stuper1 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:48 pm
pmward wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:22 pm
Kriegsspiel wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 4:11 pm
I was going to add that I didn't want to assume that you and ocho were liberals. You aren't Trumpies, and you seem to think they irrationally hate Mexicans and want to nuke them. IE, you don't understand what their viewpoint is.
Admittedly, I was exaggerating and being a bit facetious there. But the Trumpies I personally know really do have a passionate dislike of Mexico, and really any other country that could provide labor cheaper than they are willing to supply it. They feel threatened and fearful, and that does cause an irrational hatred.
Are you familiar with this newfangled economic idea called the law of supply and demand? It applies to labor as well as products. It's really not irrational or racist to oppose abundant immigration if a person feels their livelihood is threatened. I'm one of the least racist people around, but I'd like to see immigration slowed down greatly.
There are other things that would be far-less pernicious and more effective...
1) More class-consciousness, generally. Knowing what your true risks and resources are as a worker and who your lot is in with vs who is most opposed to your economic interests.
2) Union membership and activism.
3) Opposing trade deals in how mobile they allow capital to be. Trade deals are more "investor rights" deals than anything else, and any dollar invested overseas is a dollar not invested here. Put another way, If labor can't cross borders, why should capital be able to? If a brown body can't go from Mexico to the US, why should some US "investor" be able to purchase profitable property in Mexico?
4) Encourage economic independence, rather than submission to US capital interests, of other countries.
5) Tariffs based heavily on labor protections and environmental protections in the foreign country in question to prevent a "race to the bottom" of capital to the country with "leaders" most willing to allow their country and populace to be exploited.
6) Citizen's dividend to give workers more bargaining power by giving them more non-disappearing financial safety-net.
There are many ways to protect your real wages... I'm amazed that the only way some want to explore is by a myriad of draconian policies to make millions of peoples lives
hopefully miserable enough to make them move out of the country.