3 ms·

Similar to my reply a bit further down, Marx (and the view of many of the socialists at the time) was not anti-immigration, or anti-immigrant. He (they) did no

Similar to my reply a bit further down, Marx (and the view of many of the socialists at the time) was not anti-immigration, or anti-immigrant. He (they) did not blame the immigrants for coming and in fact did not see anti-immigration laws as the solution (arguably having illegal immigrants leads to even more exploitation), but instead saw international organisation of workers as the solution. Your reference [3] says that and there are quite a few more writings from the time along similar lines (I will try to find the references later).

BlueTemplar 6y ago
Aren't you noticing the parallels between [3] and that Greenwald's 2005 blogpost ? That "hordes" phrasing is unfortunate, but it's a little bit like comparing Marx to Nazis because of his phrasing : "The Irish question".
- cycomanic 6y ago
  That "hordes" phrasing is at the center of it. And Greenwalds blogpost is all about national identity, something Marx did not write about and actually blamed as part of the problem.
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    You can either not write about something OR blame it as part of the problem, but not BOTH ?!? In [3] : > Marx did not elaborate on his reasons for writing that Irish immigration reduced English workers’ wages. He implied that the cause was an oversupply of manual laborers, but his other statements indicate that he considered English xenophobia and the resulting antagonism among workers an even greater problem. [...] > In his 1870 letter, Marx described what he then considered the overriding priority for labor organizing in England: “to make the English workers realize that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.”
merricksb 6y ago
I don't think any of this is counter to what Greenwald, I or a great many moderate voices would contend about immigration in the modern world. If pointing out that immigration has tradeoffs and requires some degree of organisation and solidarity among workers was not bigoted when Marx and other early communists said it, it is not bigoted to say similar things today. If positions are rooted in hatred based on race or class, of course that's different, but Greenwald has said nothing of the sort, and all the positions he's expressed in the past 15 years make it clear he doesn't think anything like that.

BlueTemplar 6y ago

Aren't you noticing the parallels between [3] and that Greenwald's 2005 blogpost ? That "hordes" phrasing is unfortunate, but it's a little bit like comparing Marx to Nazis because of his phrasing : "The Irish question".

cycomanic 6y ago
That "hordes" phrasing is at the center of it. And Greenwalds blogpost is all about national identity, something Marx did not write about and actually blamed as part of the problem.
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  You can either not write about something OR blame it as part of the problem, but not BOTH ?!? In [3] : > Marx did not elaborate on his reasons for writing that Irish immigration reduced English workers’ wages. He implied that the cause was an oversupply of manual laborers, but his other statements indicate that he considered English xenophobia and the resulting antagonism among workers an even greater problem. [...] > In his 1870 letter, Marx described what he then considered the overriding priority for labor organizing in England: “to make the English workers realize that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.”

merricksb 6y ago

I don't think any of this is counter to what Greenwald, I or a great many moderate voices would contend about immigration in the modern world. If pointing out that immigration has tradeoffs and requires some degree of organisation and solidarity among workers was not bigoted when Marx and other early communists said it, it is not bigoted to say similar things today. If positions are rooted in hatred based on race or class, of course that's different, but Greenwald has said nothing of the sort, and all the positions he's expressed in the past 15 years make it clear he doesn't think anything like that.