. (1)
Protocol relevant to NAFTA’s service-division have permitted retail giants the likes of Wal-Mart to penetrate Mexico’s economy and, while peddling low-cost commodities manufactured by even more heavily exploited Chinese labor power, to destroy literally tens of thousands of small-sized and medium-sized Mexican firms, thereby displacing perhaps hundreds of thousands of additional workers.
Some of NAFTA’s other social consequences include the fact that, according to the Mexican National Population Council, “Mexican wages along the border with the U.S. [fell] from $0.97 per hour in 1990 to $0.71 per hour in 1998.” And, according to the Mexican Association in Defense of the Consumer, “The price of a basic food basket increased 370% from 1994-2000.” These are just a few of the social consequences wrought by NAFTA and other indications of modern-day monolithic capitalism.
In 1994, former United States Attorney General Janet Reno stated: “If it [NAFTA] fails, effective immigration control will become impossible.” According to the Institute For Local Self Reliance’s David Morris, Janet Reno also predicted in 1994 that “By raising Mexican living standards and wage levels…NAFTA would reduce illegal immigration by up to two-thirds in six years. ‘NAFTA is our best hope for reducing illegal immigration in the long haul,’ Reno declared…”
But NAFTA has been enormously successful with respect to commerce, yet utterly disastrous with respect to undocumented immigration. Why? Because never was the North American Free Trade Agreement intended to curb undocumented immigration. In fact, given that NAFTA was never intended to serve in the interest of the American, Canadian, and Mexican working-classes in general, it was destined from its very beginnings to exacerbate undocumented immigration rather than to reduce it. The striking increase in the number of Mexicans crossing the US-Mexican border illegally these past fourteen years, amongst other such matters, serves as testimony that NAFTA is nothing more than a recipe for plutocracy-enforced corporate exploitation serving the economic interests of the American, Canadian, and Mexican ruling classes and only the economic interests of the American, Canadian, and Mexican ruling classes.
But with or without the North American Free Trade Agreement, the future of American workers – indeed, that of workers throughout the world – is not one that offers much encouragement. For the simple fact of the matter is that, although social ills the likes of undocumented immigration and unemployment have been worsened by NAFTA and other international agreements, capitalist treaties and trade are not the cause of said social ills. They are, rather, caused by capitalism itself – by the very manner in which capitalist society is structured.
To be sure, Matthew Keltner was altogether correct in his assertion that too many of us “fail to realise the role that capitalism and the market economy play in a situation where the borders remain porous.” Moreover and to reiterate, the lot of these matters are givens, complete certainties, within the very foundation of the capitalist system. And their social consequences, including undocumented immigration, will surely worsen for as long as we continue to tolerate the existence of this now antisocial, antiquated and moribund social order.
(1) Link to corporate welfare search engine: “…$20,000 for the purchase of golf balls…”
Yours in revolution.
Guy Marsh
Lancaster
93536
Member-at-large:
Socialist Labor Party of America (est. 1890)
http://www.slp.org/
Redflag says...
I accidentally deleted Randy Hall’s response. It read as follows:
“There is a crop grown in Mexico that competes with all other farms and outstrips it.
“Blue agave.
“I’ve seen the mile after mile of the cactus. I enjoy its fruit.
“I don’t blame a failure on the people or on circumstances. I blame the individual.
“If you are in business long enough, you find out; there are leaders and followers.
“Allowing the followers to lead … well, can you imagine the spills on aisle 3 needing to be cleaned up? You got it; there would be no one to tell someone the obvious.
“Aisle 3 would be a pigsty. Gradually the rest of the store, too.
“Capitalism recognizes this simple truth and rewards leaders that keep a clean store.” [END]
Randy Hall: “There is a crop grown in Mexico that competes with all other farms and outstrips [them all]: Blue Agave.”
Meaning what, Randy, that those who once worked within Mexico’s corn industry may now secure employment within that country’s Blue Agave industry?
…right now there’s a huge glut of [Blue] agave, and prices for agave have fallen so low that some independent farmers don’t bother harvesting it; it costs more to get it out of the field than they will get from a producer.
Randy Hall: “I’ve seen the mile after mile of the [”blue"] cactus. I enjoy its fruit."
Apparently.
Randy Hall: “I don’t blame a failure on the people or circumstance. I blame the individual.”
I see. So it isn’t capitalism’s many connate contradictions that are the cause of the world’s growing level of social miseries, it is the fault of some sort of character flaw within each affected individual. Is that your point, Randy? If not, then what is your point?!
Randy Hall: “If you are in business long enough, you find out; there are leaders and followers. Allowing the followers to lead … well can you imagine the spills on aisle 3 needing to be cleaned up? You got it; there would be no one to tell someone the obvious. Aisle 3 would be a pigsty. Gradually the rest of the store, too.
Capitalism recognizes this simple truth and rewards leaders that keep a clean store.”
First of all and for contextual purposes, my family was self-employed for more than fifty years [ergo, Mr. Hall has “schooled me” not]; the vast majority of spills occurring within grocery stores are handled by “line employees” without their being told by management to do so [the “acquarian conspiracy” in action?]; and most store directors [our Mr. Hall’s “leaders”] are rewarded by way of cronyism.
My twenty-four years of working within grocery stores recognizes these simple truths.
That said, capitalists, which do not include petty capitalists the likes of Randy Hall, do possess an interest in leading the productive process. But the reality is that nowadays the vast majority of capitalists have nothing to do with leading the productive process. Historically speaking, though, capitalists did play leadership roles in the bringing about of modern industrial/economic production. The most successful capitalists, however, happened to have been those who lead with respect to the accumulation of economic wealth – which meant that they were leaders, not solely in making the best use of human labor and intellectual power, but in realizing surplus value via the merciless exploitation of human labor power and or intellectual power.
But today there is precious little leadership left within the capitalist system. New businesses are launched on a daily basis, but nearly all of them either fail within a very few years or are acquired by much larger, more established companies. Now, of course, new methods of increasing the rate of exploitation – including, but in no way limited to, increases in productivity – are still being implemented by companies, but such tasks are carried out by the capitalist class’ hired managers and executives, rather than by capitalists “leading the way.” Yes, a very few well-established capitalists may well “fiddle” with such projects; but most of them do not. In any case, they do not have to.
Modern-day capitalists – most of whom inherited their economic wealth and thus their class status, a further indication of their not leading much of anything – essentially live off of the surplus value acquired from a wide diversity of stocks, bonds and other such investments. These individuals are, in fact and contrary to Mr. Hall’s contention, far removed from leadership roles as well as from the process of production in general. For instance, a particular capitalist may own, say, five-thousand shares of stock in a “public” utility company in the morning, sell the lot of it and then direct the proceeds towards the acquisition of stocks in an insurance company in the afternoon, and then sell that stock the next day in order to purchase shares in an automobile company. It should be obvious that such a capitalist has little to nothing to do with the means of production in any of those companies, and that he or she is a leader of nothing.
Persevere.
Guy
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Randy Hall says...
It is the “petty capitalist” that makes the most jobs for the workers.
I’ll be extint in a socialist world. I already can see the handwriting on the wall.
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Randy Hall says...
The world is growing richer due to capitalism, not the opposite. Redflag has stated capitalism is necessary before man becomes rich enough to not worry about his personal circumstance.
Kill the had that feeds you before all the workers enjoy the fruit.
Seems this is why Lennin, and company are such failures. The fail to recognize before the revolution the worker must be fulfilled. This is the “petty capitalists” job.
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Redflag says...
Randy Hall: “It is the ‘petty capitalist’ that makes the most jobs for the workers.”
I suppose that one could well make such an argument. Yet it is also the case that the majority of “good jobs” – relevant to pay, benefits and job security – are provided by large-scale capitalist firms. Since the vast majority of petty capitalists find themselves at the mercy of much larger capitalists, petty capitalists, besides having to put in very long hours themselves, are necessarily amongst the most ruthless exploiters of human labor power and intellectual power and are therefore simply unable to provide “good jobs.”
Randy Hall: “I’ll be extinct [as a petty capitalist] in a socialist world. I can already see the handwriting on the wall.”
Yes, since most petty capitalists would be much better off under socialism than they are under capitalism, they, like their capitalist “big brothers and sisters,” would be assimilated into socialist society in order for them to assume their roles of useful producers rather than parasitic exploiters. But the typically and highly reactionary suggestion that “socialism is creeping up on us” – that “the handwriting [is] on the wall” is as laughable as it is classical. For given the working-class’ near total lack of understanding of its material position within capitalist society, there exists absolutely no indication that so much as the pre-sociopolitical foundations for socialist revolution are being laid, let alone that socialist society is some sort of certainty. Yes, capitalism is indeed in its final stage, but that is not to say that socialism is " just around the corner" because it simply is not. Nor is it to say that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Maxine Waters, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the many other capitalist-class-approved buffoons are (LOL!) “leading us toward socialism” through their reformist legislation.
Randy Hall: “The world is growing richer due to capitalism, not the opposite.”
Yes, as evidenced by the fact that global stock markets are becoming increasingly bloated with each passing day (due to extremely rapid improvements to the means of industrial production, the ever increasing level of globalization, and “worker insecurity” —Alan Greenspan), [t]he world is growing richer due to capitalism." [Emphasis mine.] But as evidenced by the ever increasing intensity of capitalist competition on a global scale; by said improvements to the means of production that continue their unremitting sweep through all industries; and by capitalism’s accompanying decline in its need for human labor and intellectual power, the world’s capitalist class is by far the main beneficiary of this ever increasing wealth. In fact, to say that “the world’s capitalist class is growing wealthier like never before – as the world’s working class is growing poorer like never before” fails to so much as begin to describe the current state of this global incongruity.
Randy Hall: “Redflag has stated ’Capitalism is necessary before man becomes rich enough not to have to worry about his personal circumstance.”
No I haven’t.
Perhaps that was Randy’s way of restating my oft-sated “Capitalism was a very necessary step in humankind’s social evolution”; that “socialism is the next and most logical step in human social evolution” (or some variation thereof), but I have no idea as to what Mr. Hall’s intention(s) were in mentioning it in relation to this subject matter. Clarification, Randy?
Randy Hall: “Kill the hand that feeds you before all the workers enjoy the fruit.”
Hm.
Randy Hall: Seems this is why Lenin and company were such failures. They failed to recognize before the revolution that the worker must be fulfilled."
Actually, Randy, as I have explained on several occasions, the failings of both the Russian revolution of 1905 as well as that of the Russian revolution of 1917 were strictly material in nature rather than the result of any sort of human failure. (The fact that Vladamir Lenin took it upon himself to develop so-called vanguardism or “Marxist-Leninism” in a desirous yet futile attempt at compensating for Russia’s material deficiencies face to face with socialism’s requisites is more than enough to prove the palpability of that argument.)
But again, I’m not understanding the relevancy. Randy?!
Persevere.
Guy
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Randy Hall says...
In an attempt to clarify: “Randy Hall: “Redflag has stated ‘Capitalism is necessary before man becomes rich enough not to have to worry about his personal circumstance.”
No I haven’t.
Perhaps that was Randy’s way of restating my oft-sated “Capitalism was a very necessary step in humankind’s social evolution”; that “socialism is the next and most logical step in human social evolution” (or some variation thereof), but I have no idea as to what Mr. Hall’s intention(s) were in mentioning it in relation to this subject matter. Clarification, Randy?”
Since this is “social evolution” can I assume it mimics human evolution in its science?
I’ll attempt to make my point. If we are evolving from self-interest to societal interest, capitalism must be necessary to make inequities that must be evolved from.
Much like light is necessary for animals to evolve eyes, capitalism is very necessary to cause “social evolution.” If we don’t evolve eyes we can’t see the necessity of societal interest.
My point is, since we need light to see, and we need to evolve to a societal interest, capitalism must work its magic or shed its light. That magic is magnificent inequalities which are the natural outcomes of nature’s law of capitalism. We then need to understand we are using the science of behavior-modification to remake man. That remade man is mans attempt to evolve man’s thinking from what’s good for yourself is actually bad for mankind. I think the environmental movement is accomplishing this nicely.
In other words Marxist’ science is mans use of science to shed light, trying to force an evolution.
I think capitalism is necessary because we have shown the rest of the world our riches, and if we want them to want more or be more we have to show them more light.
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Ray Cunneff says...
The “other 911” should serve as a cautionary tale. The Nixon administration was so alarmed by the possibility of the election of Allende, a socialist, who was reportedly receiving support from Cuba, who might nationalize American interests in Chile, that they had the CIA pump millions of dollars in backing another candidate more to their liking.
Unfortunately, the CIA-backed candidate lost in the general election and Allende was swept into office.
So they mounted a three-year campaign to destabilize the socialist government and force a coup, again hoping for a more US-friendly government.
Instead, they got Pinochet, one of the cruelest and most repressive dictators of the 20th Century. Thousands were tortured of simply “disappeared” in order for the dictator to consolidate power in the name of capitalist interests.
What price capitalism? In Chile, the price was horrific.
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Randy Hall says...
Ray, it wasn’t capitalism to blame for Pinochet, it was American government. American government isn’t capitalism. Nixon wasn’t practicing capitalism in Chile.
Capitalism is an economic order, a natural economic order that if we believe in societal evolution, is nature’s way of showing inequity.
Man’s mind then attempts to invent a science to explain nature. That science of behavior modification isn’t capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t need to remake man. Capitalism is natural; untouched by man, when touched by man it can be degraded as so many Marxist’s scientific attempts have been. Man meddles people die. Nature meddles, that should be ok, except when it comes to flood control and a whole host of other things in nature that need to be meddled with to make our existence more comfortable. Marxism is no different it is mans attempt to make man more comfortable in this world. Capitalism simply does it naturally.
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Redflag says...
Again, Randy, I am so sorry! It was not my intention to do that. :-(
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