While some lefties chew over the exact degree of reaction and repression that is "fascist," and while they repeat the call for a labor party with no specifics, the recent clash over H-1B visas demonstrates that action is bound up with a realistic look at immigration and class-based solutions.
Exhibit A is this article on the Trump-Musk clash. --- The Plutocracy Wins Another Round Against MAGA Nation (excerpts) Timothy Noah, New Republic, December 30, 2024 Is the Trump coalition coming apart before the Trump administration even begins? That seemed possible amid last week’s cage match between Elon Musk and Laura Loomer. But the plutocrats almost always win, and they did so here. Buried under Loomer’s racism against Indians, there was a legitimate disagreement about immigration policy. Loomer pointed out that without country caps and other such restrictions, skilled foreign labor might displace “American STEM students.” It’s true that the H-1B program has been grossly abused to displace domestic tech workers, not because these workers are inferior but because H-1B workers are cheaper and easier to control. The most notorious instance occurred in 2014 when Disneyland fired 250 tech workers and subcontracted their work out to an India-based firm staffed by Indian guest workers here on H-1B visas. Ten years later, the “outsourcing loophole” remains unplugged, and in April 2023 the nonprofit Economic Policy Institute reported that the top 30 H-1B employers over the previous 15 months laid off 85,000 workers … and hired 34,000 H-1B workers. Musk said the hiring of skilled guest workers was necessary because the “number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA is far too low.” That’s true up to a point. >From >https://newrepublic.com/article/189710/elon-musk-wins-laura-loomer-h1b-immigration-trump-maga --- The obvious rejoinders to bosses' wails that they can't get enough qualified staff are: raise the wages; pay for retraining engineers to the latest tech; expand post-college programs for registered nurses and create them for other near-professional fields in computers, robot technology, etc. (public programs paid with higher corporate taxes). The controversy was about tech workers. The much larger number of workers in construction, hotels, and food service remain objects of division, exploitation, and political abuse and disdain. It is typical for a New Republic writer to half-agree with Musk that there is shortage of talented and motivated engineers. One level up, the remedies in the previous paragraph are beyond most “pwogwessives,” who can’t get the relation between class and identity right. A second level up, the remedies suggested in the previous paragraph are sensible, but they are almost utopian in capitalism today. Socialists should raise them – and agitate and educate for socialist revolution. Explicitly. Meanwhile, the sloganeering lefties repeat “political independence” (a formula for the Labor Party in its early days in England) and “united front for a labor party.” -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#34344): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/34344 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/110365844/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
