As haciendas da América Espanhola estavam baseadas em enormes doações de terra da coroa espanhola e tornaram-se o local de grandes fazendas agrícolas trabalhadas em base neofeudal por trabalhadores braçais servos ou quase servos. Tais fazendas, normalmente, estavam situadas perto de grandes concentrações de trabalhadores braçais nativos, e esses trabalhadores eram controlados principalmente por meio do método de pagamento de dívidas pela prestação de trabalho físico. As haciendas da Califórnia foram criadas segundo o padrão preexistente no México, e situadas em lugares onde disponíveis grandes populações indígenas para trabalho nelas.

Quando a Calilfórnia foi anexada pelos Estados Unidos, os colonos anglos mais influentes tomaram conta de muitas daquelas haciendas e as transformaram em modernos empreendimentos de agronegócio. As grandes plantações de agronegócio da Califórnia, construídas a partir do legado das  haciendas, continuaram a basear-se em grande quantidade de trabalho barato de segmentos da população cujo poder de barganha era, por motivo ou outro, na prática nulo. Durante a Depressão e o período das Tempestades de Areia, elas recorreram a trabalhadores rurais migrantes de Oklahoma e de outros lugares que haviam sido expelidos de suas terras por execuções de hipotecas bancárias.

Nos anos 1940, o governo dos Estados Unidos criou o programa Bracero para fornecer trabalhadores ‘convidados’ oriundos do México. Se estes perceberam ou não a ironia da situação, não sei.

Quando os trabalhadores ficaram excessivamente exigentes e tentaram lutar por melhores remuneração e condições de trabalho, os donos das empresas agrícolas conseguiram que o governo dos Estados Unidos impusesse disciplina a trabalhadores estrangeiros mediante deportá-los. Quando trabalhadores migrantes nativos tornaram-se indisciplinados e tentaram organizar-se, os donos de fazendas recorreram ao vigilantismo — como descrito por John Steinbeck — usando os mesmos tipos de táticas de terror usadas pelos camisas negras contratados por donos de fábricas italianos no século 20 e os esquadrões da morte da América Central que atuam até hoje.

A agressão armada aos colhedores de morangos bangladechianos nas Fazendas New Manolada na Grécia encaixa-se nessa narrativa de antecedentes como um pé num sapato bem usado. Citada fazenda emprega diversos milhares de trabalhadores migrantes, muitos deles sem documentação fornecida pelo governo. Cerca de 200 trabalhadores migrantes exigiram seis meses de remuneração a eles devida pelos donos da fazenda. Os capatazes disseram-lhes que eles não seriam pagos, e deram-lhes ordem de voltarem ao trabalho. Quando um grupo de trabalhadores recusou-se a cumprir a ordem, um capataz abriu fogo, ferindo 28 dos trabalhadores. A New Manolada tem estado associada a altos níveis de violência contra trabalhadores nos anos recentes, inclusive um caso no qual um egípcio foi espancado e em seguida arrastado por um quilômetro com a cabeça entalada na janela de um carro.

Embora o prefeito local desqualifique a última atrocidade considerando-a incidente isolado, a ativista do trabalho braçal Natassa Panagiotara diz que tais condições de trabalho em condições de escravidão são comuns nas grandes fazendas de morangos da área que empregam trabalhadores estrangeiros. Os disparos tiveram lugar contra o plano de fundo do colapso econômico na Grécia e a crescente preeminência do partido neofascista Aurora Dourada, associado a um vigilantismo paramilitar quase-privado contra trabalhadores e imigrantes.

Nos Estados Unidos contemporâneos, trabalhadores assalariados nativos estão intimamente familiarizados com qual é o sentimento de ter seus meios de vida e de subsistência sujeitos aos caprichos do empregador. Pelo menos, no entanto, eles têm como se organizar e expor seu empregador a humilhação pública, como os colhedores de tomates migrantes Imolakee fizeram em anos recentes e os trabalhadores da Walmart fizeram no ano passado. E, se forem demitidos, pelo menos não terão que se preocupar com serem deportados por isso.

No caso de imigrantes sem documentos, contudo, e mesmo “trabalhadores convidados” em situação legal, essa dependência é muito maior. Como ocorre com os trabalhadores rurais estrangeiros na Grécia, as condições genuinamente similares às de escravatura que existem para muitos trabalhadores da indústria têxtil, trabalhadores do sexo etc. são robustecidas por legislação de imigração.

A imposição de linhas imaginárias traçadas num mapa resulta em condição “illegal” para muitos seres humanos que, a despeito de ser puramente imaginária em sua base moral, é muitíssimo real em seus efeitos. Fronteiras fechadas são uma ferramenta poderosa para disciplina do trabalho por parte dos empregadores. Elas magicamente transformam alguns trabalhadores em seres “ilegais” dependentes de um patrono para sua sobrevivência continuada. E, de modo muito parecido com divisões raciais que debilitaram o movimento trabalhista (donos de terras no sul destruíram o sindicato de trabalhadores rurais arrendatários mediante explorarem tais divisões), elas facilitam uma estratégia de dividir para dominar que lança trabalhadores nativos e imigrantes uns contra os outros e leva-os a verem-se mutuamente como inimigos, em vez de verem como inimigo o empregador.

Artigo original afixado por Kevin Carson em 23 de abril de 2013.

Traduzido do inglês por Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme.

When California was annexed by the United States, the most influential Anglo settlers took over many of these haciendas and transformed them into modern agribusiness operations. The big California agribusiness plantations, built on the legacy of the haciendas, continued to rely on large amounts of cheap farm labor from segments of the population whose bargaining power was, for one reason or another, effectively nil. During the Depression and Dustbowl era, they relied on migrant farm workers from Oklahoma and other places who’d been tractored off their land by bank foreclosures.

In the 1940s, the U.S. government created the Bracero program to supply foreign guest workers from Mexico. Whether or not the irony was lost on them, I can’t say.

When workers got too uppity and attempted to fight for better pay and working conditions, the agribusiness plantation bosses had the U.S. government to enforce discipline on foreign workers by deporting them. When native-born migrant workers became unruly and tried to organize, the farm owners resorted to vigilantism — as recounted by John Steinbeck — using the same kinds of terror tactics as the blackshirts hired by Italian factory owners in the 20th century and the Central American death squads still operating today.

The armed assault on Bangladeshi strawberry pickers at New Manolada Farms in Greece fits into this background narrative like a foot into a well-worn shoe. The farm employs several thousand foreign migrant workers, many of them not government-documented. Around 200 migrant workers demanded six months’ back wages from the farm’s owners. The supervisors told them they would not be paid, and ordered them back to work.  When a group of workers refused to comply, a supervisor opened fire, wounding 28 of them. New Manolada has been associated with high levels of anti-worker violence in recent years, including one case in which an Egyptian man was beaten and then dragged for a kilometer with his head jammed in a car window.

Although the local mayor dismisses this latest atrocity as an isolated incident, labor activist Natassa Panagiotara said such slave-labor conditions are common among the big strawberry farms employing foreign laborers in the area. The shooting took place against the background of economic collapse in Greece and the increasing prominence of the neo-fascist Golden Dawn party, which is associated with quasi-private paramilitary vigilantism against workers and immigrants.

In contemporary America, native-born wage-workers are intimately familiar with how it feels to have their livelihoods and subsistence subject to the whims of an employer. But at least they’re able to organize and expose their employer to public humiliation, as Imolakee migrant tomato pickers have in recent years and as Walmart workers did late last year. And if they get fired, at least they don’t have to worry about being deported for it.

But for undocumented immigrants, and even legal “guest workers,” this dependency is turned up several notches. As with Greece’s foreign farm workers, the genuinely slave-like conditions that exist for many American garment workers, sex workers,  etc., are enforced by immigration law.

The enforcement of imaginary lines on a map results in an “illegal” status for many human beings which, despite being utterly imaginary in its moral basis, is all too real in its effects. Closed borders are a powerful tool for labor discipline by employers. They magically transform some workers into “illegal” beings dependent on a patron for their continued survival. And, much like racial divisions that weakened the labor movement (land owners in the south destroyed the tenant farmers’ union by exploiting such divisions), they facilitate a divide-and-rule strategy that pits native-born and immigrant workers against each other and makes them see each other rather than the employer as their enemy.

Translations for this article:

• Portuguese, Os Morangos da Ira.

I go to school at Arizona State University in Tempe, which is a few miles east of central Phoenix. A sizable handful of libertarians including myself have been very active in the protests against SB1070 at the state capitol and elsewhere. In my observations, there have been very few non-Latinos who care enough about the bill’s passing to show up in protest. By virtue of our being present, us mostly white libertarians were racially profiled and asked many sincere questions by Latino individuals regarding who we were and why we cared about the bill’s passing, as we would not be directly impacted or negatively profiled.

We outlined the nonaggression principle for those we spoke to and summarized the idea that as long as one is being peaceful one should be left alone. We stated that it doesn’t matter what color, ethnicity, region of origin, or any other secondary characteristic one possesses, but that purely by being nonaggressive, individuals should be free to make choices for themselves on where to live and who to voluntarily associate with. We handed out thousands of fliers on this message and generally received a very pleasant welcome.

It was not all lovely and earnest welcoming though. I flew my Free State Project Gadsden flag and occasionally donned a Guy Fawkes mask, which created a mixture of genuine intrigue and warrantless scorn. Many people assumed I was there in support of SB1070 because protestors who supported restrictive immigration policies showed up with Gadsden flags earlier in the week to demonstrate before loud crowds with megaphones scared them off to the indictment of “white supremacist!”

One lady called me a teabagger, and one gentleman told me to go fuck myself. I kindly alerted him that I was there in opposition to the bill, to which he replied, “Oh, let me grab a flier then!”

This really bummed me out. Any individual who flies a Gadsden flag against peaceful immigration and freedom of movement is so terribly confused that it breaks my heart. It is the equivalent of flying a black flag for statism. What else could “Don’t Tread on Me” mean besides “I want to be left in peace?” The deradicalization of this flag as symbolized by its vulgar use in the Tea Party Movement (when not flown by principled libertarians who sporadically pepper the Tea Parties) means another radical symbol has been moderated; another element in the language of revolution has come to stand for blasé reformism and some vague idea of what a ‘just’ government should be.

Personal Gadsden-flying experience aside, the great bulk of the rhetoric opposing this bill at the rallies and through the media has come to focus on racialized enforcement of the law and racial profiling. Despite reassurances from SB1070 sponsor and state senator from Mesa Russell Pearce that “Illegal is not a race, it is a crime,” law enforcement is given quite a long reach to determine what is reasonable suspicion of being in the country illegally. This will realistically mean that day laborers soliciting their agorist services, individuals speaking Spanish in public in an English speaking country, and eating at Filiberto’s could be construed as reasonable suspicion of undocumented immigration status. Brown individuals in Arizona have already been detained and arrested for not having proof of their citizenship while ‘in’ the country. My friend was asked for his documents while out drinking at Tempe’s local hot spot Mill Avenue by a cop on a Segway in a goofy but intimidating display of force.

This racialized enforcement will be short-lived however. By focusing on the racial profiling aspects of this bill, activists neglect to address the fact that in its benevolent spirit of fairness the state will agree to treat us all as equals under the 14th Amendment and will soon be arbitrarily asking for the documents of all citizens. Yes, the old familiar libertarian fear of “Papers, please,” will soon be coming to Arizona.

Obsessing over racial profiling is a good way to scare up support. A solid chunk of Americans instinctively recoil from what is presented as a racist policy and oppose it on those words alone, but this is but one small nibble of the immigration chimichanga. This focus obscures larger menaces that loom ahead.

I am far from the first to note that the state created an immigration problem through the welfare state. When Arizona utilized its 10th Amendment rights to enforce immigration restrictions to protect their racket from becoming overburdened, the country at large responded in outrage. Democrats in full Hegelian majesty are now swooping in to save the country and undocumented immigrants through biometric national ID cards and equal enforcement of mandatory identification statutes in accordance with the 14th Amendment. The ability to remain anonymous in what is still a relatively open society is drying up. Aw, shucks. Look at the feds protecting our privacy and well-being. Their concern is really quite touching.

This being primarily a racial issue illustrates the ways in which the debate has been framed to exclude from public discourse the sovereign nature of the individual, the downfall of welfare statism, and the irrationality of closed border policies. Without tackling these core problems, repealing SB1070 will be just another example of politics as rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

If you are an activist regarding this issue, please join me in attempting to steer the debate away from the focus on racialized enforcement and to rally people against closed border policies and statist invasions of privacy. Otherwise the 14th Amendment is going to back us straight up against the fence of the equal opportunity cattle yard.