It's capitalism (2019)

Letter to issue 1280 of the Weekly Worker

Dave Vincent returns to the issue of foreign workers, claiming that nobody has answered his arguments against controlled immigration (Letters, December 12). I refer readers to only some of my own letters on migration and let them judge: March 20 2014; April 17 2014; June 18 2015; June 22 2017; July 6 2017.

Dave asks, “Do indigenous peoples worldwide have any rights at all over unprecedented numbers of those coming into their country without their agreement?”

Competition under capitalism leads to false ideas about the burden of newcomers to native-born workers, who claim first pick on ‘our’ hospitals, ‘our’ housing, ‘our’ social security benefits. In fact, bad housing, hospital waiting lists, low pay and bad working conditions are universal problems. They are a consequence of the essential poverty of all people who depend on being employed in order to live. There was never a time when life was easy. Migrants did not create the problems. They arrive here with the false hope of escaping the same misery in their home countries, but find when they arrive here they have to share it and take the blame for it.

Since its inception, capitalism has drawn workers from poorer parts of the country and from abroad to more developed regions in order to satisfy its labour needs. And, as Marx said, capitalists require to also build up an industrial reserve army for the bosses to maintain their dominance in the job market and to control wage levels. All those people migrating are simply obeying the imperative that they must try to find a place to work. No amount of restrictions will change that fact.

The resentment against migrants is a class matter and such prejudice is inflamed by the many sections of the ruling class. Capitalism has sometimes been against immigration restrictions by promoting the free movement and availability of wage labour. But, at the same time, the capitalist social system is a fertile breeding ground for anti-foreigner policies. This may seem like a contradiction, but that is how it is, for capitalism is riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It cannot be a system of human harmony - division and conflict are in its very nature. Capitalism is a ‘dog eat dog’ world and will remain so until it is abolished.

The solution to the immigration crisis lies not with building fences, but with creating the conditions that do not necessitate people leaving their homes, their family, their friends and neighbours. The reality is that the solution is socialism. In the meantime, instead of undermining the ability of migrant workers to cross borders in search of work, migrants need to be unionised, uniting migrant workers alongside local workers in a collective struggle to maintain and improve upon wages and conditions. As long as workers are viewing migrants as the cause of their problems, they leave themselves divided and distracted.

The concern of working people over wages, unemployment, welfare and public services is totally legitimate. However, placing the blame on migrants does not address the causes of these problems or bring improvements to the situation. The problem is the capitalist system itself. The path to beginning to solve these problems is workers’ unity across ethnic, religious and national lines. It is vital that the trade unions make the recruitment of migrant labour a top priority.

There is your answer, Dave, as painful as it is. No worker, solely by birthright, has a guarantee to a secure, decent life under capitalism. It is wishful, utopian thinking to believe otherwise.

Alan Johnstone 

Socialist Party of Great Britain