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[tom <tom AT honeychrome.com>]

Clansgian wrote:

Minor, perhaps, Tom, but not insignificant.  Europe has experienced a  
flood
of immigration just as the US is now experiencing.  Some estimates  
put the
illegal population of the US at 30 million, one out of ten people I  
wouldn't call
insignificant.

And it's happening all over.  After Zimbabwe took over all the farm  
land from
the ownners, there was a huge immigration there.  When the farm  
wealth was
not realized, there was a emmigration  of even native Zimbabwians.   
Mexico has a
huge military presence on its southern borders to keep people from  
Guatemala
and farther south from coming into the country all the while sending  
its own
people north.
---------------

I wrote that it was insignificant when compared to the movement of  
capital- compared to the power that capital mobility exerts on the  
people and the economies of the world, the movement of populations  
barely registers in the balance.  There will have to be a far greater  
migration of labor before it even begins to threaten the imbalance  
that those controlling capital rely on for continued growth and  
upward wealth distribution.  Of course as crisis develop and  
intensify greater numbers of people will risk the consequences of  
disregarding the constraints put on their freedom of mobility and  
migration of labor will become a serious threat to capital.  I don't  
believe it is close to that yet.  The examples you cite are national  
issues- by which I mean they create a problem for given nations.   
Global capital loves national boundaries (which under 'free trade'  
don't exist to the movement of capital) and national problems - they  
create inequalities between nations in terms of labor and resource  
that capital can move to exploit.