>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>If Hardt & Negri really think that the work of internationalist
>>revolutionaries is to advocate increased migration, they might as
>>well advocate a faster pace of primitive accumulation -- kicking
>>off direct producers from their land -- and more wars (especially
>>wars that result in the expulsion of a large number of people from
>>their homes). It is said that "the 50-70 per cent of the world's
>>population...is still agricultural" (at
>><http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/techmeet/tmad00/tmadr.htm>),
>>so there's a lot of primitive accumulation left to do!
>
>Why do you insist on attributing cruel or stupid positions to Hardt
>& Negri? They're neither right wing nor idiots, as you must know, so
>what's the point?
I don't think the position spelled out above is cruel or stupid, if _frankly & seriously_ advocated. Recall Marx's earlier take on imperialism, which was not motivated by cruelty or caused by stupidity. Marx knew what he was advocating. One disagrees with Marx on his early discussion of the British rule of India, etc. (which he himself came to revise later), but one doesn't think of him as cruel or stupid (unless one is a simple-minded sort of post-colonial critic).
>You're a migrant, no? Don't you see any value in that?
Sure, but neither Pat nor I pick lettuces, wash dishes, clean toilets, etc. for a living. I came to the States to study American literature & improve my mastery of the English language, among other things. I can go home any time I want, and if I do, I won't suffer from political persecution or serious economic damage (in fact, in my case, my job prospects will improve, since I'm not an American citizen). For someone in my position (or even better, in Pat's position), that is, for someone who is neither a political exile nor an economic refugee, migration is more like travel; for the majority of migrants, migration means travail mostly. Besides, the majority of migrants do _not_ move from the Global South to the North, pace what Hardt & Negri suggest in _Empire_; most of them are just moving from one poor nation to another in the Global South.
Yoshie