Migration and Underdevelopment

The importance of migration to the question of development in the capitalist world system lies in two interrelated characteristics: first it is a source of labor one which often plays a fundamental role in capitalist economic expansion; second it is simultaneously the way exploited classes in the periphery attempt to cope with the constraints of their situation. As has been seen such constraints are often deliberately imposed so as to generate labor migration. As was also shown the advantages of migrant labor for capitalist expansion are not automatic and must frequently be produced through political manipulation. In general the structure of economic forces in core and periphery tends to be arranged so as to condition migrants to sell their labor in places where needed and at the cheapest possible price. Exceptions motivated by the occasional clash of interests between landowning and entrepreneurial classes or the temporary measures of a liberal regime do not substantially modify the general trend. Working classes in peripheral areas frequently attempt through multiple displacements to take advantage of a structure of economic opportunities distributed unequally in space. Since head-on competition within the formal system is impossible such initiatives occur in the interstices. The nature of peripheral capitalism marked by the imperfect penetration of state control and large-scale enterprises provides room for informal economic initiatives and hence the possibility of survival. The phenomenon of migration thus stands at the crossroads between national and regional inequalities and class exploitation. It is the way through which the exploited contribute to erect ever-expanding structures of economic domination and simultaneously the form in which they react to their power. It shows how economic concentration and inequality are perpetuated by the conduct of both dominant groups and their victims. While the case studies reviewed above are only illustrative they document the general point that transactions between relatively advanced and backward regions conducted by people across space constitute both a central problematic and a defining feature of world capitalism. (excerpt)