An Economy Dependent on the Abuse of Land and Labor

John Kaufman @ 8:27 pm

Lost in all the recent debate on illegal immigration is why the United States is so dependent on cheap migrant and illegal labor and whether or not this is a good thing. The assumption made by almost everyone is that such labor is a good thing, for the illegal immigrants, it is said, do work the rest of us are not interested in. But this reasoning neglects the abuse that occurs both to our agricultural lands and the migrant workers and illegal immigrants themselves.

Industrial, large-scale agribusiness is dependent on cheap labor, just as multi-national corporations are dependent on cheap foreign labor. To claim that this is the only possible work for desperate people, as the apologists for the big corporations do, is simply hogwash. Nations such as Mexico and China ought to be working to revitalize and secure their own local economies, for this is the only practical solution to global, corporate exploitation and ecological degradation. Forcing rural people to seek degrading, often unhealthy work in domestic or foreign fields and factories is not a viable and moral answer to rural poverty. And while the United States is a large and wealthy nation, it simply cannot economically or ecologically absorb everyone. There are limits to what even we can responsibly allow, and that is why we have immigration laws. But all the merciful and well-enforced laws in the world won’t help if our economic life is undermining our ideals.

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