I get what you two are saying, but this kind of removes agency from the people doing the moving.
Also: Should people not be allowed to move to another country if they’re “too useful” or “skilled”?
People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please. Our material conditions limit our agency. We go where the jobs are, where the money is, where the possibilities for a better future are. Those are all choices.
But you can’t ignore the material conditions that lead to those choices. We aren’t just free floating agents in a sea of possibilities.
People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.
Never said they or we do
Our material conditions limit our agency.
Totally agree
I think you may have misspoke. You said I’m removing their agency. I did no such thing.
Hi, one of the people that did the move: they are absolutely right. I got through uni and masters for free at federal universities, my education is amazing. My country gets nothing back because there is no industry there that’d take me and university positions are limited.
I made the bese choice for myself and am aware of how bad my choice is for home
That’s not it, but in many cases Western imperialism is involved in the conditions that made these people want to leave in the first place.
I’m not blaming them I am saying they still often make a decision. They are humans who have some control of their lives. That’s not mutually exclusive with saying they are also pressured externally.
The way they were originally described made it sound like they are just pieces on a board incapable of deciding what they want and acting on it.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say anymore. What’s the point you’re trying to make here?
People don’t have free agency to move to any country they want. In my view the free agency which you say is being removed never actually existed in the first place.
But I do find it funny that “give me your poor” (yes I’m borrowing from the US) turned into “give me your elite”.
I didn’t say people had free agency to go to any country they want. You are presenting a false dichotomy. There are different people with different access to different places with different senses of urgency and for different reasons. Many people make choices on whether or not to immigrate, as well as where to immigrate if they choose to. They have agency, they are not just pawns in this discussion to be shuffled around.
There’s no agency in the market. That’s the entire point of markets - being independent of a single human’s whims and being an equalizing force, the “invisible hand”.
And the entire point of communism is getting that agency, having production for the sake of humans rather than humans for the sake of production.
No, migration is caused by economics, so it only makes sense to use economics to talk about it. In capitalism, migration follows the market laws, i.e. people migrating to where they expect to be paid more.
It also has a chicken-egg problem. What if the indicators of talent or skill aren’t apparent because of abysmally poor living and educational conditions? The lack of opportunity in many developing countries is such that people will be less successful and appear less talented simply because their country has limited ways for them to demonstrate it.
