2023-10-27 20:02:00
TRIBUNE – As our friend Claude Berger reminds us, it is impossible to understand the migration crisis without taking into account the wage system. Since the Grenelle agreements in 1968 where the unions put aside the problem of employment to wallow in that of purchasing power, the word “employeeship” seems to come from an urban legend. According to the spectacular narrative of self-employment and start-ups, talking about “salary” is outdated, talking about “earnings, bonuses and overtime” is modern. This omerta is an ideological maneuver which aims to ignore the fact that the biggest profits are made on salaries. “Wage” is just the technical name for the commodification of labor forces put into competition on the market. In other words, if you don’t have enough capital to survive, you must sell your work. The worker and the unemployed will be dominated on the one hand by those who have enough capital not to have to sell themselves directly, and on the other by those who influence the liberal market which devalues labor power to increase earnings. Here we are caught between a rock and a hard place; the hammer of the capitalists and the anvil of the liberals. Of course, the capitalist is a liberal who influences the market with his financial clout, and the liberal is a capitalist who aims to gain more financial clout to also influence the market.
Human at least
To understand the commercial logic of migratory flows, it must be compared with robotization. We believed that robotization would signify the disappearance of work and therefore of wage employment. Reality proves us quite the opposite – and for a long time to come. The technical tool has further reduced work and wages by putting humans in competition with a more efficient artificial invention. And yet, in many areas, humans remain the cheapest. If this were not the case, all rare earth mines would be exploited exclusively by robots, themselves managed by robots, themselves remotely controlled by a handful of engineers. However, it is not the case. However, we have all the technology to set up such a system. In reality, another logic is at play; that of the product/revenue calculation. Robotizing everything would be more expensive than lowering human wages to the minimum. Humanity at a minimum means ensuring the vital minimum in order to have maximum profitable work. Ensuring you have enough to eat (poorly), sleep (little), find accommodation (in a small space near the workplace), travel (as little as possible or at low cost), reproduce (if necessary) and obey (the better and as quickly as possible). Doesn’t that remind you of anything? Yes of course: slavery! One nuance (and again, it depends on the times): the slave has no salary. The employee obtains a salary to live a slave’s life with this illusion, necessary since the revolution, that the salary gives him freedom.
This is where migratory flows complete the deregulation of wage employment initiated with robotization. In this capitalist world, you can imagine that an immigrant is not seen as an exciting person who would come to share his culture, his experience, his personality, to enrich the human community. The immigrant is no exception to the rule: he is a commodity. Put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur. The latter needs a workforce that is in good shape or competent, which is malleable, inexpensive and which allows it to pay as few taxes as possible. Concretely: bring in senior executives, engineers, useful professionals, then young men and, at the same time, ensure the illegal trade of prostitution, illegal immigrants and the smuggling of weapons and drugs.
Expansion of slavery
Double blow. Importing countries: break the pooling systems resulting from employee struggles. Exporting countries: prevent the structuring of such struggles. Capital reserves the replacement of an aging and/or recalcitrant workforce, as well as the exploitation of human and natural raw materials, without having to fear a local wage organization. The conclusion – as insurmountable as it is brutal – is: concentration of wealth, expansion ofslavery. This is what we call liberal or neoliberal politics, traditionally called right-wing.
All that remains is to mask this system of objectification (reification) with beautiful ecumenical intentions. This is where the left comes in. We keep quiet about the commercial dynamic to show the horrors that migrants experience, to play on the guilt of the citizen who is supposed to welcome, to make the beautiful souls dream of an egalitarian and mixed world. The rhetoric developed by the politician and his banker is addressed to the Yellow Vests: “Hey old man, you haven’t eaten for a month, for them it’s been three. And if you let them have your house, that would be chic.” So to the immigrant:“Look over there, all this money trickling down. Go try your luck. You risk your life, but one in a thousand will succeed. Maybe it will be you.” Here is the political consensus: say nothing about the fact that the natives are not ready to receive people who bring even more salary, and therefore social and cultural, insecurity, and that migrants are victims of yet another hold-up policy. up of human and natural raw materials organized by multinationals. These flows are essentially favored by two phenomena: war and poverty (and not the climate). Under these conditions, we can say that immigration policy follows, neither more nor less, the program of a forced marriage.
The moralizing left and the liberal right embrace in a momentous apotheosis where men, women and children find themselves catapulted into sudden and lasting horror for migrants, or mired in slow wear and tear for the natives. For politicians and bankers, enjoyment becomes sublime when these same men, women and children fight among themselves for crumbs with identity, moral, religious and philosophical arguments, and with machetes, baseball bats… ball and Kalashnikov. We know the relentless continuation of this sustained trauma: diversion of these adrenaline rushes towards the polls with a calculated outcome towards militia and/or state fascism.
It is only from this critical basis of the odious system of commercial objectification (wage labor) that it is possible to imagine migratory flows which are not subject to the dictates of capital and multinationals. It is about extricating oneself from the grip of this deadly ideology to reconnect with the magic of real encounters without prejudice or reaction. This awareness and this effort towards another way of life concerns both so-called “poor” and “rich” countries, both minds and bodies.
Tristan Edelman is an essayist, artist-choreographer and energetician. Author of Civilization of unhappiness, putting an end to capitalism (released in June 2023) and Les Indomptables, both published by Studio Talma. To get an idea of its different activities: www.tristanedelman-khoroliste.com
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