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Bells_On_Sunday wrote

Maybe when the person is known to be a definite malign influence in some way? I know that raises the question of who gets to decide but I don't mind notorious fascists whose only intention is to spread hate being denied entry, for example. Neither am I bothered about being denied the company of violent antisocial characters such as unreformed serial killers and other psychopaths.

These are mostly irrelevant edge cases. My question wasn't rhetorical and I don't have a fully formed opinion about it. I share the desire to do away with nation states but mainly because they would be redundant if economic conditions were equal around the globe. Shouldn't the goal then be to help improve conditions in the countries people are driven out of? Safe havens around war zones, provision of housing and employment, etc. People would generally rather stay at home if they could be safe and provide for their family. Migration is driven by globalisation, people being another form of capital to move around the world. I'm not anti-immigration by any means, in case I'm giving that impression, I welcome it. The fact is that enormous numbers of people have been uprooted and driven around the world, so they should be supported, but it also seems undeniable that it causes big problems in host countries, especially for the poorest people there. It seems to be far from a binary issue to me.

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Pop wrote (edited )

but it also seems undeniable that it causes big problems in host countries, especially for the poorest people there

If this is true (I think it is deniable and am not sure why you think what you think), then that is the fault of the political system, and not the refugees

resolving the problem then would not amount to preventing refugees from entering, but addressing the conditions that cause the harm (by expropriating from the rich and having adequate facilities to welcome refugees, etc)

(edited: I screwed up the typing the first time around)

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Bells_On_Sunday wrote

You're right, I'm sure it is debatable. I think that because I think it's part of a process of exploiting workers by driving down wages and removing work in arbitrary ways. The same process that led many of the migrants to up sticks in the first place. That isn't to say I think it's the migrants' fault and they should have stayed at home.

I think there are also social problems, and that some people find them hard to acknowledge. Integrated, harmonious communities don't spring up overnight. When people on the bottom rung are given a target for their frustration with their own lack of housing etc we know what tends to happen. Of course more needs to be done to help those people in the first place and to foster integration. Yes, the owner class should be paying for this, as they should be paying to alleviate the problems they cause in the countries people have to flee. But I can sympathise with those who want controlled migration (not talking about refugees) for those kinds of reasons.

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Pop wrote

Integrated, harmonious communities don't spring up overnight.

integrated, harmonious communities will only be genuinely integrated and harmonious if they are susceptible to flow and change, otherwise they're just an exclusionary and conservative gated community
borders are a global caste system, a complex global apartheid

your language is very confusing for me because I get the sense that you kinda mean assimilation when you say integration and that when you say harmonious you kinda mean homogenous

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Bells_On_Sunday wrote

That's a disappointing attempt to put words in my mouth - by integration I mean things like the provision of language education and opportunities to meet your neighbours. I don't have answers to geopolitical problems from the safe harbour of my armchair but that doesn't make me a xenophobic reactionary. As I said, I don't consider these probems to have simple solutions. My own anarchism is a modest thing directed towards deliberately small intentional communities that encourage other people to do the same if and when they want to, rather than sorting out the global stage in one fell swoop and certainly not at the barrel of a gun. Leaves me open to accusations of narrow minded parochialism and false consciousness, but there we are. Enjoyable discussion anyway :)

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Pop wrote

didn't mean to appear to put words in your mouth or to call you a reactionary (I don't know you) - not sure why you think I did since I was expressed confusion and also just having the sense of your words meaning a thing just so you could unconfuse me

deliberately small intentional communities sound good I think, but presumably you need to tackle bigger picture things in order to make that a reality

So, to clarify, you can sympathise with controlled migration because of reasons like them driving down wages, lack of housing, and later you say integration would be achieved by stuff like provided language education and neighbour-meeting?

Do they actually drive down wages? Isn't it also a function of capitalist society to create marginalised groups who are seen as 'driving down wages' - and if they did not exist, it would be some other group who would be slapped with that label? it's capitalists who drive down wages, imo, and it's not unusual for immigrants to be educated/skilled for work and overall to help a society economically at that level

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Bells_On_Sunday wrote

Alright, I see you just wanted clarification...Yes, I should certainly say that it's capitalists that drive down wages, and a vulnerable migrant workforce that gives them the opportunity. They are much less able to do that when faced with well-established self-organising communities of workers who have been fighting for their rights for centuries. By no means should one group of workers turn on the other, you're right in saying both groups should know the real enemy.

In many cases highly educated migrant workers with in-demand skills are the privileged ones taking advantage of globalisation -- they can choose where to go to optimise their living conditions and go somewhere else if things change. Some people certainly do well out of globalisation. But I think that's normally if they come deliberately from a stable country - there are also many such people arriving without the means to re-establish their privileged position and end up driving a taxi when they were doctors at home or whatnot, so these two groups of migrants aren't mutually exclusive.

In explaining what I was trying to say, it sounds like I have a more fixed position on it than I do. The above is the more or less traditional argument that I said I can sympathise with, one of the objections the left of the UK Labour party used to have against the EU for instance. It's not that I think we should therefore limit immigration. I also sympathise with your position that borders only divide us and workers can have solidarity wherever they come from. Either way, the current situation seems to be that the genie is out of the bottle and the right are exploiting people's fears successfully in every Western country. Sorry to be on the fence, I started by saying I'm not sure what I think and I'm still not.

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Pop wrote

No worries, it has been an interesting exchange :)

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