belboid said:
actually, most socialists have argued that working-class interests have no natinal boundaries
As somebody else has pointed out, what has this got to do with open borders? The existence of national borders doesn't stop solidarity between the working classes of different countries, and never has done.
There's a verbal sleight of hand going on here. The principle of international solidarity has become deliberately confused with the notion of it essentially meaning the mixing together, in all countries, of the international working class. This process has, of course, been going on for a long time, in a restricted way, and it is obviously, and in all circumstances, in the interests of workers to emphasise what we all have in common. However, when did a militant pro-immigration stance become elevated to a matter of principle?
If I understand things correctly, when mass immigration first got under way, socialists made little or no comment on its desirability in and of itself. It was simply accepted as something that was taking place; the crucial issue was to build solidarity between workers of different ethnic backgrounds. Then, over the years, it seems that the necessity of defending immigrants against scapegoating by the employers and the racists gave rise to an outright pro-immigration stance. This, in its turn, has now been joined by the absurd and utopian demand for open borders, or 'no borders,' justified on the grounds that because there is free movement of capital (which is, in actual fact, not entirely free at all), there should be free movement of labour (as if the practicalities of one are as simple as the other, in any case.) The principle of internationalism is then thrown into the argument, with people making the nonsensical claim that it cannot exist without complete freedom of movement from one nation state to another. If this argument was followed to its logical conclusion it would be argued that there has never been any working class international solidarity in the past. To round it all off, we are then offered the notion that there would be 'no borders in a communist world.' Ah, the old chimera of the communist world, still trotted out while the diseased body of the old socialism chokes on its own vomit. It seems to have escaped the notice of many orthodox lefties that there is no viable radical socialist movement left anymore. What remains cannot, in the vast majority of countries, even break into the consciousness of enough people to become a movement of even limited impact. To argue for open borders in this situation is not only a diversion of propaganda use only (the left will never have a say in it, one way or another, for who knows how long), it fails to take into account that, as ethnic tensions rise throughout Europe, the left itself is in a position where it is consistently proving itself incapable of dealing with them. Talking of international solidarity and 'a communist world' is all very well when large numbers of the working class in Oldham and Burnley, among many other places, are at each others' throats. And without being capable of having even a limited impact on existing tensions, what chances when they are exacerbated by the likely effect of open borders? (This is not to say that absolutely no new immigrants have any notions of working class solidarity, just to point out that solidarity is an alien concept to many within the generations of ethnic minorities born here, as well as among the white working class.)
I doubt, however, that the orthodox left (and some utopian 'anarchist' cults) will stop to take a reality check.
