It depends on which side’s history you’re reading:
Google:
“The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep so-called Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West.”
Letting people out and keeping them out are two different things.
To my knowledge it is undebated that immigration restrictions tend to make immigrants stay longer in the destination country – for they expect difficulties in coming back again. As much as they would like to get back home, the most efficient way to contribute is then to send money.
True, this is only one piece of the puzzle.
Zooming out we are forced to admit that division is the name of the game. It usually takes the form of class frictions, ethnic rivalries and gender conflicts. But the erosion of the middle class now fuels the very antagonism that’s supposed to be deflected, while women are now ’empowered’ (needed for wage labour). So ethnicity may have seen its divisive role upgraded.
How is it coming about? Well, despite the occasional contrarian sophistry, we see clearly that while inequality grows within territories, it falls between them (with China in the lead in that respect). This means that Northern travellers to the global South can more readily be met with an opposite flow (the expenses of the journey are getting more easily covered).
And considering the wage gap is an order of magnitude, the incentive is litterally unbeatable.
The rest is narrative. You’ll easily find willing pushers in employers that benefit from the vulnerability of migrant workers.
The ‘help them where they are’ kind of discourse we hear in the above video, if taken up on, would more than likely provoke larger migrations – until equalization is achieved.
Unless some new, reconfigurating parameter intervenes, the choice can thus be rather simply formulated : maintain global inequality or accommodate migration for a while.
Polish MPs have voted overwhelmingly to pass a new law allowing soldiers and border guards to fire live rounds at migrants trying to break into the country from Belarus.
The passing of the legislation comes in the wake of the tragic death of a Polish border guard last week, who was killed by a spear thrown by a migrant from inside Belarusian territory.
Politicians in the Polish Sejm voted 401 in favour of the law, while 17 voted against.
The new legislation exempts public officials carrying weapons from liability where they use them in self-defence or “pre-emptively” when the “life, health and freedom” of law enforcement officials are threatened during an “unlawful attack on the inviolability of the state border”.
—
“You Will Be KILLED!” – Dominik Tarczy?ski WARNS Migrants: Poland Will SHOOT Illegal Immigrants
“less than 50,000 people a year try to cross the border”
I suppose some make it through, otherwise why try?
Not quite sure it is a destination country for illegal migrants though. Poland accepts a lot of legal ones (millions of Ukrainians).
What needs to be considered is the total process of international migration. Most of it happens between the less developed countries themselves. Nationals from the poorest countries tend to move not to the richest countries but to those in the middle.
In the Polish case, there has been a huge net emigration, starting around admittance into the EU in the early 2000s. And after the 2008 global ‘financial’ crisis, Poland was one of the very few countries to experience no noticeable decline in GDP growth (for reasons possibly linked its unusual mix of industry and small-scale agriculture, although the latter has receded in the last decade or so). Wages there remain low, which is why foreign investment is attracted – however it needs labour.
The point for Poland is not to completely halt illegal border crossings. That country provides a natural access into the Schengen area (through the Bia?owie?a forest), so the sieve is nightmarish just like in the Mediterranean. This way migrants are hooked into criminal networks that facilitate their exploitation.
Reducing the incentive to move in (with heavily guarded walls and so on) comes at a cost – and not only a financial one.
You’re capable of outputting a lot of words. Why not answer this part: Failed states can’t control their borders. Why are some developed countries behaving like failed states?
I know the answer, and I think you do to. I just want to see if you’ll admit it.
I’m not one to deny migration can actually be desired by the powers that be – despite what they most often claim. Hence deficient border control.
However we differ on the reason for this.
In my mind it’s a combination of economics and ideology. I won’t repeat what I wrote just above.
Now, you seem to think we’re witnessing an attempt at destabilizing society with the ulterior motive of a ‘communist’ transformation. Cultural agendas would be another weapon in this endeavour.
I don’t find that view quite helpful. Representing capitalists as communists seems like making them a favor.
True, capitalism is at a crossroads, and possibly coming to its end.
I don’t know where this capitalism is that you mention. Government subsidized and controlled, vertically integrated cartels are closer to communism than capitalism in practice.
Marx defines capital as a process, the reproduction of which implies circulation (as opposed to a form of wealth that is merely piled up, like gold). Moreover this reproduction is necessarily an expansion – as long as it requires labour (that adds value). Hence capital is also a relation.
Oligopolies and other cartels do not modifiy one iota this basic paradigm. At best, they serve to moderate productivity gains without recourse to resource depletion (the level of which is otherwise set by the State).
In The Triumph of Conservatism, A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916, G. Kolko writes :
“Ironically, contrary to the consensus of historians, it was not the existence of monopoly that caused the federal government to intervene in the economy, but the lack of it.”
“[T]he very creation of mergers and new industrial combinations led to the availability of funds in the hands of capitalists which often ended […] in the creation of competing firms.”
“In industries where rapid technological innovation was the key to success, as in electrical manufacturing and chemicals, the major companies began losing their share of markets and new entrants swarmed in during the first decade of the century. Where the level of necessary investment was comparatively low, as in paper, textiles, and glass, the number of new companies entering the field grew consistently and often spectacularly.”
On pp. 330-8 of Main Currents in Modern American History, the same author states that “there was considerable turnover […], so that of the fifty largest manufacturers in 1947 only thirty were still in that category in 1963”. He goes on to show that the efficiency of price-fixing could vary widely across sectors, regardless of their concentration. Also competition can appear from outside the product line (plastics…).
/
Communism is/was supposed to be the economic system that will result from the contradictions of capital in its dialectic with labour. As such it can’t be hierarchical. High productivity is a plague for any deeply unequal collective organism.
Defense.gov News Photo 110426-A-7597S-183: U.S. Special Operations service members with Special Operations Task Force South board two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters following a clearing operation in Panjwa'i district in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on April 25, 2011. Source: Wikimedia.
How encouraging to see someone telling it like it is in an entertaining yet undeniable way.
Keeping in the most educated, wasn’t that the Berlin Wall logic?
It depends on which side’s history you’re reading:
Google:
“The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep so-called Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state, but it primarily served the objective of stemming mass defections from East to West.”
Letting people out and keeping them out are two different things.
To my knowledge it is undebated that immigration restrictions tend to make immigrants stay longer in the destination country – for they expect difficulties in coming back again. As much as they would like to get back home, the most efficient way to contribute is then to send money.
True, this is only one piece of the puzzle.
Zooming out we are forced to admit that division is the name of the game. It usually takes the form of class frictions, ethnic rivalries and gender conflicts. But the erosion of the middle class now fuels the very antagonism that’s supposed to be deflected, while women are now ’empowered’ (needed for wage labour). So ethnicity may have seen its divisive role upgraded.
How is it coming about? Well, despite the occasional contrarian sophistry, we see clearly that while inequality grows within territories, it falls between them (with China in the lead in that respect). This means that Northern travellers to the global South can more readily be met with an opposite flow (the expenses of the journey are getting more easily covered).
And considering the wage gap is an order of magnitude, the incentive is litterally unbeatable.
The rest is narrative. You’ll easily find willing pushers in employers that benefit from the vulnerability of migrant workers.
The ‘help them where they are’ kind of discourse we hear in the above video, if taken up on, would more than likely provoke larger migrations – until equalization is achieved.
Unless some new, reconfigurating parameter intervenes, the choice can thus be rather simply formulated : maintain global inequality or accommodate migration for a while.
“To my knowledge it is undebated that immigration restrictions tend to make immigrants stay longer in the destination country”
Undebated!? haha See Poland:
https://twitter.com/MichelleRM68/status/1826266998042738937
“Unless some new, reconfigurating parameter intervenes…”
Yes, here’s an example. Use of lethal force is now authorized to defend the Polish border:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1923005/poland-belarus-border-migrant-crisis-latest
Polish MPs have voted overwhelmingly to pass a new law allowing soldiers and border guards to fire live rounds at migrants trying to break into the country from Belarus.
The passing of the legislation comes in the wake of the tragic death of a Polish border guard last week, who was killed by a spear thrown by a migrant from inside Belarusian territory.
Politicians in the Polish Sejm voted 401 in favour of the law, while 17 voted against.
The new legislation exempts public officials carrying weapons from liability where they use them in self-defence or “pre-emptively” when the “life, health and freedom” of law enforcement officials are threatened during an “unlawful attack on the inviolability of the state border”.
—
“You Will Be KILLED!” – Dominik Tarczy?ski WARNS Migrants: Poland Will SHOOT Illegal Immigrants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KquKAf8x3YY
—
Failed states can’t control their borders. Why are some developed countries behaving like failed states?
The Polish gov dude in that interview claims Poland let in strictly zero illegal alien in 8 years. This is most likely nonsense.
https://mondediplo.com/2023/04/07poland
“less than 50,000 people a year try to cross the border”
I suppose some make it through, otherwise why try?
Not quite sure it is a destination country for illegal migrants though. Poland accepts a lot of legal ones (millions of Ukrainians).
What needs to be considered is the total process of international migration. Most of it happens between the less developed countries themselves. Nationals from the poorest countries tend to move not to the richest countries but to those in the middle.
In the Polish case, there has been a huge net emigration, starting around admittance into the EU in the early 2000s. And after the 2008 global ‘financial’ crisis, Poland was one of the very few countries to experience no noticeable decline in GDP growth (for reasons possibly linked its unusual mix of industry and small-scale agriculture, although the latter has receded in the last decade or so). Wages there remain low, which is why foreign investment is attracted – however it needs labour.
The point for Poland is not to completely halt illegal border crossings. That country provides a natural access into the Schengen area (through the Bia?owie?a forest), so the sieve is nightmarish just like in the Mediterranean. This way migrants are hooked into criminal networks that facilitate their exploitation.
Reducing the incentive to move in (with heavily guarded walls and so on) comes at a cost – and not only a financial one.
You’re capable of outputting a lot of words. Why not answer this part: Failed states can’t control their borders. Why are some developed countries behaving like failed states?
I know the answer, and I think you do to. I just want to see if you’ll admit it.
I’m not one to deny migration can actually be desired by the powers that be – despite what they most often claim. Hence deficient border control.
However we differ on the reason for this.
In my mind it’s a combination of economics and ideology. I won’t repeat what I wrote just above.
Now, you seem to think we’re witnessing an attempt at destabilizing society with the ulterior motive of a ‘communist’ transformation. Cultural agendas would be another weapon in this endeavour.
I don’t find that view quite helpful. Representing capitalists as communists seems like making them a favor.
True, capitalism is at a crossroads, and possibly coming to its end.
https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=68426
The gap widens between what robotics promises and the productivity gains that can be achieved without major social disturbances.
I don’t know where this capitalism is that you mention. Government subsidized and controlled, vertically integrated cartels are closer to communism than capitalism in practice.
Marx defines capital as a process, the reproduction of which implies circulation (as opposed to a form of wealth that is merely piled up, like gold). Moreover this reproduction is necessarily an expansion – as long as it requires labour (that adds value). Hence capital is also a relation.
Oligopolies and other cartels do not modifiy one iota this basic paradigm. At best, they serve to moderate productivity gains without recourse to resource depletion (the level of which is otherwise set by the State).
In The Triumph of Conservatism, A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916, G. Kolko writes :
“Ironically, contrary to the consensus of historians, it was not the existence of monopoly that caused the federal government to intervene in the economy, but the lack of it.”
“[T]he very creation of mergers and new industrial combinations led to the availability of funds in the hands of capitalists which often ended […] in the creation of competing firms.”
“In industries where rapid technological innovation was the key to success, as in electrical manufacturing and chemicals, the major companies began losing their share of markets and new entrants swarmed in during the first decade of the century. Where the level of necessary investment was comparatively low, as in paper, textiles, and glass, the number of new companies entering the field grew consistently and often spectacularly.”
On pp. 330-8 of Main Currents in Modern American History, the same author states that “there was considerable turnover […], so that of the fifty largest manufacturers in 1947 only thirty were still in that category in 1963”. He goes on to show that the efficiency of price-fixing could vary widely across sectors, regardless of their concentration. Also competition can appear from outside the product line (plastics…).
/
Communism is/was supposed to be the economic system that will result from the contradictions of capital in its dialectic with labour. As such it can’t be hierarchical. High productivity is a plague for any deeply unequal collective organism.