Global Capitalism, Immigrant Labor, and the Struggle for Justice

Xuan Santos,William I Robinson

doi:10.25148/crcp.2.3.16092122

Abstract

Around the world borders are militarized, states are stepping up repressive anti-immigrant controls, and native publics are turning immigrants into scapegoats for the spiraling crisis of global capitalism. The massive displacement and primitive accumulation unleashed by free trade agreements and neo-liberal policies, as well as state and “private” violence has resulted in a virtually inexhaustible immigrant labor reserve for the global economy. State controls over immigration and immigrant labor have several functions for the system: 1) state repression and criminalization of undocumented immigration make immigrants vulnerable and deportable and therefore subject to conditions of super-exploitation, super-control and hyper-surveillance; 2) antiimmigrant repressive apparatuses are themselves ever more important sources of accumulation, ranging from private for-profit immigrant detention centers, to the militarization of borders, and the purchase by states of military hardware and systems of surveillance. Immigrant labor is extremely profitable for the transnational corporate economy; 3) the anti-immigrant policies associated with repressive state apparatuses help turn attention away from the crisis of global capitalism among more privileged sectors of the working class and convert immigrant workers into scapegoats for the crisis, thus deflecting attention from the root causes of the crisis and undermining working class unity. This article focuses on structural and historical underpinnings of the phenomenon of immigrant labor in the new global capitalist system and on how the rise of a globally integrated production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and transnational state apparatuses, have led to a reorganization of the world market in labor, including deeper reliance on a rapidly expanding reserve army of immigrant labor and a vicious new anti-immigrant politics. It looks at the United States as an illustration of the larger worldwide situation with regard to immigration and immigrant justice. Finally, it explores the rise of an immigrant justice movement around the world, observes the leading role that immigrant workers often play in worker’s struggles and that a mass immigrant rights movement is at the cutting edge of the struggle against transnational corporate exploitation. We call for replacing the whole concept of national citizenship with that of global citizenship as the only rallying cry that can assure justice and equality for all.

Highlights

In recent years the international media is full of stories on rising tide of immigrant workers in the global system, their struggles, trials and tribulations, and the widespread repression and hostility they face everywhere from authoritarian states and racist publics
Immigrant labor is extremely profitable for the transnational corporate economy; 3) the anti-immigrant policies associated with repressive state apparatuses help turn attention away from the crisis of global capitalism among more privileged sectors of the working class and convert immigrant workers into scapegoats for the crisis, deflecting attention from the root causes of the crisis and undermining working class unity
This article focuses on structural and historical underpinnings of the phenomenon of immigrant labor in the new global capitalist system and on how the rise of a globally integrated production and financial system, a transnational capitalist class, and transnational state apparatuses, have led to a reorganization of the world market in labor, including deeper reliance on a rapidly expanding reserve army of immigrant labor and a vicious new anti-immigrant politics. It looks at the United States as an illustration of the larger worldwide situation with regard to immigration and immigrant justice. It explores the rise of an immigrant justice movement around the world, observes the leading role that immigrant workers often play in worker’s struggles and that a mass immigrant rights movement is at the cutting edge of the struggle against transnational corporate exploitation

Summary

Introduction

In recent years the international media is full of stories on rising tide of immigrant workers in the global system, their struggles, trials and tribulations, and the widespread repression and hostility they face everywhere from authoritarian states and racist publics. Wherever it takes place in the new global economy - from the factories along China’s southern coastal belt, to the South African mines and farms, the Middle East oil meccas, and Costa Rica’s service industry – become magnets drawing in immigrant workers Wherever these workers end up they face the same conditions: relegation to low-paid, low status jobs, the denial of labor rights, political disenfranchisement, state repression, racism, bigotry, and nativism. John Kelly – a “crime-terror convergence.”[13] Yet this anti-immigrant hostility may be the effect of the structural and legal-institutional subordination of immigrant workers and their communities, or an unintended ( not necessarily unwelcomed) byproduct of the state’s coercive policies Embodied in this structural condition is the rise and the ongoing recomposition of an internally stratified global working class controlled by political borders, state repression, criminalization and militarization. The United States spends more on immigration enforcement than all other enforcement activities of the federal government combined, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

The Immigrant Justice Movement

Conclusions