07-13-2024, 01:10 AM
Mises Wire
Michael Rectenwald
07/12/2024
Let me begin by stating that I recognize national borders as arbitrary perimeters drawn by and around nation-states. I have no love for the state. In fact, the state should be abolished. I have declared, in no uncertain terms, that the state is a violent parasite that produces nothing—other than misery, that is. The state is an oppressive institution that, among other legitimated crimes, drains the social body of capital, extorts the productive elements of society, interferes in market transactions, distorts markets, and engages in wars to expand its power base and its control over the domestic population. This assessment is especially true of the United States.
But I do believe in society. And I believe that society should be protected—from the state and from all others whose actions are inimical to it. The real political opposition and class antagonism is, and has always been, society versus the state, or the people against the state. The state is our enemy. Once these battle lines are clearly understood, we can correctly assess all political phenomena, including immigration policy.
In terms of immigration, what we are dealing with today—in the US and in Europe—is an intentionally state-induced, NGO-abetted, and leftist-approved trauma to society. The state gains from a traumatized society, which becomes more helpless in its opposition to state power. Where state-induced immigration is concerned, trauma is experienced in terms of the robbing of taxpayers; the draining of the treasury; increased crime, drug, and human trafficking; and the insecurity that all these elements, combined, produce in the social order. The immigration crisis is not the result of “the unrestricted movement of human capital” across borders but rather an artificially induced assault on the social body. The “market” for immigration is being dramatically distorted by state interference and financial incentivization.
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