It occurred to me that immigration/border security is an entire domain that I have only touched on lightly and indirectly. This is as good a time as any to go into more detail, particularly with the recent discussions about immigration reform. Obviously, I could tackle this from the perspective of nationalism and xenophobia/racism, as that is certainly an important aspect of the situation. However, I am most interested in some of the contradictions that are entailed by the concept of “border security” and its surrounding activities.
The first contradiction has been fairly well observed and commented on. In theory, capitalism entails a constant circulation of capital, and this includes labor (in essence, human bodies) as a form of capital. Any impediments to the movement of labor in response to market needs would be an infringement on the functioning of the capitalist system. In this way, the assertion of sovereignty in the control of populations appears to run against the grain of the capitalist system (as capitalism always appears to be in conflict with the state). More radically, in its ideological construction, capitalism is premised on the free market, whether that is the market of products, raw materials, or labor. Of course, in reality capitalism has nothing to do with free markets, and historically has necessitated more state involvement and a more rapidly growing concentration of capital among fewer competitors than any other system. Capitalism has limited the freedom of markets more than anything else, and capitalism and the state are not in inherent conflict. In many ways, then, this contradiction is a matter of ideology versus reality.
But not entirely. It is true that the cheap and grueling labor supplied by migrant workers is highly profitable for many industries – especially agriculture in the United States. In fact, many farmers have discovered to their dismay that their labor reserve dried up when the immigrants were chased away. This stems from the fact that, although in many ways symbiotic, capitalists and the bureaucratic apparatus of the state do act independently, and this may result in friction. The basic problem is this: state sovereignty and nationalism often have a life of their own and work toward insular, self-reinforcing ends, even while they are under the control of (and wielded by) capitalist interests. How can this be? I have never heard a satisfactory explanation, and I do not have one myself. However, since control of the movement of people and objects across borders is one of the primary manifestations of state sovereignty, the identity of the state and the very existence of sovereignty itself have come to depend on the acts of defining citizenship and managing immigration.
Or maybe there really is a definite economic interest underlying the expressions of state sovereignty. One very recent development in immigration/border policy is the placement of the whole enterprise within the framework of domestic security and the “War on Terror.” One interesting effect of this rebranding is that it has allowed for the creation of another “parallel military” (in terms of its structure, power, funding, and equipment, the Department of Homeland Security now acts as much like a shadow military as the CIA), as well as a new area for the fusion of the domains of military, intelligence, criminal justice, and industry. The boundaries among these four groups are steadily eroding. The activities of police, FBI, and CBP constantly interlace. Furthermore, the increased securitization of the border control issue is a boon to arms and military equipment manufacturers, who happily peddle their latest products at security conferences.
Could this be a case of certain groups of capitalists becoming empowered and benefiting at the expense of others (those who rely on migrant labor)? In fact, it’s even possible that the manufacturers who profit off of the securitization of borders simultaneously avail themselves of cheap immigrant labor (knowing, perhaps, that border security will never been 100% successful). It’s possible. Capitalism is always contradictory.
One could take the economic argument even further and suggest that all of the money spent on border security is actually another emergence of military Keynesianism. For example, Doug Noland argues that an illusory economic recovery is currently developing by means of a “government finance bubble,” which includes increased government spending on arms and security. What this would mean, if true, is that it is not just certain groups of capitalists who stand to benefit from the expenditures, but the entire system, in the erroneous perception of the dominant classes, or at least those members of dominant groups who have reached the absolutely influential consensus that the financing of border security (and other such activities) will serve all of their interests by protecting the base conditions necessary for the maintenance of the capitalist system.
The bureaucratic processes and nationalist ethos of the state may conflict with the needs of the capitalist class, but they often work seamlessly together. The interests of particular capitalists may conflict with each other, yet capitalists often collaborate to secure their common aims. It is hard to tell which of these situations is reflected in the securitization of our borders.
However, there is a final contradiction that goes right to the heart of the nature of capitalism, and while in many ways more interesting than those outlined above, is a bit more straightforward. Capitalism is an inherently centrifugal system that is completely global in its extent. Yet, it simultaneously requires various sorts of inequality (uneven development), including those of geography that strict border enforcement helps to maintain. The classic example is the simultaneous development of the West and impoverishment of the Third World. To this end, it is interesting to note that securitization makes borders more impermeable to some people while at the same time it eradicates those boundaries for others. People with “medium skin” (as the classification goes) find it more difficult to cross borders without being detained and abused. On the other hand, border enforcement requires cooperation between neighboring states, and in this way securitization entails a much freer flow of officials, equipment, and information across national boundaries. Border patrol officers are able to work on both sides of the line with more ease. Drones and other surveillance technology roam without restriction. And information sharing agreements may soon allow for the unimpeded transfer of biometric and other personal data between states. In essence, a securer border means greater disparities in the ability to cross boundaries. Organizations imbued with authority (corporations, state officials, etc.) more freely transgress borders while people as mere individuals, especially disadvantaged and "medium-skinned" people, are spatially, geographically contained.
The big question, then, is the implications of all of these changes. That, too, is difficult to answer. However, I can’t help but wonder how the military-prison-industrial trinity (involving intelligence and security agencies and the criminal justice system) can continue to grow and cohere into a violent capitalist juggernaut without some sort of very obvious and overtly unpalatable police state emerging.
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2013
Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Biopolitical Ramifications of Law
As I indicated at the end of my last post, I have yet to address the problem of what differentiates law from other modern social institutions. All modern institutions employ a complex of ideologies that include positivism, social contract ideology and the ideology of progress. All are bureaucratically organized and proliferate written records. All, in some way or another, operate according to a governmental-technocratic logic. What, then, makes law “law”?
I would say that, in this regard, the primary characteristic of law is its access to the means of “legitimate” state violence. What differentiates law from, say, the institutional domain of public health is that legal institutions can actually force payments, define citizenship, imprison, and in some cases, sentence to death. And to the extent that other institutions can do any of those things, they are already entwined with legal processes (e.g. the IRS). If modern social formations may be viewed as a network of overlapping and interacting institutional domains, then law is the nexus between these domains and the means of violence and coercion (the police, the prison system, etc.). This gives law the dual property of being governmental (bureaucratic/ideological) as well as coercive.
In the scheme that distinguishes sovereignty (as a primarily negative, destructive force) and government (as a positive, productive form of power), law is where the two meet. For this reason, law should be an extremely important topic for critical analysis, as it could potentially illuminate the relationship among different forms of power in the modern world. Yet, sadly, I believe the sort of analysis that is needed is sorely lacking. Foucault lent his deconstructive lens to this field, yet was unable to account adequately for the coercive power of sovereignty. Many Marxists, on the other hand, focus too exclusively on coercion, blinding themselves to the importance of governmentality. Giorgio Agamben made some attempt to bring the two together, with his elaboration of the concept of biopower. Yet, in the end, his arguments are more tautological than historical. In some cases they seem to be mere contorted regurgitations of Foucault.
The real question is, how do the utility of violence/coercion and the desire for progress/productivity intersect? Once again, capitalism may provide a theoretical underpinning. Productivity, under capitalism, depends on exploitation (a form of coercion). At the same time, it relies on human labor power and creativity (technological innovation). Thus, one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism comes to play in (though, does not reductively give rise to) this tension: the tendency to objectify and restrain human beings in order to exploit their capabilities versus the tendency to look for economic advancement and technological progress in a healthy, skilled workforce by promoting those capabilities.
One lesson that law should teach us is that the “legitimacy” of violence requires a strong ideological foundation, which the ideologies of progress and social contract, and the positivistic rationality in which it is embedded, provides. The legitimacy of violence, and hence sovereignty, was erected on an entirely different ideological plane prior to the modern era (for instance, with recourse to the divine). Thus, one cannot say that sovereignty is merely historically prior to governmentality (as Foucault does), that governmentality was sort of “added on” and has become more important. Both, as they exist in the modern world, are fully modern, emerged together, and are interdependent.
Likewise, it is not the case, as Agamben suggests, that life itself (zoe) has come to be a political concern more than in the past. The meaning of life itself is completely different in the modern era. Life is the basis of profit, the vehicle of a consciousness that can create technology and cultural productions, the interchangeable units that fill bureaucratic roles, a thing that is sacred above everything else and yet may be sacrificed for the common good (be that the “spread of democracy” or science or medical progress) – in other words, another subject of cost-benefit analysis. Life is, above all, both the means of progress and the intended end result – the sort of circular reasoning that justifies the entire ideology.
In this way, it may be said that sovereignty and governmental in the modern era are mutually constituting (though this relationship needs to be fleshed out more fully). Government provides the ideological rationale that legitimizes violence, while sovereignty gives governmental projects some teeth. Both simultaneously serve their own, independent ends: one restrictive and self-serving, the other positive and life-affirming. But it is law that holds them in relation to each another.
Finally, the discourses of law and its coercive resources are used to define who may be involved in governmental and economic projects, and in what ways. That is not to say that reformist ventures are confined to target people with full citizenship status and rights. To the contrary, people who are attributed the status of "criminal" or "insane," or other types of social deviance, are functionally not full citizens (not enjoying all the rights of citizenship) yet are the subjects of much institutional reformist activity. Likewise, services are often extended to people of different types of immigrant and refugee status, but frequently the status of their citizenship itself is the basis of the governmental "care" that they receive. On the other hand, people who cannot acquire full citizenship status all too often "slip through the cracks" and become invisible to the governmental-technocratic systems that seek to cultivate health and happiness. Just as, ideologically, the ability to exercise rights depends on one's citizenship status in relation to particular nation states, so does one's integration into the governmental matrix follow from this legally defined status. Of course, at the extreme, coercive forces sanctioned by law may be used to deport or detain people on the basis of their citizenship status.
It is clear, then, that law is more than ideology, more than a set of rules, and more than a basic form inhering in commodity exchange relationships. It is a type of practice (or rather, set of practices, including both violence and rational administration) by which modern society is organized as well as the rational/philosophical justification for those practices.
I would say that, in this regard, the primary characteristic of law is its access to the means of “legitimate” state violence. What differentiates law from, say, the institutional domain of public health is that legal institutions can actually force payments, define citizenship, imprison, and in some cases, sentence to death. And to the extent that other institutions can do any of those things, they are already entwined with legal processes (e.g. the IRS). If modern social formations may be viewed as a network of overlapping and interacting institutional domains, then law is the nexus between these domains and the means of violence and coercion (the police, the prison system, etc.). This gives law the dual property of being governmental (bureaucratic/ideological) as well as coercive.
In the scheme that distinguishes sovereignty (as a primarily negative, destructive force) and government (as a positive, productive form of power), law is where the two meet. For this reason, law should be an extremely important topic for critical analysis, as it could potentially illuminate the relationship among different forms of power in the modern world. Yet, sadly, I believe the sort of analysis that is needed is sorely lacking. Foucault lent his deconstructive lens to this field, yet was unable to account adequately for the coercive power of sovereignty. Many Marxists, on the other hand, focus too exclusively on coercion, blinding themselves to the importance of governmentality. Giorgio Agamben made some attempt to bring the two together, with his elaboration of the concept of biopower. Yet, in the end, his arguments are more tautological than historical. In some cases they seem to be mere contorted regurgitations of Foucault.
The real question is, how do the utility of violence/coercion and the desire for progress/productivity intersect? Once again, capitalism may provide a theoretical underpinning. Productivity, under capitalism, depends on exploitation (a form of coercion). At the same time, it relies on human labor power and creativity (technological innovation). Thus, one of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism comes to play in (though, does not reductively give rise to) this tension: the tendency to objectify and restrain human beings in order to exploit their capabilities versus the tendency to look for economic advancement and technological progress in a healthy, skilled workforce by promoting those capabilities.
One lesson that law should teach us is that the “legitimacy” of violence requires a strong ideological foundation, which the ideologies of progress and social contract, and the positivistic rationality in which it is embedded, provides. The legitimacy of violence, and hence sovereignty, was erected on an entirely different ideological plane prior to the modern era (for instance, with recourse to the divine). Thus, one cannot say that sovereignty is merely historically prior to governmentality (as Foucault does), that governmentality was sort of “added on” and has become more important. Both, as they exist in the modern world, are fully modern, emerged together, and are interdependent.
Likewise, it is not the case, as Agamben suggests, that life itself (zoe) has come to be a political concern more than in the past. The meaning of life itself is completely different in the modern era. Life is the basis of profit, the vehicle of a consciousness that can create technology and cultural productions, the interchangeable units that fill bureaucratic roles, a thing that is sacred above everything else and yet may be sacrificed for the common good (be that the “spread of democracy” or science or medical progress) – in other words, another subject of cost-benefit analysis. Life is, above all, both the means of progress and the intended end result – the sort of circular reasoning that justifies the entire ideology.
In this way, it may be said that sovereignty and governmental in the modern era are mutually constituting (though this relationship needs to be fleshed out more fully). Government provides the ideological rationale that legitimizes violence, while sovereignty gives governmental projects some teeth. Both simultaneously serve their own, independent ends: one restrictive and self-serving, the other positive and life-affirming. But it is law that holds them in relation to each another.
Finally, the discourses of law and its coercive resources are used to define who may be involved in governmental and economic projects, and in what ways. That is not to say that reformist ventures are confined to target people with full citizenship status and rights. To the contrary, people who are attributed the status of "criminal" or "insane," or other types of social deviance, are functionally not full citizens (not enjoying all the rights of citizenship) yet are the subjects of much institutional reformist activity. Likewise, services are often extended to people of different types of immigrant and refugee status, but frequently the status of their citizenship itself is the basis of the governmental "care" that they receive. On the other hand, people who cannot acquire full citizenship status all too often "slip through the cracks" and become invisible to the governmental-technocratic systems that seek to cultivate health and happiness. Just as, ideologically, the ability to exercise rights depends on one's citizenship status in relation to particular nation states, so does one's integration into the governmental matrix follow from this legally defined status. Of course, at the extreme, coercive forces sanctioned by law may be used to deport or detain people on the basis of their citizenship status.
It is clear, then, that law is more than ideology, more than a set of rules, and more than a basic form inhering in commodity exchange relationships. It is a type of practice (or rather, set of practices, including both violence and rational administration) by which modern society is organized as well as the rational/philosophical justification for those practices.
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