We Are One

Many countries are engulfed in the economic crisis. Instead of exposing the bosses some commentators have put the blame on foreign-born workers and minorities—anything that serves to divide the people and hide the true cause of the problem. They try to pit workers against foreign-born workers, blaming them for unemployment and the general crisis of capitalism. They steer the workers away class struggle and into reliance on piecemeal reforms and empty legislative measures. Capitalism has often used its oppression of minority and migrant workers to maintain its hold over the whole working class.

So poisoned by race hatred, it is enough to say: “These people are outsiders, hence they must be inferior.” and to some this explains everything. Foreign-born workers have to work at lower-paid jobs, at heavier, more dangerous work than the native-born, and are hounded by the government at the least excuse. If any group of people can be picked out and segregated and made helpless, there is an excuse for paying them lower wages.  A white woman worker in a factory will be paid lower wages than a man for the same work. The worker, white or black, native or foreign-born is exploited by business owners.

The tiny amount that the workers are paid in wages does not by any means represent all the wealth they create by their labour. No, the lion’s share of the wealth produced goes to the owner of the factory or shop where they work. The lower the wages the greater the exploitation, the higher the profits to be extracted from their labour. The minorities are thus to the blood-suckers of society a choice morsel from which they can squeeze even greater gains than from local labour. Charging higher rents for the wretched hovels which they have to live, robbing them outright by the agency system, the boss class in all these things follows the same principle. A worker torn out of this environment is much more appropriate to the needs of capital, much more ruthlessly driven to earn at whatever the wages on offer are. Such a worker is less able to support himself or herself during unemployment by borrowing from local networks of relatives and friends, and less likely to have reserves on which to fall back in hard times, less likely to have possessions that can be sold or pawned. Such workers are likely to be much more responsive to differences in wages – regardless of conditions - and, lacking local social ties, much more geographically mobile in response to changes in the labour market. This – as well as overt discrimination – is a factor in the general picture of immigrants working longer hours, working more night shifts, doing more piece-work, with a higher rate of job changing and of geographical mobility than native workers. Many employers recognise this factor: migrants make the best workers; and they always try to recruit new immigrants since those who have lived for some time in the country are likely to have become “spoiled”, i.e. conform to local working class standards.

Another factor is the cost of reproduction of labour. The “home” country bears the cost of reproduction of the worker from its domestic product; the “guest” country receives adult labour power without the costs that would be needed to raise and train the worker. The higher the skill level, the greater the benefit involved in the transfer. Immigrants who settle and establish families, who draw on local public “maintenance” services (including ultimately old age pensions) will, in time, reduce this benefit for the destination country. However the advantages to the receiving country is maximised for a single worker on temporary contracts without any right to permanent abode and who can be denied local reproduction and maintenance services.

Does the slogan “equality” mean that we must fight so that the black or foreign worker will get the same rights as the poor white worker? But what rights has the white worker? The fact is the white workers are exploited, robbed and swindled in a thousand ways as well. One might imagine that the white workers were living such a wonderful life under capitalism that the only goal should be equality of the foreign workers with the native workers, No, the immigrant must fight not only for equality with the white workers but together with the white workers also must fight against the conditions that prevailed for the whole working-class, regardless of nationality. Mere “equality” then, is nothing to brag about and is nothing to fight for. Shall  we struggle for “equal” wages? But the local worker gets a starvation wage himself. What kind of fight is this to make? The same applies to a fight for “equal” rent, or the right to live where indigenous workers live (in squalid slums, only one degree better than the newcomers slums). We fight against low pay, insecure jobs and discrimination at work and ghettoisation  of communities but this has nothing to do with “equality".

Many on the Left are concerned with gaining control of the State and accelerating the growth of its power and not with abolishing the State. Deploring the ill treatment of immigrants is seen, not as an attack on the powers of the State, but as an argument by some so-called Leftists for ending all immigration. In some parts of the Left they stress the illegal immigrant menace and  to “protect the legitimate" immigrants, illegals should be expelled. Accepting the right of the State to control immigration is accepting its right to exist, the right of the ruling class to exist as a ruling class, the right to exploit, the “right” to a world of barbarism.

The policy of “divide and rule” of the master class has erected a mountainous and monstrous  barrier of prejudice between the foreign-born and native. Millions of foreign-born workers, accustomed to a lower standard of living are lured to migrate year after year, to form a vast reservoir of cheap labour on the basis of the lowest possible wages and poorest working conditions. A lack of a socialist outlook has permitted some workers to be easily swept in behind the chauvinist agitation and racial policy of the capitalist class. Nothing could have been more dangerous for the ruling classes than that local and migrant workers should make common cause and instead of fighting each other join forces and fight employers.

The Socialist Party, first and foremost, must show that capitalism has no solutions. No reforms or can bring an end to this state of things. We must resist the efforts of the capitalist class  and their agents to sow illusions about “reforming” capitalism, and instead build our movement with the perspective of overthrowing it. Unity is our strength. Black and white, foreign-born and native worker — our interests are the same and they are directly opposed to the interests of our rulers.

AJJ