THE SADISTIC INJUSTICES OF ECONOMIC UPROOTEDNESS

[Morpheal]

THE INJUSTICES OF ECONOMIC UPROOTEDNESS

ENGLAND’S PROBLEM WITH IMMIGRANT LABOR: ENDING UPROOTEDNESS

The problem of immigrant, migrant, and foreign contract labor is
relatively easily solved, but it would take significant changes in
legislation. England’s recent dispute concerning foreign workers
taking work away from local people is a case in point, illustrative of
the problem and suggesting a solution.

There should be a law that requires an offer of opportunity to those
who are citizens and landed immigrants of the nation first. In England
it would be England first, then the UK, then the Commonwealth, then
the EU, in that order of priority. Each step would be taken only if
the offered rate is rejected, determined on the basis of all bids, and
consistent with labour laws in the contracting region where the work
is to be performed. Each contractor should be required to conform in
the same way. In fact it should be taken further so that persons
living within reasonable commute from the place of work would have to
be given first priority ahead of those living outside that geographic
range. Usually that is one to two hours maximum travel time,
regardless of the means of travel.

Obviously that places political relations and obligations in
precedence and priority order in regard to opportunities. Immigration
of new workers would only be allowed when all other priorities are
exhausted and precedence would again be given to immigration according
to the priority sequence.

Of course this leads to greater stability, and far less tendency to
upheaval, which is socially, psychologically, and economically
inappropriate and at least potentially damaging to those who are
otherwise forced to endure it. As is unemployment also a source of
similar damage to lives affected by it. Deliberate tendencies towards
attempting forcing of geographic upheaval of individual and family
lives, is a sadistic, unacceptably violent practice. There is a large
body of science supporting that claim, stretching across a vast period
of time, and one needs only to be cognizant of the relevant
sociological, economic and psychological research pertaining to that
subject to understand how extremely wrong and utterly socially unjust
it really is. Where it is in any way avoidable it should and must be
avoided.

Furthermore, the sadistic practices of upheaval are in fact rooted in
religious tradition, not in scientific rational understanding. It has
long been believed by some that it is an ideological necessity and
right, within the religious framework that they function within, to
uproot, upheave, and disown, those who have settled lives, possessions
and local homes, on the basis of religious teachings that those who
hold to them argue demand impositions of loss, letting go, breaking
loose from establishing, and upheaval from rootedness. This trend is
part of what is called anti-nomianism and is prevalent in some forms
of religious fundamentalism, particularly as practiced in the United
States of America. In essence anti-nomianism in religion means a
condition of homelessness, or temporary sojourn without real home, in
the world. Of course there are those who simply profit from that
practice and support it for their own economic greed and profit,
rather than for religious motives, but the scenario is mixed, and not
unique to the USA. In anti-nomian religiosity there is a belief that
the breaking loose from homes, things, social relations, opens people
to religious ideas, as they are stripped of all other connectedness
and attachment to their social and material situatedness. So the anti-
nomian thrust becomes a violent weapon both attacking those outside
the system of beliefs with upheaval, and believing that that attack is
an effective means to facilitating conversion, both by means of fear
of that attack and by means of the effects of disconnection,
dispossession and uprooting. This has also led to the very short term
hire and terminate customary practice prevalent in some cases in
America, of foreign workers, on short term contracts, giving them
nothing more than a bus ticket back to where they disinvested and
disconnected from homes, posessions and social relations. Most often
the influences of the American fundamentalist, “religious right”,
found under the surface of such otherwise poorly or utterly
unjustified actions.

Legitimate sciences on the subject, speak clearly against that, and
can clearly prove the damage to society, individuals and families that
comes from those types of ideas. In fact studies of work can be made
to clearly prove that quality of work, and competence, suffers from
such upheavals, and is not facilitated by the social, psychological
and economic stressors involved in them. In other words, it is not
really good for corporate, for business, and it is not at all good for
people. For those with extended family, and networks of social
interconnection, that sometimes take generations to build, it is
particularly destructive, with immense negative consequences. In fact
we can see that societies that fall into such practices suffer a
rising spiral of social violence, suicides, and personality disorders,
as well as pervasive and widespread apathy and alienation.
Community is not built quickly and in a society of anticipated
upheaval it is not really built at all. When people are taught to
expect others to routinely leave, beginnings are regularly endings in
anticipation of impending loss, based on prevalent habituated patterns
of expectation. This is extremely damaging to many forms of economic
and social enterprise, having immense negative economic impact.
Particularly in the area of fledgling, new, enterprises and
entrepreneurial innovation.

Consider also the potentially lost investment, in material and labor
of effort, terms, when establishing a home in one place, means being
uprooted to move on to another place, without continuity of effort.
Any type of real home takes time, effort and some investment of money,
to establish. Sometimes that takes many years to achieve, on limited
and erratic incomes in a society where the economy is typically
unstable and often unpredictable. The limited span of a typical
lifetime cannot afford that type of upheaval and its costs, even apart
from the other stressors and the social, mental, and physical health
damage that potentially does occur. A good example is the many years
it takes to make, establish, and bring to maturity a good garden. It
takes effort, time and some money. It cannot be done again, and again
and again in one person’s lifetime. Twice is difficult, and three
times is perhaps impossible. Traumatizing people with loss due to
excessive change is clearly wrong, and causing them to lose their
investment in creating homes is part of that wrong. We must recognize
that lifetimes are very limited and the enjoyment of life requires a
greater degree of continuity and establishing, not upheaval.

We might note that in the USSR (Russia), China, and other “anti
American” nations relocation required a government approval, a permit,
before it could be accomplished. It had to be justified by real need.
It was discouraged as a common and “normal” practice. It was the
exception to the rule, not allowed to become a more usual demand. Now
we see significant deterioration in societies affected by the American
model of social and economic migrancy, with all manner of social ills
increasing in nations that did not suffer some of those, and at least
not to that level of severity, prior to their Americanization.

Robert Morpheal