IMMIGRATION thread

[Husar]

Something that has been on my mind for a long time now, is that while we keep discussing cultural matters for the most part, there is also the "they just want our money"-angle, where even the counter-argument often goes to "overall, immigrants pay more taxes than they get, and we all profit from them monetarily".

But I find this angle very interesting from other perspectives, for example the one where they are blamed for wanting to have a better life with more money or better job opportunities.
On the one hand this argument that they will take something away from us if they come seems to counter the typical capitalist argument that one person gaining wealth does not mean the wealth of another decreases. Even if you argue that they will get government money from our taxes, they WILL spend it on consumerist stuff that makes our companies earn more money and provide more jobs, no? I am aware that it's more complicated than that, but I'm trying to get at the basic assumption, is wealth relative or can we all get wealthier or is capitalism a lie after all? What do you believe?
On the other hand it seems as though people are in this sense just blaming them for having the same greed we do, if you say they just come here for the good jobs, are you saying that wanting a good job is a bad thing? I mean the argument usually implies that they have a bad character because they want to be wealthier. Who here does not want to be wealthier? Have you ever felt bad about getting job over another candidate? Are you content if you get a C at school while everybody else gets As and Bs? I can see this as some sort of realpolitik argument that if we can get ahead by locking them out, we should, but then the implication that they have bad character for opposing this attempt is hypocrisy because they just do the same thing we do, they just have a far less wealthy starting position at the beginning of the game. Which also seems a typical capitalist tactic, to blame all the problems on the poor, which is a good way to make the middle class accept that the rich slowly strip them of their money as well.

And a linky for reference: http://www.theguardian.com/business/...it-switzerland

It's "funny" how the poor are blamed for taking all the things away from the middle class when the rich get more and more of all our stuff every day.
And I think the Middle Class is complicit in this, it does not criticize the rich because its members hope to be rich themselves one day, it would be like criticizing their idols. So they/we pick on the poor instead because we don't want to be like them anyway and they are convenient targets. As we say in Germany "wenn zwei sich streiten, freut sich der dritte", roughly translated: "when two people fight, the third is happy".