Welcome to the United States of America

Marx understood, we are told, that the peasants had long been the bulk of the population of modern nations. However, it must be seen that he saw the new development of the working class due to the industrial revolution as the distinct ingredient needed to raise "consciousness" (or education) to a point where a significant class conflict could occur. The only class he specifically excluded from the proletariat was the bourgeoisie, the entrepreneurial middle class of the cities, that always tends to follow the government. Most of the new immigrants coming across the U.S. southern border, specifically Texas and Arizona, are children and are potentially new American working class, but they are uneducated. They are presumably illiterate in English and I understand that some may even be illiterate in Spanish, too. I fear they may be ill-equipped to take part in an American society where there are two strata of citizens -- those who work and those who exploit the lab or of workers in order to achieve 'surplus-value'. Who knows how the Financial Crisis of 2008 affected their lives, and the lives of their parents, when the DOW Jones dropped to 7,000 and the American Funds Investment Company of America lost 49%. It will take years for their asylum claims to come to court or for them to be deported. Soon, maybe this coming week, the DOW is about to break through to 17,000 -- all I can say is I wish them the best, and Welcome to the U.S.A. ! ---------- (Marcel wrote): Your original title for this entry was, "Will migrants be Rep or Dems?" Well, an old idea was to make Cuban refugees of the leftist regime instantly US citizens. The older of that generation of Cubans that lost wealth to the people of Cuba have since been reliable pro-capitalist Republicans. Ronald Reagan (actually, following Jack Kemp's formulation) was to turn everyone into a capitalist, for instance by selling off public housing to the poor residents, and generally making house ownership a more accessible part of the American dream to the middle class. Essentially 'if the folk actually own a piece of the pie, they won't rock the (Capitalist) boat' Later, pensions were turned into personal investment plans that depend on the health of the capitalist financial system to work, again with the hope of aligning working/poor folk's own material comfort in old age with the capitalist class's interests. An interesting twist is the idea that "to do well in the investment world, listen to the successful capitalists who will share their investment philosophy." A great example of manipulative ideas trickling down from the capitalist classes through rent-an-opinion leaders to the working class, and in this process galvanizing power by controlling opinions and ideas that affect the wallet. W's efforts to privatize social security had the same intention of aligning the interests of the capitalist classes with the working class (that is, in addition to setting up a bunch of suckers' money to be swiped by a rigged investment racket). Another idea was letting immigrants "buy" US citizenship by importing a pile of capital into the USA... instantly assuring immigration with a Republican bias. The question is whether immigrants can be politically manipulated easier or harder than natives. My guess is easier, if you can write the rules to pick which immigrants get to stay. Capitalists know Marx better than anyone! PS: Actually, I don't think Capitalists object to a growing worker/consumer/small investor population (migrants are younger, and therefore more fertile than the native population.) Immigrants are the most exploitable for their relatively cheap labor, and represent an emerging/expanding consumer class for the kinds of products the USA makes and sells. Capitalists really don't much care which party is in control ("they are all the same"), since there is no chance their personal control over their wealth is ever in question, especially if the population has accepted low taxes as gospel. On the other hand, the long term looks bad for the US working class as the world becomes flatter and domestic wages drop to purchasing power parity with China, Vietnam, Mexico, Malaysia, Colombia, Haiti, South Africa, etc. The political problem on immigration is the working-class Republicans who are fearful of throngs of foreigners. The instinct is counterproductive and misplaced on a practical economic basis, and really just racist. The enemy is not other people who are trying to survive, too. While working class conservatives are encouraged to fight "those" people, whoever they passionately believe are undeservedly beneath themselves, they are distracting and distracted from the bigger process that is burying everyone who isn't rising in the capitalist's brown nose ranks. If immigration reform happens, and the Republican party loses most immigrants, and a liberalizing population, and the younger generation forever, the Capitalists won't care. Democrats will simply help ensure the excesses of Capitalism don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg...