What was Marx's view on immigration? I'm still new to socialism (have only read the Communist Manifesto), so my knowledge is fairly limited. I've heard some Alt-Right people on Twitter use the phrase "reserve army of labor" (which I believe Marx coined) in relation to illegal immigration, implying that Marx would not support the modern left's position on this issue. Is this correct? Or are they misunderstanding things?
As I understand it, the economic argument against illegal immigration is that it lowers wages, but businesses aren't hiring illegal immigrants out of a preference for duskier workers. They're hiring them because illegal immigrants are typically desperate and have few job opportunities available to them. Therefore, businesses can get away with paying them under the table at below minimum wage rates. Desperate, financially insecure native born workers serve the same function and may even be preferred due to fluency with English, but there just happen to be many more Mexican born workers who fit this bill than American born ones. As a result, they tend to be the scapegoat for this issue. Presumably for socialists, the source of the problem isn't immigration. It's capitalism and the system of wage slavery. But even in the short term, wouldn't this be better solved by forcing businesses to keep logs of workers on their payroll, how much they're paid, etc., and imposing strict penalties on businesses that try to circumvent labor laws, rather than focusing on immigration restriction, which only addresses the issue superficially if at all?
Workers have no country, borders are bourgeois, "illegal immigration" is a con on the part of the capitalist class to trick you into believing that nations are inherent and that being born on this or that side of an imaginary line makes you fundamentally better than those born on the wrong side of that imaginary line.
Aaron Martin
Don't listen to the other poster. Marx made an osservation he wasn't nor pro nor against. What i'm saying is that is totally dependent on the circumstances. It's easy to scream to muh boarders but without you wouldn't last a second in a world we're imperial powers exist. Same goes for immigration. Look at the GDR. You get free housing, free studying, free everything than you go BRD to spend work make family and apply your shit. This is wrong, immigrants are doing more or less this now…but now we live in a capitalist society, so i don't care. If we were under socialism? I'd care and I'd put idealism aside. Rethoric is nice but practice is different
Carson Gonzalez
zzz
Lincoln Scott
If Marx is correct we live in a pre-communist world. So while it is absolutely correct that "illegal immigration" wouldn't be an issue under communism I think a more important question is whether mass immigration serves to bring about the revolution or empower reactionary elements. I can see it going either way.
Joseph Martin
Given that all people are 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧equal🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 and nobody owns anything why should immigration even factor into Marx's Hypothesis?
Lincoln Jones
He's wrong, we live in a post communist world, that's why gooks and niggers need gommunism, to get their shit together sufficiently to form markets.
Ian Thomas
The laws of capitalist states are completely illegitimate.
Asher Ross
are you trolling or do you genuinely think marxism = equality of outcome
Kayden Roberts
Marx, Engels and Lenin never said this Marx, Engels and Lenin never said this
Xavier Hernandez
how many times do retards have to come here and be told the same exact things before they get it through their heads :~( it's been the same arguments for the past 200 years
Wyatt Lewis
met for
Jace Murphy
You tell me sunshine…
Charles Lopez
Well, there's this little thing called history that educated people refer to. You might benefit from removing your Marx goggles and studying it objectively.
Caleb Gutierrez
marxist are historic materialist user… or do you not know what that means?
please define marxism for me actually I'm curious
Jose Jones
when fags kill job creators and burn churches
Aaron Russell
??? you're trolling me, right? "each according to his ability according to his need" - some dead guy
Easton Lee
you have the mindset of a child. you should read a book :~)
I'm willing to accept that class is an illusion born of incoherent and irrational systems of value and that states are an illusion. I'm interested in seeing where you go with this.
Evan Williams
Way to make my own point for me with a quote.
Logan Powell
In truth the end of the class system has less to do with its contradiction that with what Christopher Lasch called "The Revolt of the Elites". Managerial Capitalism enables successful people to be mobile and unattached to their surroundings. The elite are no longer conservative because they have no stake in what would normally be conserved. This has in turn undercut the role of the state and its legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens.
Justin Allen
Not him, but I appreciate that someone else on this board read Lasch. The guy is really the social conserva.tive perspective without falling for reactionary memes. I'm not a conservative, but holy shit if there were more people like him on the left we'd be better. He's the direct answer to liberalism, which fucked the left over and over. If more people took the lasch pill we'd purge liberals like nothing
You cannot ask of marx to give his opinion in immigration right now when the situation is nothing like what it was back then.
Back then only europe was industrialized, america was still mostly agrarian. There was almost no immigration, and certainly no mass migration. Right now all the world is capitalist, and people are capable of migrating over entire continents, and they do.
Marx is not fucking jesus.
Julian Hughes
leftists advocate for the importation of the brown hordes from the third world strictly as an accelerationist tactic, they simply aren't honest about it and cloak it in anti imperialism and bullshit humanism
you know what's coming from the never ending deluge
protip: people of the color brown are not the REVOLUTIONARY subject, it will not trigger communist revolution, it will only trigger Nazi masturbation fantasy
Aiden Morales
Shut your whore mouth
Benjamin Reed
You aren't a socialist and you should be culled with the rest of the reactionaries.
Jack Reed
Once again the fascist snakes can't help themselves and appropriate our language.
