Global Production Chains and Migrant Labor Roles

 A quick but important announcement: if you’re a recurring donor through Flipcause (not Patreon, but Flipcause) please check your spam folder for an email from upstreampodcast.org because we’ve sent out some important emails regarding your donation and the Flipcause platform. Check your spam for the subject line “Action required: your Upstream donation.” And just a reminder that this is only for Flipcause donors, not Patreon subscribers—if you're a Patreon subscriber please completely disregard this announcement. 

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

Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you’ll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast

For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.