The New "New World"

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty that has greeted arrivals to New York Harbour since 1903 is from another era, when this newest of capitalist nations would (at least in theory) let anybody in.

But capitalism has moved on, and instead of a shining beacon the Statue holds a bio-metric ID scanner and mass spectrometer. The developed “New World” has a different slogan now. Not so pithy perhaps but more relevant to these more selective times: “Bring me your wealthy tourists, skilled immigrants and cheap labour . . . as long as we can decide when to send them back”.

But while doors close to humans, its open all hours for capital. With Manhattan bogged down in some pesky restrictions caused by something called Enron a few years back, London is fast becoming the biggest finance centre in the world, removing any sort of restriction on, or regulatory scrutiny of, the movement of capital.

In contrast the UK government is looking to upgrade and formalise its strategy for the movement of human resources (or what you and I might call humans) with its new “Managing Global Migration” strategy. This is designed to promote Britain as a “migration destination” with an international marketing campaign designed to attract businesses and people with the “right skills”.

Qualifications and entrepreneurship skills count for most. The government has already unveiled a complex points system whereby if you are seeking asylum because you have been persecuted, tortured, raped or had members of your family murdered in front of you, you can automatically qualify for almost as many points as if you had an HNC in Berry-Picking, or a degree in Dishwashing.

In tandem with this is the move to define “Britishness”. While this writer is in complete favour of having a “British Day” (I'd wear a Pearly King outfit if it meant another day off work) the recently proposed Britishness test complete with examination is beyond mockery. Here are some example questions: What is the Queen's official role and what ceremonial duties does she have? How is political debate reported? Are newspapers free to publish opinions or do they have to remain impartial? I suspect I might not give the answers they are looking for.

But behind the strategy is a recognition that the global market holds all the strings and is beyond regulation. Governments control labour resources in the same way that they “control” interest rates (ie they don't). They must expend vast sums if they are to have any hope of effectively securing borders, control immigration, issue ID cards. As with so many issues, politicians are slowly realising that governments must accommodate to capitalism with regard to migration.

The world over, workers must do what they can individually and collectively to survive and resist capitalism. In many parts of the world that means escaping the tyranny of political terror or economic poverty. Politically however, workers should try and resist taking sides in the battles of the economic blocs who just happen to be named on the front of your passport. Instead workers should look beyond the glowing rhetoric written on the Statue of Liberty, the bureaucracy of passports, and the inanity of “Britishness” Tests, and recognise the reality that WORKERS HAVE NO COUNTRY.

The world socialist movement didn't get its name for nothing: unique amongst all political parties left and right we have no national axe to grind. We side with no particular state, no government, no currency. We have no time for nationalisation or privatisation, for border controls or for immigration incentives. We don't make demands of our national boss class that they increase employment locally, or export unemployment overseas. We reject the selective immigration restrictions of the early 21st Century just as we rejected the “huddled masses” rhetoric of the early 20th Century.

We oppose the global employers' class whether represented by republican or democrat, whether Palestinian Authority or Israeli government, whether Muslim or secular, and whether Christian “socialist” or state “socialist”. Our comrades in Africa put the same arguments as those in Europe. North American socialists and South American socialists are in agreement. The World Socialist Movement may use different languages, but it genuinely - and uniquely - speaks with one voice.

If you are interested in joining us, get in contact with us . Wherever you are on the planet, we currently have a few vacancies for new members at a branch near you !

BG