Reckoning with Socialism and Immigration Policy By Tessa Stapp Staff Writer “If you think socialism and open borders are compatible, then you aren’t thinking critically, you’re just regurgitating what you learned on MSNBC.” While that statement is an interesting thought exercise,the claim works only a few inches below surface level. However, policy is not made and life isn’t changed by uprooting liberating ideas and claiming they are in opposition to one another. To understand if these two causes are truly incompatible, there must be an entire excavation of the argument.
“Claiming that socialism and open borders are in competition with each other is a view that has grown out of seeing property ownership and improvement as both a right and duty. ” These two ideas hold immense power interlocked with beautiful opportunities- it just takes forward dreaming that disempowers capitalism for them to survive in America. The truth is, socialism and open borders are exact compliments, requiring a different framework of policy building and different conceptions of citizenship. The featured quote came from my Political Science professor in response to students probing him on modern political conundrums. His argument is rooted in political theory that dates back to the 16th century. Hobbes argues that man is inherently evil and therefore needed a sovereign monarchy to instill purpose
in the masses. This is the crux of Social Contract theory, in which citizenship carries both rights and duties. Claiming that socialism and open borders are in competition with each other is a view that has grown out of seeing property ownership and improvement as both a right and duty. Alexis de Tocqueville admired America for it’s political strives towards equality and sense of individualism. However, the property based access to rights that Tocqueville warned the American people of in the early 1800s when he wrote Democracy in America, is now coming to fruition. It was a four piece volume of a cautionary tale against property rights becoming the basis for privilege in society, foreshadowing the modern effects of letting wealth decide who is worthy of full rights. This is seen in the ways that wealth can impact the likelihood of imprisonment as proven by the Sentencing Project. The disproportionate ways in which wealth and criminality interact leads to a higher proportion of low income individuals being stripped of their right to vote for federal offenses. A compelling example of the fear Tocqueville held of a stratified American society due to wealth. Now, social hierarchies sit comfortably within the American identity and neoliberalism ensures the maintenance of capitalism as the deciding force of who survives in America. For socialism and open borders to co-exist, the United States must actively shift citizenship rights from being rooted in property to being rooted in community. In this forward dream, open borders are enacted, and socialist benefits are given to those through community based programs. To qualify for these programs one must be an active member of the local community through whichever way they can give their time or money. The idea of allowing one to “buy” their way out of community work would facilitate the redistribution of wealth. If one wishes to not work to their ability, they can pay a higher percentage of taxes to account for the extra labour society provides on their behalf. Those funds would be used to maintain social welfare programs and support working families. Socialism in opposition to open borders relies on a
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