this mostly applies to the U.S. but also most of the western world:

As Marxists we know that most policy is driven by what capital allows or within the increasingly narrow range of acceptable discourse it allows within bourgeois dictatorship

Obviously it's not a conspiracy of ten guys in a secret room but a general consensus that develops from a chaotic web-like oligarchy of money peddlers, influencers, lackeys, billionaire puppetmasters, etc

But this really, really hurts Capital. they need the influx of cheap labor or face the real threat of forced degrowth. and we know every international-community-1 international-community-2 including russia-cool is trying to make it harder for people to be childless but short of forcing people to procreate at gunpoint..

  • so why allow this to become a bipartisan consensus (U.S.) instead of say throwing some scraps of social democratic programs?

  • or in Europe's case allowing these parties to come to power instead of reversing some neoliberal austerity?

Is this a case of anti-immigration just being easier to do vs. building resiliency into the system? i mean it's always easier to write laws crimializing stuff and throwing cops at a problem i suppose

Or something else?

  • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
    ·
    1 day ago

    You know how it's constantly pointed out that the border policy both parties want to enact doesn't actually work? I think that's an essential part of the calculation.

    The people writing these policies know that the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants come here legally, and overstay their visa. That loophole in the American system is left untouched intentionally, because it's a great source of undocumented workers.

    The people writing these policies know that almost all of the fentanyl is coming across the border in the hands of US citizens. But they're not actually committed to stopping it - fent serves the same role that crack did in the 80s, it's just not as explicitly racialized.

    In the EU, most of the countries with most of the power don't mind so much if Poland, Spain, and Italy are all doing crimes against humanity at their borders, because frankly they consider the Polish, Spanish and Italians to be their labor underclass. Europe has the most experience out of anyone in making their imperial periphery look like it's part of their imperial core, with the northern and western parts of Europe generally benefitting the most from exploiting the southern and eastern parts of it.