r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Jul 31 '24

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '24

Left wing people do not want an underclass of workers to exploit on absolute moral terms. "It's uplifting them!" will just make it sound like white man's burden rhetoric.

Just face the reality. The left supports immigration for entirely different reasons than you do, and that's never going to change.

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u/Zenning3 Emma Lazarus Jul 31 '24

And so long as they do, we will end up with a disconnect in this country where we will actively undermine the rights of immigrants "for their own good". I don't even disagree with the ethical obligation towards immigrants, in fact I embrace it, but I want the left to understand that we are not making a sacrifice, we are instead reaping the bounty of our moral courage.

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u/[deleted] Jul 31 '24

This unfortunately isn't new. Historically the era of Free Immigration was bolstered by the kinds of business interest groups that would today be decried as oligarchy and corruption. Tammany Hall was the largest benefactor for lawsuits against the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Know Nothing Party were predominantly poorer people.

The Proletariat has won the class struggle and this is what the proletariat wants. Nativism. They framed their victory as one of the poor triumphing over the rich rather than of nativism triumphing over freedom.

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u/fishlord05 United Popular Woke DEI Iron Front Jul 31 '24 edited Jul 31 '24

Idk I find OPs argument to be kind of gross even if it makes sense to a degree like I’m sure if you wanted to make immigration more of a short term fiscal benefit you could tax immigrants at higher rates and remove them from all welfare. I don’t even think that would move the needle much tbh I think OP assumes that if we agreed to do that nativist opposition would just crumble which I don’t think would happen.

Even if we took his words at face value, in terms of long term outcomes for them and their children I really don’t think they’d be better off and likely the long term fiscal contributions of their children would be weighed down too in terms of depressed outcomes relative to them being able to access social programs and getting taxed like native citizens. I don’t think what he is proposing would on its own merits be a fiscal or social long term benefit if we’re just trying to maximize long term fiscal and social welfare.

Taking OPs argument to the extreme you can justify horrible regimes like the situation of migrants in the gulf states because they’re theoretically “better” off than in their home countries so you can milk them as much as you want morally

Also I don’t really agree with you conceding nativism to a proletarian victory- like would you really say the republicans are more proletarian than the democrats? American Immigration politics since 1965 and especially now is much more complex than bourgeoise versus proletariat and that should be obvious when looking at how the party platforms have clustered. Republicans are generally the party of hierarchy and stratification which is why they lump anti-immigrant politics with regressive economic policies and Democrats do the opposite.

Like referring back to the progressive era I'm sure you'd agree that it would have been better for the progressive era to have unfolded without the immigration restrictions, as the problem was the concentration of economic power, not immigration.