[Marxism] Likely domestic policy changes under Obama

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Barry Brooks writes: "With so many people unemployed it would be hard to
explain why we need more workers. If wages were higher, as they would be
without imported cheap labor, those already here could and would easily do
all the work."

Well, the experiment is going on right now. One of the largest tomato
growers in PA just decided to skip this season because he could not get the
labor.

There is a myth that wages for occupations typically held by Latinos and
Blacks are low because anyone can do it, and therefore there is a permanent
surplus of labor driving down wages. I think the evidence shows the wages go
with worker, not the job. 

When white people did that kind of work, work in a meat processing plant was
considered a good job, and paid twice as much as it does now. To drive down
the wages, it was also necessary to change the composition of the work
force, and the social status of being in that line of work. A quarter
century ago, it was "middle class," a good union job. Now if you're white in
a meat processing plant, you're considered white trash (unless you own it or
run it, of course).

The plain fact is overwhelmingly native born Americans WILL NOT do farm
labor, nor increasingly most types of physical labor, not for ANY amount of
money. They consider it beneath their dignity; it is something totally
outside their experience. It is part of white supremacist ideology, and
although strictly a cultural construct, and one that evolves over time, if
suddenly all the Mexican and other immigrant labor went away, the U.S.
agricultural sector would collapse. And the house building sector wouldn't
collapse ONLY because it already has.

Joaquin