Sunday, March 04, 2007

Try To Understand the Problem

Inmates Will Replace Migrants in Colorado Fields is a New York Times piece regarding the scarcity of illegal migrant workers in Colorado. Since the serfs won't come around law enforcement another serf labor force must be found.

Does anybody understand the consequences of business behavior that crushes wages to this level? Why, exactly, is it racism and xenophobia to oppose this direction in the US? The fact that the tools of this repression of labor happen to be primarily of one race and one nationality has absolutely not one thing to do with the merits. It would make no difference to the issue if these people were green Martians.

This is the logical outcome of work that pays serf wages, it is the only outcome possible. No guest worker, path to citizenship, amnesty, or other policy that does not address wages will accomplish one thing, other than flood the country with those willing to be serfs. If you want a country with a population of serfs then you have no problem with the direction we're headed in.

This is old news, if you aren't aware that in previous times (Robber Barons?) immigrants have been used to crush the working class then you are neither informed nor competent to have an opinion. If you are aware of this and support its continuation it is fairly obvious where you stand in regard to those who work with their hands. I'm sorry, your sympathy for the green Martians is immaterial to the problem. You either support the plutocrats or you do not.

2 comments:

Zakariah Johnson said...

The bigger problem is that using prison labor creates a profit motive for incarceration. The profit motive then drives higher rates of incarceration--parole or reasonable sentencing guidelines take a back seat to economic need.

This is already the case in many states, though. For years, the inmates in the women's prison in N.C. ironically staffed the state tourism phone lines. They are, apparently, cheaper to use than Indian call centers:

See this:Beind Bars, but Filling the Front Line for Tourism

People mistakenly believe that slavery starts all it once. It doesn't. And it has many creeping forms. Profit motives for slavery should be avoided at all costs, including privatizing prisons, which also seems to drive up incarceration rates.

Chuck Butcher said...

It does happen slowly, the current blue collar wage depression has been going on since Ronnie R (hero to all good Replutocrats.