Open Borders

Author: rbelivb

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#91
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@ResurgetExFavilla
The left constantly points out that the right uses cultural friction to divide the working class against itself and reduce solidarity, and they they're right. Because of this, multiple cultures within a society make it much easier for a corporate entity to solidify its power because it creates multiple fracture points in the working class for them to exploit
You seem to be assuming a Marxist class analysis which ignores the corporate structure of the state itself. It is inevitable in any society that various firms will attempt to "solidify" their power, but in multicultural societies with strong markets it is much more difficult to establish the kind of totalitarian control possible elsewhere. Both the communists and the nazis and fascists required a myth of shared heritage and national identity to rationalise their rule. All these systems claimed to represent workers' solidarity, and leveraged cultural hegemony to legitimate their claims.

Free movement of labor is not 'an essential component of the market'; that statement is prima facie absurd since markets have existed long before labor mobility has.
Although thinkers like Ricardo had not developed the theory of marginal utility, and were thus confined to theorising rudimentary markets within the bounds of the 'closed commercial state,' even in the 19th century we can see the germs of globalisation that led to the massively expanded global production cycle that exists today. Labour mobility, in my opinion, is an essential component of today's market, which produces goods at a scale and efficiency which was previously unimaginable.

The bad combination of a widening wealth gap, a working class increasingly incapable of organization, and endless credit bubbles and speculation on bad debt severely destabilizes governments.
It is unclear how much of what you listed is related to immigration, but immigrants have proven to have a very high social mobility, and are likely to reduce the gap between capital owners and workers. As for working class organisation, this is not a preoccupation of mine, but if immigrants were legalised and able to join unions, claim the minimum wage, and so on, this expanded workforce would presumably greatly increase the influence of the working class.

People aren't more creative nowadays. Far from it. The combination of multicult and the metastatization of pressure to conform within online/urban/suburban communities has lead to the bleeding of separate, vibrant cultures into grey, consumerized porridge, It's the exact opposite.
Which genre today is inspiring more people, rap or country music? Which is experimenting more with sound, exploring new territory? I don't see what you are referring to here, since it seems to me that there is much more creativity in art today than ever before, and especially so in multicultural urban areas.
#92
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@bmdrocks21
Historically we.
Who are we?
#93
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@zedvictor4
The country in question...

America. Americans.
#94
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@Greyparrot
Disgusted doesn't leave his home unlocked. He is fine having his country ravaged because he doesn't consider his country to be his home.

Although, I think he isn't even American. So, I don't know why he thinks he can tell us how to live.
#95
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@bmdrocks21
America. Americans.
Yep. But what is an American?
#96
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@zedvictor4
I was specifically referring to American citizens and politicians throughout history.
#97
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@bmdrocks21
Yep.

All of which were immigrants or descendants of immigrants.
#98
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@zedvictor4
I'm not sure what your point is. Not all immigrants are equal. Some have cultures that are more friendly to ours, which makes them more likely to assimilate to our culture. Some groups, generally from first-world nations, have strong skills that will make our economy more efficient and create more jobs.

Not to mention, during previous immigration waves, we didn't have such a robust welfare state. Immigrants coming here expected to work to provide for themselves, rather than expecting the government to take care of them. They learned our language, which many immigrants today are refusing to do.
#99
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@bmdrocks21
Not all immigrants are equal.

Echo's of the 1930's there.
#100
ResurgetExFavilla
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@rbelivb
The left constantly points out that the right uses cultural friction to divide the working class against itself and reduce solidarity, and they they're right. Because of this, multiple cultures within a society make it much easier for a corporate entity to solidify its power because it creates multiple fracture points in the working class for them to exploit
You seem to be assuming a Marxist class analysis which ignores the corporate structure of the state itself.
Marxist class analysis doesn't ignore the structure of the state, anyone who has read even a little of Marx would know that. And it's irrelevant because I'm not employing a Marxist analysis at all.

It is inevitable in any society that various firms will attempt to "solidify" their power, but in multicultural societies with strong markets it is much more difficult to establish the kind of totalitarian control possible elsewhere. Both the communists and the nazis and fascists required a myth of shared heritage and national identity to rationalise their rule. All these systems claimed to represent workers' solidarity, and leveraged cultural hegemony to legitimate their claims.
This sort of view is impossible to hold if you're well-informed concerning 20th century history. Communism is explicitly internationalist. Most fascist governments were culturally diverse, including Italy, Spain, and most of all Portugal's corporatist Estado Novo which adopted Lusotropicalism, a complete repudiation of ethnic solidarity, Russia and China are both extremely culturally diverse, with the USSR being a strong contender for the largest number of distinct ethnic groups under a single polity in the history of the world. In fact, it is the combination of large geographic territory and diverse population which lead both Russian and China to historically tend towards highly centralized, authoritarian governments, both under Imperial rule and Communist. The truth is the exact opposite of how you present it: diversity drives centralization and authoritarianism because only those systems can resolve internecine conflicts and preserve territorial integrity. The only state your analysis could really apply to is Nazi Germany, which had this conception of racial superiority and expansion which most of the Southern European fascist states found to be outright repugnant. Hitler lifted the concept of Lebensraum from America, not Mussolini.

Free movement of labor is not 'an essential component of the market'; that statement is prima facie absurd since markets have existed long before labor mobility has.
Although thinkers like Ricardo had not developed the theory of marginal utility, and were thus confined to theorising rudimentary markets within the bounds of the 'closed commercial state,' even in the 19th century we can see the germs of globalisation that led to the massively expanded global production cycle that exists today. Labour mobility, in my opinion, is an essential component of today's market, which produces goods at a scale and efficiency which was previously unimaginable.
Globalization doesn't magically change the rules of the market. China proved that when it went all-in on brazen mercantilism and completely outmaneuvered the West, which still clings to this bizarre, almost eschatological conception of a global market. Efficiency also isn't a worthwhile goal in itself. What does this globalized market give us? Misery and poverty in the third world, consumerism in America and Europe, declining birthrates, mass mobility of populations, destabilization of governments in pursuit of resource extraction, and widespread environmental disaster. And for what? So that we can pump useless consumer goods into America to constantly distract our pampered population from the fact that, in spite of this 'prosperity', life expectancy is falling, suicide rates are sky high, mental illness is widespread, and fertility rates are in a nose dive?

If you intravenously give someone glucose, their body will be very productive, but it will also quickly shut down and die because this isn't how the body has evolved to function. Is the purpose of human society to make people happy and allow them to raise their families in peace, or is it to produce as much useless junk as humanly possible?

The bad combination of a widening wealth gap, a working class increasingly incapable of organization, and endless credit bubbles and speculation on bad debt severely destabilizes governments.
It is unclear how much of what you listed is related to immigration, but immigrants have proven to have a very high social mobility, and are likely to reduce the gap between capital owners and workers. As for working class organisation, this is not a preoccupation of mine, but if immigrants were legalised and able to join unions, claim the minimum wage, and so on, this expanded workforce would presumably greatly increase the influence of the working class.
This is mathematically incoherent. If immigrants come in dirt poor and are willing to work for lower wages than native people who are used to a middle class wage, and the equilibrium settles somewhere between the two, you did nothing to eliminate the wealth gap. You now just have a larger number of people, some of who are native born people who are now poorer, and others who were impoverished immigrants who are now slightly more wealthy. An expanded workforce does not increase the influence of the working class because scarce resources are more valuable. It does the exact opposite, especially when a significant portion of it is more desperate and has lower standards, because they make ideal scab laborers,

People aren't more creative nowadays. Far from it. The combination of multicult and the metastatization of pressure to conform within online/urban/suburban communities has lead to the bleeding of separate, vibrant cultures into grey, consumerized porridge, It's the exact opposite.
Which genre today is inspiring more people, rap or country music? Which is experimenting more with sound, exploring new territory? I don't see what you are referring to here, since it seems to me that there is much more creativity in art today than ever before, and especially so in multicultural urban areas.
Country music isn't produced in the country. It's a corporate product, just like rap. Meaningless drivel which has descended into literal commodity-worship. What new territory? What momentous decisions go into the composition of these new popular songs? Whether to talk about guzzling Henny or D'Usse? To fuck the bitch in the bathroom or the back of a limousine? Or whether the tractor that we ride down to the river on a dirt country road is a Ford or a Chevy? Country certainly used to have meaningful lyrics, and the same can be said of rap, but those days are long gone. Good artists simply don't gain traction nowadays because it's all about the clout, flexing on people, and moving product. Self-worship is tiresome, not inspiring.

What creativity is there in modern urban areas? Fusion cuisine? Empty hipsterisms and yuppie self-involvement? Just because you have a product to sell at the end of a 'creative process', that doesn't make something art.
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#101
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@ResurgetExFavilla
Marxist class analysis doesn't ignore the structure of the state, anyone who has read even a little of Marx would know that. And it's irrelevant because I'm not employing a Marxist analysis at all.
By subordinating political dynamics entirely to the "forces of production," Marxist economism construes the state as something like a clear reflective surface upon which the divisions among classes are projected. If we instead understand the state as an economic entity, which uses scarce means to achieve the specific preferred outcomes of its 'owners' or constituents, then the opposition between the proletariat class and corporate structures becomes more complicated.

Communism is explicitly internationalist. Most fascist governments were culturally diverse, including Italy, Spain, and most of all Portugal's corporatist Estado Novo which adopted Lusotropicalism, a complete repudiation of ethnic solidarity, Russia and China are both extremely culturally diverse, with the USSR being a strong contender for the largest number of distinct ethnic groups under a single polity in the history of the world. In fact, it is the combination of large geographic territory and diverse population which lead both Russian and China to historically tend towards highly centralized, authoritarian governments, both under Imperial rule and Communist.
There is something profound in what you are getting at here. Nationalism, even of the most blood-and-soil kind, originates in a kind of unification of disparate lineages and blocks into a single, politically effective unit. However, for a state to legitimate far-ranging corporate control over that field, I still think a narrative of common heritage and identity is required. This is precisely why I called it a "myth." It is especially revealing in this regard that, even with their doctrinal opposition to nationalism and the supposedly internationalist quality of the socialist struggle, the Soviets increasingly needed recourse to a sense of "soviet patriotism" in order to construe the Soviet empire as a vast family, or community of equal brothers, and often did invoke, despite themselves, their Russian national heritage.

If you intravenously give someone glucose, their body will be very productive, but it will also quickly shut down and die because this isn't how the body has evolved to function. Is the purpose of human society to make people happy and allow them to raise their families in peace, or is it to produce as much useless junk as humanly possible?
I think this is a central disagreement, just as others above have been making the common comparison between a nation and a person's household. I believe there are fundamental problems with metaphors of society being like a body, like a person's home, and so forth. And so with vitalist notions of the 'health' or 'vitality' of a nation I think we have a key to reactionary mythology.

An expanded workforce does not increase the influence of the working class because scarce resources are more valuable.
I was talking about political, democratic influence - as you mentioned the working class being "incapable of organisation."

Country certainly used to have meaningful lyrics, and the same can be said of rap, but those days are long gone.
Modern art, in my view, is less about the lyrics or articulated message which portrays the individual genius of its creator. We can see this in modern abstract art or in electronic dance music: the communicated message is broadened into abstract patterns that reflect rhythms, flows, and areas of focused attention. These abstractions can much more easily translate between cultures: an energetic beat or a collage of colours can be understood much more directly than an articulated cultural artifact that expresses the individual genius of an influential figure. In my view this dimension of electronic music gets to something much more fundamental to music itself, which is that it emulates the expressive parts of spoken language while removing the particular intentional elements that need translation.
#102
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@zedvictor4
What is wrong with echoing the 1930s? Not all immigrants are equal, and I provided why I think that. Do you think they were wrong?
#103
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@bmdrocks21
The effects of 1930's politics, eventually resulted in the deaths of some 80 million people by the mid 1940's.

All because certain people were regarded as not equal.
#104
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@zedvictor4
WWII didn't occur because of sentiments about immigration, though. I fail to see the relationship.

#105
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@bmdrocks21
Maybe not directly.

But nonetheless it was you who referred to unequal people.

I'm surprised that you fail to see the comparisons.

Perhaps being brought up and conditioned in a U.S. bubble has clouded your judgement somewhat.

#106
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@zedvictor4
So eugenics and equality on every scale is the only solution to wars? Cultural assimilation into one big corporate entity?

I would rather have wars. Inequality is how we naturally biologically adapt to climate change. Do you propose building an artificial planet immune to climate change?
#107
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@zedvictor4
It's also very Eurocentric to believe every war other than WW2 was fought with similar people of similar cultures.
#108
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@zedvictor4
Maybe not directly.

But nonetheless it was you who referred to unequal people.

I'm surprised that you fail to see the comparisons.

Perhaps being brought up and conditioned in a U.S. bubble has clouded your judgement somewhat.
Perhaps you could say where any of my statements were wrong instead of trying to slander my ideas and allude to Nazis.

Certain groups during certain time periods will assimilate and benefit/hurt the country more than other groups from different countries. What is incorrect about that?
#109
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@bmdrocks21
Not all immigrants are equal.
Paraphrasing Napoleon. Good for you.

#110
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@disgusted
All of you people compare my statements to 1930s politicians and now Napoleon. Can you tell me what is wrong with the comment?

I'm not saying they aren't equal in terms of being humans. I'm saying they will have a different impact on assimilation, our economy, and will impact social issues differently. Saying that previous waves of immigrants were beneficial doesn't automatically mean that all immigrant waves will be beneficial.
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@bmdrocks21
Do you know the Napoleon passage you are paraphrasing?
#112
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@disgusted
I didn't know that I was paraphrasing Napoleon. It was just what I think.
#113
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@bmdrocks21
You can't say people are different without having keyboard retards conflate that difference with genetics.
#114
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@Greyparrot
I forgot all cultures are exactly the same and people from third-world countries have equal educations and likelihoods of being a public charge.

My feelings don't care about your facts.
#115
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@bmdrocks21
Don't forget religion and cultural beliefs about what's important in life and what priorities you hold and what laws you think are just and how skeptical of authority one should be. Don't you know all those differences are based ONLY on genetics and most importantly, the phenome of melanin?
#116
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@bmdrocks21
Come to think of it, I can't find any source that said Trump wanted white immigrants from shithole countries.
#117
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@Greyparrot
"I only want white public charges. High school educated and low-skill whites are bigly yuge, believe me."

-Donald Trump (Probably)


#118
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@bmdrocks21
Insulated within your bubble with your crew.

But constantly ridden with angst and paranoia.

Fearful of others who might look and sound different, who might burst your bubble.

That age worn superiority complex.

Worry not.

For the bleached blond demi-god of German descent and his Slovenian Queen shall be your salvation.

Immigrants all.


Though all immigrants are equal.

Some immigrants are more equal than others.

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#119
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@bmdrocks21
If they are on net providing more labour at a lower cost then they're not a public charge. If anything, the conservative argument is that we should forgo certain economic gains in order to preserve a certain culture, and as a kind of indirect welfare for the native working class.
#120
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@rbelivb
The cost of accommodating cultures without proper assimilation is extremely high. Hospitals and Schools are shutting down in sanctuary cities because they can't afford the extra staff to speak Spanish. Housing and infrastructure can't be built fast enough. Law enforcement can't explain the local laws to the cultural enclaves, and that has a huge social cost. More unassimilated migrants make the problem worse, not better, and there's not enough money to fix the problem, especially when the only capital coming in from most of the migrants are their bare hands.