UK Politics Thread IX: The Masses Against the Classes

[West Leas Oros 2]

Immigration obviously drives down wages, it's ridiculous that people could argue otherwise.

Employers drive down wages. The problem is them, not immigration.

Maybe we can get rid of them...

[Ifreann]

Employers drive down wages. The problem is them, not immigration.

Maybe we can get rid of them...

Build a wall around the means of production!

[West Leas Oros 2]

Maybe we can get rid of them...

Build a wall around the means of production!

We will build a wall and make the Bourgeoisie pay for it!

[Ostroeuropa]

Immigration obviously drives down wages, it's ridiculous that people could argue otherwise.

Employers drive down wages. The problem is them, not immigration.

This is true, but you know how to deal with them?

With a class of people who aren't worked nearly to death and barely making ends meet. Keeping the immigrants out to push for better labor conditions is a prerequisite to the ultimate campaign.

[Hirota]

Immigration obviously drives down wages, it's ridiculous that people could argue otherwise.

Let's see your data demonstrating an actual causal link between immigration and wage depression then.

I've already done that old bean, do keep up....

...at least for the demographic it's fairly obvious we are all talking about here.

[Ostroeuropa]

Immigration obviously drives down wages, it's ridiculous that people could argue otherwise.

Let's see your data demonstrating an actual causal link between immigration and wage depression then.

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

for one thing, it's absurd for the pro-migration people to be pretending to be pro-immigrant.

Immigrants depress the wages of immigrants already here most of all, and keep their communities in poverty. This is because the newly arriving immigrants have skills similar to the ones already here and drive up the supply of labor for those jobs, and thus the wages down.

[Ifreann]

Employers drive down wages. The problem is them, not immigration.

This is true, but you know how to deal with them?

With a class of people who aren't worked nearly to death and barely making ends meet. Keeping the immigrants out to push for better labor conditions is a prerequisite to the ultimate campaign.

Can't be having exploited workers in your labour movement or country, eh?

[Ostroeuropa]

Let's see your data demonstrating an actual causal link between immigration and wage depression then.

I've already done that old bean, do keep up....

...at least for the demographic it's fairly obvious we are all talking about here.

Immigration hurts low-wage native workers, but harms immigrants already here most of all.

[West Leas Oros 2]

Let's see your data demonstrating an actual causal link between immigration and wage depression then.

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

for one thing, it's absurd for the pro-migration people to be pretending to be pro-immigrant.

Immigrants depress the wages of immigrants already here most of all, and keep their communities in poverty. This is because the newly arriving immigrants have skills similar to the ones already here.

Still, immigrants should be included in any proletarian revolution. There is legitimately no reason not to.

[Ostroeuropa]

This is true, but you know how to deal with them?

With a class of people who aren't worked nearly to death and barely making ends meet. Keeping the immigrants out to push for better labor conditions is a prerequisite to the ultimate campaign.

Can't be having exploited workers in your labour movement or country, eh?

I suggest you familiarize yourself with Maslow. A sufficiently exploited workforce, provided you mostly feed them, is not going to cause trouble, because they do not have either the resources or the time to mount a political movement.

[Ostroeuropa]

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

for one thing, it's absurd for the pro-migration people to be pretending to be pro-immigrant.

Immigrants depress the wages of immigrants already here most of all, and keep their communities in poverty. This is because the newly arriving immigrants have skills similar to the ones already here.

Still, immigrants should be included in any proletarian revolution. There is legitimately no reason not to.

The ones already here, obviously. The ones not? Why?

[Ifreann]

I've already done that old bean, do keep up....

...at least for the demographic it's fairly obvious we are all talking about here.

Immigration hurts low-wage native workers, but harms immigrants already here most of all.

You just agreed with me that it's employers doing this, not immigration.

[West Leas Oros 2]

Still, immigrants should be included in any proletarian revolution. There is legitimately no reason not to.

The ones already here, obviously. The ones not? Why?

Because, it's international revolution. Should we not be fighting for worldwide proletarian liberation?

[Ifreann]

The ones already here, obviously. The ones not? Why?

Because, it's international revolution. Should we not be fighting for worldwide proletarian liberation?

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

[Ostroeuropa]

Immigration hurts low-wage native workers, but harms immigrants already here most of all.

You just agreed with me that it's employers doing this, not immigration.

Let's not get pedantic here.

Because, it's international revolution. Should we not be fighting for worldwide proletarian liberation?

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

Immigrants who aren't already here aren't being exploited here, so this is nonsense.

Any sensible approach to the topic would place a cap on migration in conjunction with ensuring better rights and protections for migrants already here and those who arrive in future.

[West Leas Oros 2]

Because, it's international revolution. Should we not be fighting for worldwide proletarian liberation?

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

When the bourgeoisie dismantle capitalism and fight against exploitation. Sometimes, a class traitor isn't a bad thing to be...

[Hirota]

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

for one thing, it's absurd for the pro-migration people to be pretending to be pro-immigrant.

Immigrants depress the wages of immigrants already here most of all, and keep their communities in poverty. This is because the newly arriving immigrants have skills similar to the ones already here.

Still, immigrants should be included in any proletarian revolution. There is legitimately no reason not to.

Opinion on that seems curiously divided. I hung up my Marxist tendencies back when I discovered the joys of recreational drugs, vodka & red bull and electronic dance music in my late teens, so I might not be parsing all this correctly, but whilst this article comes down on one side of that divide, it talks about the opinions of other socialist leaning figures being on the other side of that divide.

[Ifreann]

You just agreed with me that it's employers doing this, not immigration.

Let's not get pedantic here.

No, let's. Let's be very pedantic about the parties responsible for depressed wages instead of blaming them on people who are not responsible but who you want to foster public contempt towards.

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

Immigrants who aren't already here aren't being exploited here, so this is nonsense.

And you don't want to let them into Britain because they'd be exploited and be no use to the revolution. You said so yourself, very explicitly, only a few minutes ago.

Employers drive down wages. The problem is them, not immigration.

This is true, but you know how to deal with them?

With a class of people who aren't worked nearly to death and barely making ends meet. Keeping the immigrants out to push for better labor conditions is a prerequisite to the ultimate campaign.

Any sensible approach to the topic would place a cap on migration in conjunction with ensuring better rights and protections for migrants already here and those who arrive in future.

If you can achieve the latter then why bother with the former?

[Dumb Ideologies]

Because, it's international revolution. Should we not be fighting for worldwide proletarian liberation?

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

What if I told you that global capitalism systematically utilises mass immigration both as a deliberate economic strategy to reduce the bargaining power of workers and as an ideological strategy to divert anger away from the system towards the culturally incompatible people they're continually demanding be brought in, and that pro-immigration advocates are complicit in perpetuating a sociocultural dynamic that inevitably serves to dilute class consciousness and delay socialism in the developed world?

[Vassenor]

Let's see your data demonstrating an actual causal link between immigration and wage depression then.

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

for one thing, it's absurd for the pro-migration people to be pretending to be pro-immigrant.

Immigrants depress the wages of immigrants already here most of all, and keep their communities in poverty. This is because the newly arriving immigrants have skills similar to the ones already here and drive up the supply of labor for those jobs, and thus the wages down.

>They disagree on whether it has been good or bad for wages overall but tend to show that the effect is small and also short-term.

>Studies that have tried to do it in the UK have sometimes reached opposing conclusions about whether it increases or decreases wages overall but they tend to agree that immigration has a small impact on average wages of existing workers.

So basically it's a change of a fraction of a percent if it is there.

[thonkingface]

[West Leas Oros 2]

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

What if I told you that global capitalism systematically utilises mass immigration both as a deliberate economic strategy to reduce the bargaining power of workers and as an ideological strategy to divert anger away from the system towards the culturally incompatible people they're continually demanding be brought in, and that pro-immigration advocates are complicit in perpetuating a sociocultural dynamic that inevitably serves to dilute class consciousness and delay socialism in the developed world?

Well certainly. but nonetheless, i'd suffice it to say that if immigrants can further class consciousness, they should. And i'd hardly consider it as "cultural incompatibility", as such a concept doesn't even make sense, as bourgeois society has already stripped away culture in many ways, and a unified proletarian culture would unite native and immigrant workers. Indeed, immigrants could very well be what we need to further class consciousness. We shouldn't be in favor of mass immigration for capitalist interests, sure, but we should act in solidarity with immigrants. Ideally, we can use their own tactics to spread the seeds of revolution. By working with immigrants to increase class consciousness, including them in the class struggle, we would all find we have more in common than we have difference.

[Dumb Ideologies]

What if I told you that global capitalism systematically utilises mass immigration both as a deliberate economic strategy to reduce the bargaining power of workers and as an ideological strategy to divert anger away from the system towards the culturally incompatible people they're continually demanding be brought in, and that pro-immigration advocates are complicit in perpetuating a sociocultural dynamic that inevitably serves to dilute class consciousness and delay socialism in the developed world?

Well certainly. but nonetheless, i'd suffice it to say that if immigrants can further class consciousness, they should. And i'd hardly consider it as "cultural incompatibility", as such a concept doesn't even make sense, as bourgeois society has already stripped away culture in many ways, and a unified proletarian culture would unite native and immigrant workers. Indeed, immigrants could very well be what we need to further class consciousness. We shouldn't be in favor of mass immigration for capitalist interests, sure, but we should act in solidarity with immigrants. Ideally, we can use their own tactics to spread the seeds of revolution. By working with immigrants to increase class consciousness, including them in the class struggle, we would all find we have more in common than we have difference.

The native working class are often among those the most proud of their country's cultural distinctiveness and many immigrants, particularly from the developing world, see Western societies as degenerate due to different cultural values and actively choose not to integrate - a decision encouraged by multiculturalists who defend the right to set up separate religious schools and arrange marriages so that their children are brought up to make the same decisions they did. Far better to work to turn off the tap than expecting the two groups most invested in cultural difference to form a common front against capitalism alongside people they generally despise.

[Ostroeuropa]

https://fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-wages/

for one thing, it's absurd for the pro-migration people to be pretending to be pro-immigrant.

Immigrants depress the wages of immigrants already here most of all, and keep their communities in poverty. This is because the newly arriving immigrants have skills similar to the ones already here and drive up the supply of labor for those jobs, and thus the wages down.

>They disagree on whether it has been good or bad for wages overall but tend to show that the effect is small and also short-term.

>Studies that have tried to do it in the UK have sometimes reached opposing conclusions about whether it increases or decreases wages overall but they tend to agree that immigration has a small impact on average wages of existing workers.

So basically it's a change of a fraction of a percent if it is there.

[thonkingface]

as others pointed out, it increases the wages of the rich and depresses the wages of the poor.

If you can achieve the latter then why bother with the former?

Because that would heighten immigration numbers radically and we don't want millions turning up?

[Ifreann]

No, see, the immigrants, they're too exploited to be part of the revolution. The revolution will be prosecuted by those least exploited by capitalism.

What if I told you that global capitalism systematically utilises mass immigration both as a deliberate economic strategy to reduce the bargaining power of workers and as an ideological strategy to divert anger away from the system towards the culturally incompatible people they're continually demanding be brought in, and that pro-immigration advocates are complicit in perpetuating a sociocultural dynamic that inevitably serves to dilute class consciousness and delay socialism in the developed world?

I would say that embracing xenophobia and enacting anti-immigrant policies will neither advance the rights of native born workers nor promote class-consciousness, and seeking to combat worker exploitation by reducing immigration would be vaguely akin to abolishing slavery by shooting the slaves, in that it is targetted at rather the wrong person.

[Ifreann]

>They disagree on whether it has been good or bad for wages overall but tend to show that the effect is small and also short-term.

>Studies that have tried to do it in the UK have sometimes reached opposing conclusions about whether it increases or decreases wages overall but they tend to agree that immigration has a small impact on average wages of existing workers.

So basically it's a change of a fraction of a percent if it is there.

[thonkingface]

as others pointed out, it increases the wages of the rich and depresses the wages of the poor.

If you can achieve the latter then why bother with the former?

Because that would heighten immigration numbers radically and we don't want millions turning up?

If you've secured better working conditions for them, thus voiding your complaint that they would be too tired to seize the means of production, then why not?