Intelligent machines replacing workers and creating a deflationary environment was supposed to be great, as it was expected that workers would be able to work less and buy more due to greater efficiency within the system.
In reality, those that leverage the capital never made those returns available to the workers, but extracted more profits for themselves while leaving the jobless destitute.
Not before the 1970’s they didn’t. But sure, since then capital has made hay and labour has flatlined in share of the surplus.
Open boarders deflate the cost of labour.
The last point is so insidious.
In Australia we let shittons of students in who will work the low end jobs in hospitality, and for years made it a requirement of backpacker visas to do farm work if they want an extension as well as bringing in cheap labour for seasonal work from the pacific.
The US has an entire underclass of Central Americans doing this. The UK used Poles, the Germans used Turks, the French used various Africans.
Leftists in these countries think unfettered immigration is great and noble whilst whinging about low end wages year after year and rightists are all too happy to exploit cheap labour for businesses that would often otherwise be unviable.
No-one wants to reckon with the reality of it though because it immediately devolves in to accusations of racism.
Yes. Corporations love the oppressed classes. Our Central American brothers are here without legal protections, without representation, without fair housing or healthcare. And the media is able to polarize the people about these classes’ legality, which completely distracts them from the great social justice question that we should be considering: are these people being exploited by the ruling classes, and is their misery being used to foment race relations between the right and left?
The most common debate about these people is whether they take jobs from Americans. That’s a fair question. The people asking that question assume that their own joblessness is due to the presence of these newcomers. They don’t recognize that these foreigners are here at the behest of corporations, who long to pay people less because they cannot claim the same labor protections as you or me.
Our lack of jobs is not because of any oppressed class of people…domestic or foreign. It is because the corporations in the 90’s convinced both parties that the greater corporate profits that could be extracted from foreign markets, would trickle down to the American people whose jobs would be sacrificed.
That Americans now blame third world people rather than the ruling domestic elites is proof that the manufactured consent was highly successful.
Governments love it just as much. They’re the ones putting those conditions on backpacker visas, they’re turning a blind eye to known exploitation of student visas, they’re the ones allowing huge influxes of people (legally and illegally) without doing anything about the infrastructure needed to support them.
Stop blaming everything on corporations - corporations are a figment of statism. They would not exist in their current form without massive governments.
These people are being exploited because it uplifts everyone else’s quality of life. It’s that simple.
Whether you’re a self-proclaimed socialist living in a million dollar+ house or a right-wing businessman made wealthy off cheap labour - both sides are benefitting from this and will shit themselves if/when the gravy train ever stops.
The fact that every high government position is filled with a rotating schedule of corporate elites… that every senator and representative becomes a multimillionaire within a few years of serving… that there are 6000 lobbyists registered in Washington who serve corporate interests…that government bailouts without fail go to private banking, insurance, or real estate interests, and that the central bank itself is a collection of probate banks…should remind us all that government has been subordinated to the interests of private corporations.
Private banks*
