States of exclusion

Click here to access article by Phil Marfleet from Socialist Review (Britain).

Marfleet provides some enlightening answers to the following questions:

Why are borders so important to the modern state? Why do politicians and the media obsess about “border security”? What lies behind the politics of exclusion?

The Migration and Labor Question Today: Imperialism, Unequal Development, and Forced Migration

Click here to access article by Raúl Delgado Wise from Monthly Review. 

The author explains, unfortunately in academese, that one of the deleterious effects of neo-liberalism is the prevalence of highly vulnerable populations forced to move in a desperate search for a means of support both within countries and across national borders. While always seeking profitable opportunities, capitalist agents have, for themselves, to a considerable extent succeeded in the elimination of national barriers to better exploit the cheapest labor available throughout the world. On the other hand, workers removed from the social supports provided by their original communities and governments are placed in extremely precarious life circumstances, and thus, easily preyed upon by global corporations. Likewise, in their migrations workers are subject to rigorous control under border policies of governments who serve neoliberal interests. 

The conditions under which forced migrations develop involve multiple risks and dangers, particularly in the case of the most vulnerable groups. These involve permanent exposure to conditions of labor insecurity and instability, and social exclusion in host societies. Furthermore, as has been mentioned, international migration is increasingly subjected to criminalization policies and practices, racialization, and race- and gender-based discrimination, which not only increases vulnerabilities and risk, but also often endangers life itself.

War of words ends in author's arrest at border

There seems to be an increasing number of border guard incidents like this (recall Amy Goodman’s interrogation by Canadian border guards over the content of her planned talk in Vancouver a few weeks ago) which, IMO, are designed to intimate people into total compliance to authority regardless of the latter’s conduct.  This is how police states begin.