Marxists since at least Lenin have acknowledged that capitalism drives migration from the lesser-developed nations to the more prosperous countries with higher wages and overall better standards of living. We saw this in the nineteenth century with European workers moving to America and today with Central American migrants into the United States or economic migrants and war refugees into Europe. It is no secret that these workers are super-exploited and often relegated to the status of an underclass, but as Lenin said:
Capitalism has certainly developed in some ways since when these words were written in 1913 and the world is globalized more than ever, meaning labor moves from place-to-place with less restrictions than ever before. There seems to be an extreme anti-immigrant attitude from some corners of Zig Forums which conspiratorially paints these immigrants as merely the pawns of capital, forgetting about the self-interest of these workers to come here in the first place. This attitude is completely against the internationalist spirit of Marxism and is a nationalist deviation. The systematic education of workers against sexist, racist, nationalistic and xenophobic prejudices will be a blow against the power of capital to keep the working people divided.
Would you really side with the bourgeoisie of “your” nation over workers in nearly the same position of yourself and subjugate yourself to spooks about the nation?
Keyword was “some corners”. I saw a lot of it in the migrant caravan thread a while back and just a few minutes ago in
Sometimes it can be hard to tell who is a crypto-nationalist LARPing as Marxist and who is just a flat-out Zig Forumsyp. Still, I think it could be a good thread
Logan Turner
As you can sometimes observe on this board, it is not yet easy to do anti-idpol correctly without falling into de-facto Nazbol which is de-facto Asserism which is Fascism which is Capitalism. People have understood (through Trump honestly) that a class analysis and less emphasis on cultural symbols is necessary for the left to get anywhere. But there is a lot of confusion over how far this should go, and honestly how to best tie it all together. Theory is lacking in this regard.
Owen Hernandez
I hate this meme. Nazbol just means you believe in Socialism in one country.
Luis Phillips
I wouldn't be against immigration if we actually achieved a fully socialist state. Under capitalism, it will only hurt the working class, because they tend to be exploited for below living wages, leaving everyone else without a job.
Under capitalism, immigration is a disaster for the working class. Under socialism, no one would be affected, since workers would be in control of the economy.
Andrew Gonzalez
Marxism-Leninism means you believe (among other things) in socialism in on country. Nazbol is literally about combining communism and fascism into one ideology.
Adrian Bell
To the extent that Nazbol isn’t just a giant meme, it’s literally fascism with socialist clothing. Socialism in one country is obviously going to come about from time to time. However, as Stalin said in the Foundations of Leninism:
Cameron Jackson
Glad to see like-minded people! I fully agree with you OP.
Christian Morgan
no it isn't. literally all it means is you want to bring bolshevism to a single nation. you're joking if you think Dugin represents all NazBols
David Ward
quick tip, anyone who uses rhetoric about "the fall of the west" or other similar nonsense is 100% a reactionary false flagging
Sebastian Wood
I fucking hope so, has there even been any newly formed socialist country/territory or socialist revolution since the collapse of the Soviet bloc?
Angel Brown
send them back to the JUNGLES so they can enjoy reggaton
Bye bye
Jack Martinez
what
Thomas Wright
Not that I can think of off the top of my head but the thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc is literally nothing in the grand scheme of history. It’s been a shorter gap so far between the death of Marx and the founding of the first socialist state.
Dominic Martinez
I think it’s worth noting that it was posted here earlier that declarations supported by M&E later in life declared opposition to paying foreign workers less than French workers. What’s the point in allowing immigration if you can’t pay them less (from the perspective of the bourgeoisie)—not much of one.
It’s worth noting that the free movement of labor that Marx and Engels actually supported consisted of workers from advanced countries moving to some of the most underdeveloped regions of the world and building them up—aka settler-colonialism. The example that open borders leftists love to draw on is one that they love to denounce in the very next breath.
I think that Lenin also failed to account for the fact that by cheapening labor, immigration is actually technically and economically reactionary—with the exception of when high-skilled workers move into relatively unpopulated regions and develop them. It’s not surprise that the reactionary petit-bourgeoisie while hating the politics of the immigrant actually loves immigration because it keeps him in business.
Lenin also had no experience with modern economic migrants, many of which in post-1917 US history have been foot-soldiers of reactionary regimes. Many are petit-bourgeois in their home country; as much as a 1/3 of new US immigrants have college degrees and are Asian in origin.
What would actually persuade the bourgeoisie to do this? The upward wage-pressure right now is almost exclusively for skilled workers and professionals. Upward pressure on the wages of unskilled workers may happen but it won’t last long and probably won’t amount to much. Trying to save the bottom-line of those companies and industries dependent on cheap labor would not be desirable in any case.
Connor Thomas
I'd like sending skilled workers in the other direction. Maintain them for helping out less developed nations.
Evan Cox
No it isnt a blow against capitalism. That idea just serves historical examples of capitalist employers strategically using workers of different identity against one another, exploiting their differences. This exploitation of inherent differences in workers serves as a form of disciplinary control of the worker by the capitalist.
Your elaboration of the international spirit of Marxism seems to only suggest that unstated, unaccountable, yet privileged decision makers will be in control of the workers and in charge of this oppression in control of the worker. It is not much different ideologically from past failures in communist thought which only served the international capitalist hegemonic elites communism claims to fight against ideologically.
epic strawman. this is because we had to bureaucratize to do damage control from raging retards like you.
Kayden Martin
...
Isaac Watson
THIS IS WHAT Zig Forums ACTUALLY BELIEVES
Kayden Wood
i second this i'm in favor of OP's sentiment but not at the expense of the majority of a given countries population due to current material/political conditions
bless you boonposter
William Sanders
Literally everything in that picture is false…I guess you can argue for Hitler being inspirational.
David Walker
The Soviets can't destroy Europe if we do it first! t. Hitler
Kevin Rogers
I don't know, maybe ask Marx why he supported Free Trade while you cucks refuse to follow after your Great Thinker.
You dont have to be anti immigration to be 'anti pro-immigration'. Saying you are anti immigrant if you oppose liberal immigration is setting up a false dichotomy.
The problem is caused by a lack of any real leftist political force. The right (which is still more 'anti change' than actually formally fascist/racist in the majority of its numbers) is of course against immigration for xenophobic purposes (native workers also have valid complaints), this leaves the only notable pro-immigration body as liberals. The problem is immigrants will come and, due to having nobody else to really turn to for political support, become pawns as they are driven to the only visible friendly faction.
The current situation sees people who simply dont want progress fighting liberal progress, and i would say stopping liberal progress is more useful to socialism than letting it entrench itself even further, because the kind of progress liberals bring is only enslavement through security. You can not claim the kind of social welfare they provide brings us any closer to a more empowered or potentially revolutionary working class, as these things are specifically designed to placate and keep the lower classes in line.
Therefore the correct task would be to oppose liberal immigration while simultaneously doing what ever can be done to attract immigrants to the left by providing visible support and explaining why the people claiming to want to help them are only trying to exploit them. If a strong and visible left party is present, then you can encourage immigration from that platform.
Andrew Wilson
free trade =/= capitalism
Matthew Sanchez
...
Charles Williams
I think people tend to miss that in that work Lenin's thought process is that those people immigrating to America will be receiving "training in civilization" and then be joining up with the growing "advanced, international army of the proletariat" who will go forward to not only inspire the idea of more vigorous striking by transferring what they learned in Russia to the US, but who will also assist in the struggle back "home" both through this effort and pushing for material support. This isn't happening right now, because there isn't any "advanced, international army of the proletariat" in the US to join up with, not only because the left is fucking dead but because the jobs being offered and the conditions that exist in many places aren't exactly what one would call "advanced", at least in regards to the feudal to capitalist jump that was Russia to America. Most of the time now its manufacturing industry to manufacturing industry or industrialized agricultural work to industrialized agricultural work. There is also no hope of this happening.
Wasn't Angela ousted as a problematic/reactionary individual herself? I think she responded to criticism with reactionary tactics of talking about sjws or whatever
Really? Because I'm pretty sure the people here support open borders in order to "collapse the west" because apparently America is the only reason why communism fails.
Christopher Ortiz
people are already attacking her for daring to question the logic behind support for open borders.
Does capitalizing Nouns in the Title of Articles trigger you?
Isaiah Cruz
Could you imagine if he actually had gotten the peace prize trough?
Isaac Martinez
Nagle is what happens, when you take a consercative academic with no kniwledge of internet or real life politics and force him to make a book Nagle is a complete theorylet so she uses the term "ruling elite" That elite is sjw and libtard while the alt-right is uniqe ,cause they musterbate to trap hentai ……while anti-trans(o jesus rightwingers being two-faced) also the alt-right only exists on the internet and is antisytem(hahaha) Tho most of her attacker were triggered cause she said MRAs are right Meme/10 book
I haven't read her book but I've listened to multiple interviews with Nagle on podcasts and she seems based to me. Any moderately successful author/thinker on the left who's got anything of value to say (especially if it's in any way critical of the left itself) will immediately be targeted by the woke twitter crowd.
The anti-SJW crowd in various online spaces is cringy as hell and usually made up of right-wingers and crypto-fascists, but "SJW's" exist and they should be purged from the left. Socialists and communists should distance themselves from the woke twitter crowd as much as possible.
There is a difference, too, between open borders for labor and for capital.
Brandon Flores
serious question: historically, did socialist "internationalism" ever actually imply "open borders"? what was marx's stance on immigration? judging by nagle's quote, it sound surprisingly mixed.
Jaxson Rivera
communists should pragmatically oppose all immigration under capitalism to attempt to hasten it's decline imagine trying to maintain profitability when your country's birth rate is less than replacement, and no one can enter you'd have less consumers each year.
Jonathan Morris
Russia has had a shrinking population for almost 30 years and still has a capitalist economy. Japan has experienced flat or negative population growth for some time as well.
Wyatt Walker
Granted, the rates are profit in both of countries have been far from reliable during the period of stagnation. Japan only stays afloat because its own people reinvest everything they have into their own economy. Russia totally collapsed in the 90s, was looted by oligarchs, and only seems to grow when there is an energy market boom.
Caleb Mitchell
this I am opposed to mass immigration not from a racial perspective, but primarily because it is exploited by capitalists to undermine the working classes. In a socialist system, there would be little issue.
Have you considered that the conditions in the world have changed from Lenins time, and a great deal from Marxes' time, and the characteristic of immigration has changed since then? Also are we just going to stick to shit written 100 years ago and not develop theory based on modern conditions? I am tired of these holy cows, it is neither the 19th nor the 20th century and Marx was wrong before, for an example we know that capitalism doesn't develop the productive forces once it has developed in a few powerful countries, because those countries (and more specifically industries functioning in those countries) will do their best to destroy industry in countries that threaten their capital (Eastern Europe after the fall of socialism, foreign capital dismantled local industry and agriculture because it threatened German, Anglo and French dominance in the European market.) and no further development took place in those countries, the foreign capital that dismantled existing industry just milks the labor there to make parts for EU factories while 60% of the population on average doesn't work in productive labor, they are just there to buy EU products. Literally supermarket states. Or of course the example of prior colonial holdings where industry was never developed past the point of mineral/resource extraction, and today when this colonialism has been privatized under corporations, there is no development of industrial forces, in fact these african countries are barred from developing MoP out of fear that they become independent.
But to get back on point, immigration as we know it today is different from immigration in both the 19th and the 20th century, it has never been as mass scale and rapid as today. It is harmful both for the states from which workers go and it is harmful to the workers of countries where immigrants go. On the local level it causes horrible brain drain, the weakening of industrial potential by labor flight, ever falling natality rates because it is young people who emigrate and the flight of the only demographic which would actually care to bring about a socialist revolution. today transportation is cheaper than ever and most people could afford to go to another country and emigrate illegally if needed, but most likely don't even need to do so because the western powers shill hard for emigration in foreign countries so they can sustain their influx of cheap labor, as well as continue to bring down the value of local labor. I went to Belgium for a week a few months ago despite coming from a poor country, it cost me my entire paycheck, but I could have very well burned my passport and papers and joined one of the local squats and emigrated, and would have probably lived better than in my home country after a year or two of labor.
But this is becoming a problem beyond classes simply because I think we are at the begging of an age of migrations like before in human history, except this time it is not due to over-breeding and starting to starve in our environment, it is due to imperialism and capitalist destruction of life standards mixed with cheap transportation and liberalized travel, people would rather flee today than fight. You aren't getting revolutions because everyone is running and running is so affordable. Croatia has lost 9% of it's population to emigration, Latvia 10% since joining the EU and 25% since opening it's borders in 1991. Serbia has lost 30% of it's population, etc etc. We know there is massive flight in the muslim world as well since we saw how many people passed trough europe in the refugee crisis and many remained both legally and illegally. It is easier to run today than it is to fight (wage revolutions) so people run instead of fighting for a better living standard, this kills communism. The conditions won't be getting worse in the west barring climate change, everyone is under welfare and the multiculti program is easing tensions between migrants and the local population, and as long as people keep fucking running for the west it won't run out of a workforce, declining birth rates don't matter if the arabs actually have children.
This is basically halting industrial development in the world, both because there are less and less people to work it outside of the central imperialist powers and because these same powers make it basically impossible to develop industrially, using these countries for resources and as a market for their goods. If the EU and America choose to embargo any nation they had a hand in dismantling, it is doomed because it has no national production. Everyone is running from their shithole countries and centralizing in these few imperialist states and there won't be any revolution there because the welfare state built on imperialism keeps everyone happy and fed (or most of everyone), just as welfare states historically killed the communist movement in the western world in the 19th and 20th century. If a lone socialist state came to be today, instead of a spontaneous bloc arising, it would have to have iron borders if it wants to compete with capitalist production at all.
I agree, this is why I think we can't just blindly support unregulated immigration out of some ideology or humanism. Both practically and politically it is bad for the left.
I have other issues with western lefties but if I brought them up I might be flamed to death or banned, so there is no point.
Oliver Powell
They don't, but you can pretend it's real in your mind if you want, we can't stop you
Jeremiah Torres
I have only seen hot takes lambasting the article but no actual arguments. That's because her message is solid.
Nagle simply lays out all the left wing arguments about migration. Brain drain is bad, nations should be able to keep their talent in, especially if the country paid to put them through college. Conflicts generated by the west are a big driver of migration, and so is the underdeveloped conditions in poor nations. Free trade serves to keep them underdeveloped. The bosses use migrant labour to undermine bargaining power. And currently no-one on the left (especially not on the liberal left but that is of course a feature not a bug) is imagining a programmatic way of dealing with any of those factors in the short or long term. The debate is only waged on the cultural level.
The left (as she defines it) is not offering people a plan.
If you mean she upset left twitter then yes, but I wouldn't take their word for it unless you consider yourself reactionary, seeing as that's what they think of us. It's obvious that most of them are too ADD to read a short article, let alone read any real theory
Is it a "reactionary tactic" for us to call reddit radlibs? Because it's objectively true. These people do not care about theory, tactics, or forming a workers movement. They care about appearing woke for their worthless circle twitter followers.
Michael Williams
Debatable, but it's definitely fully retarded. Reddit isn't a monolith, despite what your years of stormfront programming on the chinz has instilled in you.
Sounds like that would be far better for the purpose of creating class consciousness.
Hudson Campbell
Then what's Nagle's solution? Go back to a closed national economy? You could do that, but good luck convincing capitalists to try.
She does correctly point out that for all of Trump's rhetoric, the only material thing he has produced in terms of immigration control is some roundups and a few miles of concertina wire at the border that doesn't stop anybody. But that's because all that borders really do is function as a valve: you turn up the pressure when you want to adjust levels of the migrant labor force, but this entire labor arbitrage schema that allows this process to happen in the first place requires borders. Basically, Nagle doesn't want to abolish capitalism but just turn up the pressure on immigrants, favoring domestic workers. But are you a communist or not? If you are, then you should want to abolish borders and capitalism entirely.
Then she tries to present her argument as Marxist, like Karl Marx was no more radical than AFL-CIO chairman George Meany in 1950s America. That's just laughable. Marx wanted to organize Irish and German immigrants in the United States to overthrow American capitalism! She left that part out, though. And this is totally dishonest because she cites an article from Monthly Review that points this out, but she ignores that to try to play some "gotcha" game. I think she's crypto-reactionary and a conservative, but she presents herself as a leftist. I'm not buying it.
You're just doing it again - you refuse to make a programmatic point in favour of a moral appeal, here cloaked in Marxist language. "If you're a communist you should want to abolish borders". This is facile preening on two counts. One, you present no programmatic way of achieving this, even though the way to achieve this is far from self evident. Far as I can there is no roadmap out there for abolishing national borders in any practical sense, certainly not in the historical examples of actually existing socialism.
Secondly, you don't present any argument why the abolishing of borders is something that is on the same plane as abolishing capitalism. Yes, I want to abolish capitalism. But you present no argument that abolishing borders is a precondition for this; wanting to organize workers of all nationalities inside a border regardless of their nationality does not abolishing borders as such make. You could well say that communists should disregard borders as it suits them, but that's something else entirely from a commitment to "free" movement of peoples in itself as integral to building socialism. Because clearly it is not, for the reasons Nagle lays out. Anyone seizing power and seeking to build socialism in say, India, will find very little value in seeing all its best talent leave to go work in the West.
In b4 Well then what does this ending of all borders entail then? What is the fucking program? People are already moving. Currently all that we have, is free movement of people as it suits capital. We see what it does, Nagle lays it out.
The reason surplus migrant labor to the U.S. is lucrative for American capital is because the flow is controlled. If you are an undocumented worker in the U.S., you don't have any rights and capital can pay you below the minimum wage. If you're no longer necessary, then you're deported. This is happening because capital in the 21st century is allocating labor on the transnational scale and then using internal border / immigration controls as a valve – it's possible for migrant workers to undercut domestic workers precisely because they're "illegal." And they're gonna be moving on a much larger scale than currently in the future because of climate change. But what I'm saying here is that Nagle – and yourself it seems – want to return to a kind of protectionist capitalism of the mid-20th century. Which is fine. It was successful at pushing wages higher. But it's not socialist. It's just a different version of capitalism.
Joshua Bailey
As you obtusely continue to fail to offer any kind of programmatic program for people to rally around, I'm going to have to assume that you propose uncontrolled flow, development of the countries of origins or effects on the workers in the receiving countries be damned.
Tough sell.
Adam Torres
Why do workers in the global north have more right to wages than those in the south? "Tough sell" says the imperialist.
Ryan Gray
As an addendum, this is in fact just bullshit. If you are no longer necessary they fire you, and don't care what happens to you after. There is no pipeline running from employers to migration enforcement agencies - the employers would reveal themselves to be breaking the law after all. And employment does not protect from deportation. The threat of deportation is no doubt wielded to keep the workers from organizing, which isn't the same as the mechanistic explanation you give.
Juan Lewis
And there you are back to moralizing.
Christian Brown
You didn't answer the question. But capitalism in any case is only sustaining itself because of this kind of labor arbitrage. Destroy borders then you will destroy capitalism.
Ethan Butler
And in any case, what you want is essentially a better deal for workers in developed countries. In theory. Alright – fine, go do that and vote for whichever bourgeois political party you think will deliver it.
Benjamin Moore
Not the guy your debating with, but this a backwards and utopian way of thinking. Nowhere does the removal of borders, which free flow doesn't even do, suppose the destruction or abolishment of capitalism. Communism or world socialism of course alludes to such and can be assumed given the change in conditions, but just the removal or borders does not.
The arguement is literally the opposite. The point that people have been making is preventing brain drain, which only benefits developed countries at the expense of undeveloped ones. Workers who move from, for example, Mexico or Else Salvador no longer function as workers in those countries, they function as workers in the US who benefit the US.
Tyler Richardson
All right, how will you destroy borders? How will you organize people to do this?
Brandon Taylor
by spray painting "no borders, no nations" on buildings and getting into street fights with nazi larpers
Liam Flores
Hell if I know. I'm just a poster. But I'm just acidly critical of these closed-border leftists. For all practical purposes, in terms of putting up political parties and standing for elections, you're probably right. But back in the 1860s I would've been told that abolition is a worthless cause because free blacks flowing into the north will depress wages. And there were people who argued that at the time! Of course, one person who did not make that argument was Marx.
Yeah but Nagle is saying that "open borders" leftists are people like Mark Zuckerberg, which is retarded. She's conflating people who really do want to annihilate borders with bourgeois liberals who are in favor of guest-worker programs for people with master's degrees.
Christian Cox
It's more a matter of thinking about which side I'm going take. If it's a choice between a U.S. Border Patrol agent suited up in riot gear and a Honduran worker with just the clothes on his back, I'll pick the side of the Honduran worker.
Isaac Carter
Lastly for now because I've got to run to a family thing, Nagle's argument is basically the same as Hillary Clinton who is gearing up for another potential presidential run. So to see Nagle, Hillary and Michael Tracey all team up will be fun to watch – especially as they try to argue they're actually taking the left position. But it's not actually leftism but a Christopher Hitchens esque contrarianism that reproduces the neoliberalism that it purportedly aims to criticize. Be wary.
Gabriel Gray
Doing what?
Hudson Baker
Do you want a real answer? I live in Texas and there are immigrant rights groups here – some of them have been threatened by neo-Nazi groups and such. Most of the people who lead these groups are either undocumented or were at some point in their lives. So I've been going to their events and seeing ways to get involved. I have been to demonstrations. I'm just a dude though and not in any real position of power. Even being an extra body in the room is useful because these neo-Nazi gangs have rolled up to fundraisers and such with 30 people and starting screaming Jew in their faces.
Jackson Perez
Also – where do you live? Like I was saying, there are a lot of undocumented migrant and immigrant workers where I live. They make up a substantial portion of the population.
Adam Campbell
Just finding the person you feel most sympathy for and "picking their side" (what does that even fucking mean? are you gonna help them physically fight border patrol?) does not constitute a political analysis or strategy. What does this mean in practice? What sorts of policies are you gonna push for? What will be the concrete political and societal consequences of those policies? Which groups win, which groups lose? Who will you alienate by advocating for this or that policy? How does it fit in to your long term strategy to build a worker's movement capable of constructing a socialist society? You are thinking about politics in completely abstract, moralistic and utopian terms right now.
Landon Myers
Is that a problem?
Matthew Garcia
Are you a Marxist?
Daniel Thomas
Look bro I'm not actually in charge of anything. I'm literally just posting and showing up to things and standing around
Hunter Jones
Well then tell your Marxist friends to get down here, or use your analysis to convince the neo-Nazi gangs to back off.
Jayden Cook
Yes.
Lucas Cruz
Well then I'll tell you, using my analysis, that the big bourgeoisie here make the exact same arguments as Nagle. Immigrants are taking our jobs and so forth – and these are real-estate developers who run for congressional races, meanwhile they're lobbying for H-2B visa businesses, because they know that "closed borders" means that immigration can be monetized. There are a lot of rich assholes in Texas making a lot of money from immigration controls.
Blake Carter
Also – it sounds to me like you're trying to outsmart the right by stealing the immigration issue away from them. So it's tactical and aimed at winning over these domestic workers. But I don't think you're going to outflank the right on this – they will vote for the real thing if the choice is between that and some nazbol substitute.
Though even practically speaking, most Americans (where I live, in the U.S.) support immigration to the tune of 70 percent thinking it's a good thing. The Republicans recently ran very hard to the right on immigration in the midterms and faced their worst loss since the early 1970s after the Watergate scandal broke. So I really don't know what the left stands to gain by moving to the right on immigration. Only people on Zig Forums who are too "smart" for their own good could believe this.
Caleb Jones
And Angela "Kill All Normies" Nagle who thinks Sargon of Akkad is some kind of voice of a generation and not a world-class joke
Brandon Barnes
If it's mass scale than that means Lenin's observations apply even more than in his time and the arguments you made against immigration could have been easily used by Lenin back then (but he didn't used used them because he wasn't a reactionary).
Adam Wood
Still nothing about brain drain. Lots of people here taking some very accelerationist, unorthodox positions. "Sure the developing countries get sucked dry of the people that could develop them, but think of the power employers will lose when no human being is illegal - it'll practically collapse capitalism". I'm not so convinced, and it still leaves the developing countries in a bind while we wait.
There is never anything wrong with helping vulnerable people. But it does not amount to a political platform for the transformation of society.
As to public reactions to immigration, it tends to be a bit more negative here in Yurop.
Brayden Jenkins
Did you read the article? She cleary said what her plan was
Really am not seeing what's so bad about this. People are acting like she went full nazbol
I kinda appreciate how this is made to make everyone mad.
Nathaniel Evans
How will you "close" borders?
Anthony Martin
It's not about trying to steal a bunch of rabid racists away from the far right. It's about not giving away a bunch of support to the far right for free, by advocating policies everyone except leftist college kids can see are idiotic. Most people don't start out hating people with a different skin tone.
I'm not even "against immigration". I think accepting refugees for example should be done when possible because I think helping vulnerable people is good. But I think that if you're going to accept a large number of refugees into the country you need some sort of plan. How do you prevent ethnic segregation? How do you prevent ethnic conflicts? How much strain is it going to put on the welfare sector? Will the schools have the capacity to handle new students who don't speak the language yet? What effects will the influx of a highly religious population into a more or less secular society have?
I'm against "open borders" because it's such an obviously utopian and unfeasible idea. No one who advocates "open borders" understands, or is even interested in, what the effects of such a policy would be or how it would be carried out. Advocating open borders is the opposite of carefully thinking your immigration policy through, so that you don't end up creating a bunch of unexpected problems that will give the far right an opportunity to grow in opposition.
I think we might be coming at this from different angles though. The open borders people seem to be americans. I'm a yuropoor, from one of the countries that's accepted most refugees in relation to population size. The immigration policy of the last decade has without a doubt had some really negative consequences, which has allowed the far right to gather support from the working class.
