Structural Causes of Low‑Wage Migration

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In this episode, Immanuel Ness joins us for a discussion on migration as economic imperialism. We begin the conversation looking at the causes of migration—both intentional, structural parts of the global capitalist economy and also as certain consequences of this economic system, things like wars, sanctions, and ecological devastation. Immanuel then discusses the various ways in which migration is a function of imperialism, dispelling the myth among Western economists and the development industrial complex that migration actually benefits workers and helps to develop their countries of origins, but that migration in fact leads to underdevelopment of origin states, a dependency of Global South countries on the West, and heightened global inequality. We talk about the attack on immigrants in the United States and analyze the Trump administration's war on immigrants from a dialectical materialist perspective before ending the conversation discussing what a rational, humane system of labor migration might look like. 

Immanuel Ness is Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York (CUNY), Brooklyn, School of Humanities and Social Sciences and author of Migration as Economic Imperialism: How International Labour Mobility Undermines Economic Development in Poor Countries.

Further resources:

• Migration as Economic Imperialism: How International Labour Mobility Undermines Economic Development in Poor Countries, by Immanuel Ness
• Unequal Exchange A Study of the Imperialism of Trade (Updated Edition), by Arghiri Emmanuel
• How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate, by Isabella M. Weber
• The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes (film)
• The Condition of the Working Class in England (Preface to the English Edition), by Frederick Engels

Related episodes:

• From the Frontlines: Class Struggle and Class War in the US Southeast w/ Cecilia Guerrero
• Immigration, ICE, and Working Class Rebellion w/ Cecilia Guerrero
• Listen to our ongoing series on China
• Our onging series on the Alliance of Sahel States
• Marx's Capital Vol. 1 w/ David Smith
• Marx's Capital Vol. 2 w/ Richard Wolff and Shahram Azhar
• Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante
• The Imperial Boomerang w/ Julian Go

Intermission music: "Unfair" by Bliss

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