people of the world can freely move peacefully and trade ,

Yes, about that herd of pink elephants flying around .... Cherful stated undeniable facts but for some inexplicable reason many don't see forest because of all the trees. One possible solution could be to let these cranks in those strife-torn countries sort it out themselves by letting nothing in & nothing out. $-8 weeks & these countries including their idiot leaders will be on their knees & pose no further threat to anyone. Then, and only then do others go in & rebuild. At the first sign of new strife from the old problem lock the gates again. Stop wasting valuable resources on people who don't appreciate them & give to those who do.
Open Borders ? Definitley not ! Lock the gates. Remember, people who can not live with each other will even be less able to live with others or hasn't anyone noticed that yet.

Peter Hume, Sorry I cannot continue this discussion. You and I both seem to support open borders but disagree as to whether capitalism is a problem in regards to them or whether socialism is (or would be, from my point of view). We agree on definitions of capitalism and socialism. I think your notion of a bureaucracy-free capitalism is not based on any existing practice or reality. Briefly, once upon a time, capitalism played a progressive - indeed revolutionary - role in transformnig society. Karl Marx waxed lyrical about this. Among the things that impressed him, or rather that he correctly predicted, was capitalism's role in globalisation, in seeking out ever new ways for producing stuff and new markets. The unprecedentedly huge mass migrations of the late C19th were part of this process.

But capitalism did not remain revolutionary or progressive for long and I think Marx was proven correct once more in seeing capitalism become a fetter on the development of productive forces. To the Green types, this is a good thing - it slows us down in our development and stops us being evil consumers. Their ideal is the kind of pre-industrial capitalist society where everyone was happy but, to quote Engels, more or less 'brain dead'.

I think you are probably a utopian capitalist, a believer in an ideal that cannot exist.

David McMullen is a Leftist influenced by Marixsm. He supports open borders. Where are the capitalists who advocate the same? When I hear statements from, say, the Business Counicl or the Employers Federation, or the Mining Industry, they are never about opening the borders but about maintaining the current restrictive planned immigration system. Usually they are about increasing the number of skilled immigrants to cater for immediate requirements. That is certainly better than those reactionary trade union bosses whose kneejerk position is to oppose any competition among the existing workforce. But the unions are not in any sense socialist - they exist to keep the workers tied to capitalism. Marx and Engels coined the term 'aristocracy of labour' in the 1870s.

Peter Hume
The same aid that attempts to feed people in those countries is also used to prop up those corrupt regimes. In some cases the continuing granting of aid fosters the very system that is responsible for the plight of their citizens. It is a catch-22 and much of the trade sanctions would only mean that the food produced within stays within - which is part of the problem with large multinationals growing food in those regions and then exporting it OS to the detriment of local food supplies.

What if the citizens themselves call for sanctions against the ruling regimes?

An open borders program is a recipe for disaster - no-one gains and everyone loses.

Hi Cherful,

Before you break my knee-caps and I plead guilty, in my defence I did say:

" ... it will be a very complex matter of equity, distribution, development of productive forces and education policy, to get it all anywhere near right, over the next century, and to move towards more just and open societies and to reduce the likelihood of refugee situations."

There are no Utopias, or perfect solutions, and a lot of water is going to flow under, and over, many bridges - if they don't wash them away entitrely - before positive changes occur, if at all. I don't have much faith in either capitalism or socialism (pace BYork and PHume), I'm a sort of Lindblom-muddling-through-semi-socialist, I suppose, verging on IWW-anarchism, like my grand-dad.

Yes, certainly, dictators should not be propped up for any dirty political reasons, such as getting Australia a seat on the UN Security Council, or a certain person into the top job there, for which slogging - Russell Coyte-like - through flood-waters is a sort of apprenticeship.

I recall that around $ 5 billion was given to Zaire under Mobutu, and lo and behold, when he died, he had $ 5 billion in his Swiss accounts.

Aid should, surely, be in kind, in actual food or equipment, or in scholarships ? Meanwhile, governments should be massively increasing the budgets of higher education institutions, and - once it is cleaned up - TAFE as well. Why should we continually poach the skilled people from poor countries for our own economic growth ? There's something obscene about that.

Jo

OPEN BORDERS FOR HAZARA'S ?

Nottttt a chance!

I am sick to death of hearing about "The pooooor Hazara's"

Utter and complete rubbish.

1/ The Hazara's are Iranian/Persians.
2/ They Speak Farsi
3/ They are SHIA muslims
4/ They INVADED Iraq and stayed..THAT is why the Sunni Iraqi's hate them.
5/ Iraq shares a border with.. IRAN!
6/ The logical destination is.. a quick trip over the border to where they CAME from !

Absolutely NO more Hazara's into Australia-Nothing more to say.

Al,

With respect, I think the Hazaras are descended from the Mongol invaders from the north, not the Persian invaders from the west. Yes, they speak an old form of Farsi, I understand, and they are Shi'ite, not Sunni, Muslims, on the whole, but this is probably more a factor of Iranian (Shi'ite) invasion from the sixteenth century than of any actual migration of Persians.

Sunni Muslims hate them and persecute them only because they are Shi'ite, not because they are Persian. They are not anywhere near in the majority in Afghanistan, around 12 % or so ?

I know only a couple of Hazara, but they most certainly don't dress or act or speak as if they were Iranians. They seem to wear their Islam lightly. Actually, when i met them at first I thought they were Indonesian.

I think you are barking up the wrong tree, Al :) Give the poor buggers a break, they have copped it from the various Sunni rulers over the last thirty years, Mujahiddin, Hekmatyar, the Taliban, and even now from the Karzai regime.

Joe