Description
Harshly exploited migrant labour plays a fundamental role in the political economy of contemporary capitalism. The abstract and utopian theorising of many liberals and leftists on the migration question often ignores or downplays patterns of displacement and brutal class dynamics, which divide and weaken working people while empowering the ruling class.
In this important new book, Hannah Cross provides a sober analysis of the class antagonisms of migration in the context of the nation, social democracy, and the racialized ordering of the world. Bringing Marxist methodology and strategy to a careful analysis of existing emancipatory movements, she sets out the programmes and approaches that are needed to promote global worker solidarity and create a future in which cheap labour is no longer a mainstay of wealthy economies. This focus on the labouring classes allows her to identify some important new directions for migration in a world beyond capitalism, exploitation and injustice.
This book will be essential reading for students, scholars and general readers interested in the politics and political economy of migration in a world unhelpfully caught between racist authoritarian capitalism and the wishful-thinking of contemporary left-liberalism.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: Migration Politics and the Left
Migration in Capitalism
The Left and Migration Politics
Organization of the Book
2 Socialism, Marxism and Migration
The Irish Question, Imperialism and Class
The Great Mystifications
Colonialism, Class and National Questions
Social Democracy and Its Potential for Transformation
3 Imperialism and Migrant Labour in the Capitalist World Economy
Migration, Growth and Population Fanaticism
Imperialism and Displacement
Militarism
Global Capitalism Dominates Diverse Modes of Production around the World
Mexico–US Migration and Dependency
Migration, Remittances and Economic Development
4 Borders, Militarism and Inequality
Borders and Militarism
Immigration Control in the US
EU Borders: The ‘Long Summer of Migration’
The Making of the European Union: From the ‘Golden Age’ to Neoliberalism
Capitalism Does Not Live Up to Its Idealized Form
5 Wages, Organized Labour and Post-Work Utopianism
Migration, Labour Standards and Unions
Working Conditions in Global Production
Migration, Wages and Labour Markets in the Global North
It Is Easier to Imagine the End of Capitalism than Full Automation
6 The Production of Class Antagonisms in Capitalism
Anti-Irish Racism, Colonialism and Development
Racial Antagonisms in Britain in the Neoliberal Era
Class Antagonisms in the US Labour Movement
The State, Media and Class Antagonisms in the UK Lindsey Oil Refinery Strikes
Who Are the Imperialist Worker Elites?
7 Strikes, Internationalism and Solidarity
Emancipation from Exploitation
Renewal of the World Labour Movement
Migrant Cleaners and Worker-Led Alliances in and around the City of London
Emancipation from Racism and Class Division
Emancipation from Borders
8 A Socialist Approach to Migration
A Socialist Idea of Migration
How is Socialist Transformation Achieved?
The National Question and Universalist Demands
Towards Equality of Movement
References
Index
