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  • From: tom <tom AT honeychrome.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Localism, Globalism
  • Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 20:04:43 -0500

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.




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