Sierra Stones

Sierra La Fey Intro to Sociological Theory

INTRODUCTION: Like creatures of the underworld, irregular migrants are obscured by shadow; they are faceless and foreign. Migrants all over the world leave their homes because they cannot make ends meet in their local economies. In many cases it is not a choice, because their local economy doesn’t provide enough for everyone. As a vulnerable population, they end up being exploited in mass numbers in the same way that colonizers used the colonized to to fund their empires. In this case the empires are corporations capitalizing on vulnerable populations in the name of efficiency. A trend of economic instability in the developing world has benefited corporations because it has perpetuated the existence of vulnerable populations. Marx said that colonization and formally free labor were essential to the origins of capitalism, but what he didn’t foresee was that colonization—in modern guise—would continue to be important in the maintenance of capitalism as the units of production continue to grow. I postulate that what irregular migrants experience is an informal colonization that perpetuates their vulnerability and has slowed the inevitable polarization of the classes predicted by Marx wherein capitalism destroys itself. Additionally I argue that class conflict has been mediated in ways unpredicted by Marx himself, but still exists as the basis of stratification today.

I will begin by abstractly outlining economic trends in the developing world and in the American economy, asking first and foremost: who have these trends benefitted most? In my discussion of the processes of modern capitalism and the extent to which it operates I focus in on one particular case of migrant laborers in Sicily. I will briefly tackle the history of the Sicilian Mafia in my discussion of intermediaries and how this makes Sicily an ideal place for outsourcing. All these elements come together under my analysis of trends that have kept the capitalist system alive, such as what Marxists refer to as legitimization. The fact is, people will not revolt until the end stages of class polarization when they are desperate enough in sufficient numbers.

CHE COSA SUCCEDE E CHI BENEFICIA? The increasing number of stateless, migrating individuals is mainly and most importantly a result of the decolonization of resource-rich countries followed by an expansion of the free market system to include them in the formal eradication of global economic barriers (mainly in the last forty years). Neoliberalism allows companies to establish more “efficient” means of production, so the need for cheap and especially unregulated labor rises. I postulate that the existence of these instrumental yet unofficial processes of attaining resources to cut costs in the means of production exemplify what Marx wrote was required for the start of capitalism, but in this case it is being used as a way to save capitalism from itself. Colonialism in a modern context does not involve a formal occupation by a single entity, and in fact I cannot prove that it is an occupation at all. While the extent to which this modern colonization was initiated is uncertain, it is the circumstances of its existence that lead me to define it as such. In the same way that colonizers saw vulnerable populations as opportunities to cash in on, corporations outsource labor from vulnerable populations in order to increase what is known as efficiency. The relationship between the people in power and the laborers is the same in both situations: instead of inspiring sympathy, vulnerability signals to the people in power that they have a chance to make more money, therefore there are incentives to ensure that laborers remain vulnerable.

Generally speaking, the infiltration of capitalism into the developing world following periods of colonial rule and subsequent decolonization led to different kinds of economic and political instability thereby resulting in a dislocation of people and therefore, labor (Sørensen 1998). There are general trends of debt accumulation in the developing world, a simultaneous accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, and a perpetuation of the historical relationship between pleb and elite. While the settings have varied in time and place, the circumstances contain a common thread: class struggle. The ruling classes have consistently taken steps to secure their power over those beneath them. Sometimes, those beneath them rise up and revolt when they realize their needs aren’t being met. The reason class conflict has remained relevant from slavery to feudalism to capitalism is because the classes themselves remained. As long as there is stratification amongst the classes there will be class conflict.

The class conflict we see now in capitalism is more abstract than it was for previous economic systems. First, people don’t recognize it because the lines between capitalist and worker have blurred. If someone is both a capitalist and a worker, they can not reach class consciousness because they themselves obscure the division. Second, other divisions in society have taken the front stage for a long time now. This is indeed false consciousness (Marx). While real prejudices do divide people, a broader perspective reveals what it is that most black people and white people, most female people and male people, most queer people and cis people, and so on all have in common: Most of them are members of the work force, being exploited (to varying degrees) by the upper class. But a certain level of exploitation is normalized in our culture and therefore not seen as such. In order for people to achieve class consciousness, the exploitation of workers must worsen and people of different statuses must experience it together. The distractions preventing this from taking place clearly benefit the ruling class, but to what extent this trend was foreseen and allowed—or orchestrated—is uncertain. They have slowed down the disintegration of capitalism by suspending the onset of class consciousness, which Marx rightly identified as a key stage in the ignition of Revolution. Another phenomenon that has slowed this inevitable end of capitalism is that of neoliberalism. The elimination of barriers to business through expansion into foreign territories represents the continuation of a global system of stratification that benefits consumers and depends on profits made through the exploitation of vulnerable populations.

Similarly there has been a continuation of resource-extraction, which on the ground can look strikingly similar to the indentured servitude of serfs to their landlords, of the colonized to the colonizer—both enforced through violence. In the 60s and 70s, because nationalist governments owned agricultural marketing boards in African states they were able to extract surpluses from poor farmers to reinvest in industry and commerce, thereby allowing a reincarnation of colonial exploitation, (Stambuli 2010s).  In 2010, Freeport-McMoRan a mining conglomerate that has been outsourcing since the beginning, paid the police and military in Indonesia $14 million to “support services and community programs,” (Kuhn 2011). When their workers went on strike for better pay, members of the Indonesian police and military broke it up using force. This example is not unique in its kind. Corporations that left America after the formation of unions often use violence or the threat of violence to keep workers in line on foreign soil. This pattern of resource extraction is a new colonization. The structure of the economy is different and the rules have changed, but one reality remains the same: vulnerability equates to business opportunity and threats of violence keep workers complacent. So long as this is true, we will continue to depend on their vulnerability for our comfort.

Starting from the movement initiated by Ronald Reagan to eliminate business regulations when imports such as automobiles, steel, and electronics from Germany and Japan proved to be too much competition, unions were under attack (Wilson 2013). American businesses couldn’t compete with foreign prices and took steps to change this. Striking down on unions, outsourcing, as well as an endless number of laws passed over the years that loosened restrictions on business all achieved this purpose (Pew Research Center 2015). Essentially, owners of the means of production observed that they were losing out to competition and then intentionally set in motion a trend of global expansionism that would give them the upper hand. In America, the middle class has been shrinking since the 70s—likely a result of what started with “Reaganomics”—meanwhile the upper and lower classes have steadily grown. A graph by the Economic Policy Institute shows that the productivity seen in America in the last sixty years has exponentially increased while—starting in the 70s—growth in median family income went from from growing exponentially to a slow climb. And now, 80 percent of Americans hold 7 percent of the country’s wealth, (Center for Budget and Policy Priorities). But this matters little when the middle class still remains near 50 percent of the formal population.

Despite the disintegration of capitalism having been slowed down through welfare, false consciousnesses (perpetuated divisions along status lines), and outsourcing, the middle class is still shrinking, as Marx predicted. But it is not shrinking fast enough and most people still view the current economic system as legitimate. Global expansionism has perpetuated the historical relationship between pleb and elite, but has also legitimized capitalism in the eyes of middle class. Outsourcing has proved that as long as most people in America can buy inexpensive luxury goods and produce, the system is perceived as legitimate. As the middle class shrinks, the polarization will become a reality for too many people and they will grow restless while the upper class looks for opportunities to secure power interests.

First said by O’Conner, globalization has led to less taxes on business so less money goes back to the state. This leads countries to try harder to get investors. Business that can afford to let countries compete for their investment obviously have an advantage over other businesses, but they also have an advantage over the state. Companies can not only evade national taxes but sue states that put limits on their power. According to an article in the Guardian, hundreds of foreign investors have sued more than half the world’s countries in the last 16 years claiming that their company was negatively impacted by varies government actions. In 2012 Ecuador was ordered to pay $1.8 billion to Occidental Petroleum (based in Houston) for canceling an oil-exploration contract (Kennard and Provost 2015). This is roughly the equivalent to what Ecuador budgets for healthcare. In the 90s there was a case in which Argentina was ordered to pay more than $100 million to the French conglomerate Vivendi for trying to limit the price the company charged its people for water and wastewater services (Kennard and Provost 2015).

In short, these legal cases illustrate what Marx predicted: owners of the means of production growing more and more powerful where the state takes second place. As he wrote was inevitable in monopoly capitalism, there are now a few very large units of production where the capital to labor ratio is unbelievably high. This is what has led to half of the world’s wealth being in the hands of the richest 1 percent (Credit Suisse Research Institute 2014). For Marx, material wealth means power and that is absolutely true in this case. If a country can be sued for setting a limit on water rates, clearly there is nothing that these companies can’t do.

As Marx predicted there is a general trend of increasing deficits in advanced capitalist societies meanwhile corporations operating there have grown richer and richer. Deficits have lead to cuts on the public spending that once cushioned the middle class. As we saw with the effects of Roosevelt’s New Deal, welfare programs can do a lot to “save capitalism from itself”. But without formal support, the middle class starts shrinking and capitalism starts an inevitable crawl towards its end. However because this process has been slowed down in other ways such as the rationalization of faceless foreign labor, the rising tides are slow to consume.

In advanced capitalist societies, there are not enough poor people experiencing vulnerability together for this polarization to be felt, for the proletariat to recognize their identity as a laborer being exploited in a system where there is never enough, ruled by a small group of super-elites who have far too much. While class consciousness has not taken off, the realities of exploitation are felt in every corner of the world. In Sicily, corporations rely on historical relationships between pleb and landowner to produce agriculture most efficiently. Unfree people are bound to the land and are managed by intermediaries. Intermediaries put distance between the exploited and those who own the means of production. Illegal labor is trafficked and managed by Mafiosi and the end product is sold to corporations for the lowest price possible.

Raimondo Catanzaro author of Men of Respect writes that the Mafia is an ideology that encompasses a way of life based on a particular code of honor centered around accumulation of capital by force. It developed with the abolition of feudalism and the introduction of market capitalism, where wealthy elites secured their positions by preventing a direct relationship between pleb and the newly-formed Italian state. Absentee landowners and the new land-owning bourgeoisie introduced into the market a system of “heteroregulation based on violence,” (Catanzaro 1992). This led to class conflict wherein the lower class wanted more opportunities in the new capitalist system while the elites tried to limit them. Instead of being subordinate, some members of the lower classes joined in the market of violence to secure opportunities for themselves. The rise of Mafiosi in Sicily should be seen as the rise of entrepreneurs who accumulated a capital of violence to secure honor and legitimization in this context (Catanzaro 1992). Since then, some of these uomini d’onore have come to be landowners themselves. The historical market of violence serves well in regulating their informal labor force. Organized crime serves as the other main industry which even more so involves the exploitation and indentured servitude of both men and women.

Sicily’s economy is best described as broker capitalism, which has limited the region’s ability to expand the scope of its markets and create any long-lasting structural changes or investment (Catanzaro 1992). Therefore the economy depends on exports of its oranges, wheat, lemons, and other products (Progetto India 2012). This makes the region vulnerable to dependence on corporations like Coca Cola who seek to get around labor restrictions. As the scope of Sicily’s formal market remains small, capitalists and consumers will reap the benefits.

Coca Cola sets the price they want for oranges and lets countries scramble to compete in response (Ferrara and Wasley 2016). In Sicily, Coca Cola benefits from the historical market of violence and exploitation. Amnesty International has identified in Southern Italy a “widespread” abuse of migrants in food industries (Wasley 2013). As intermediaries, Mafiosi and traffickers are held responsible. There are many reasons why the owners of the means of production can very rarely be held accountable for perpetuating these processes of stratification: The people being exploited don’t have any legal rights so they are powerless; Coca Cola is a multi-tiered bureaucratic black hole which makes it very difficult to say who exactly is responsible; and the economic system itself has led us to this very problem so states won’t prosecute on its behalf. States serve the needs of the ruling class and right now the ruling class is made up of those who own the largest units production.

CONCLUSION: In an accurate historical context (one that does not ignore colonial histories), we can observe that neoliberalism has enabled a silent colonization in the orange groves of Sicily. Most people with dark skin who try to seek asylum in Italy have a very low chance of getting their cases approved, no matter their story. And because they have no opportunity to formally enter the labor market, they are forced to take work that allows them to remain invisible—a situation which is widespread and normalized. While race struggles are very real in this situation, the trend of exploitation goes deeper. Displaced by economic instability, unresolved colonial histories, and climate change irregular migrants are stateless, invisible, and powerless. It is this universal quality of vulnerability that attract to them those powerful enough to cash in. It is not because they are Black that they are being exploited, but rather a continuation of the story we’ve heard before. The way in which colonizers believe they have an implicit right to take what is their’s, to get rich and fund an empire, is no different than capitalists’ belief in their right to efficiency—whatever it takes. Both attempt to justify their exploitation of vulnerable populations by insisting they are helping the wretches. These circumstances of the migrant labor phenomenon (which are not unique to Italy) lead me to classify it as a means of silent colonization.

While Marx suggested that colonialism is needed for the start of capitalism, this is only half the story. To maintain economic growth and prevent a fast polarization of classes in advanced capitalist societies, businesses—who always have incentives to cut costs—rationalized (Weber) the exploitation of vulnerable populations so that suffering would be experienced in silence. Naturally consumers got to reap some of the benefits. To borrow an idiom, they were given an inch so they wouldn’t take a mile. This process of silent colonization has rationalized efficiency by taking advantage of historically-unequal relationships and has legitimized capitalism by placating the middle class. A prevailing false consciousness reigns supreme in America where we are distracted by other divisions in society. While these divisions are real in the lives of those involved, the fact is the elite profits from them because they function as distractions to the more embedded conflict: exploitation of the laborers by the upper class. Without a clear understanding of the class struggle, there can be no Revolution. Any revolution started on the basis of something else will only lead to a perpetuation of the class struggle which is the real reason global stratification has continued into the present. In our false consciousness we attempt to justify this stratification… political instability, corruption, racism… but these are distractions to keep us from realizing that the upper class weighs heavy on our toil and we can never be free in such a system. We must recognize the one thing we all share across borders and statuses of all kinds.

“…You have nothing to lose but your chains!”

Sierra Catanzaro, le 12 juillet

Due to the reportorial account of the event, a Palestinian victim is made to assume the place of the marginalized other. The victim's experience is absent in the reportorial account of the event itself.  The event is presented in the Western media in a way that reduces it to one element of an equation.  During the time of the catastrophe, there is not just one event but thousands of moments of experience that settle into the victim's body.  Presented by media amidst the prosaic context of a typical news station, a genuine account of the event's horror is lacking.  The media's limited presentation claiming to be objective sets in motion mass interpretations that have generalized the Sabra and Shatila genocide under the umbrella category of sectarianism.  It is normalized.  The masses are fed only a sterilized bite of reality, devoid of meaning.  The only thing that can contest and bring full meaning to this “fabricated, naturalized, and disseminated” (Ali) analysis is a presentation of the event that is inspired from an emotional response and brings with it a moral energy.  Zahra A. Hussein Ali's Aesthetics of Memorialization: the Sabra and Shatila Genocide in the Work of Sami Mohammad, Jean Genet, and June Jordan sets up a critique of artifactuality (Jacques Derrida) in the media.  He discusses the role of a moral energy in the new modes of presenting horrible events.  Tracing some events in Lebanon from the 19th Century leading up to the Civil War of 1975-7, I will outline the development of sectarian conflicts and continuing divide between groups in Lebanon as they were manipulated by European powers and regional leaders who saw opportunities to capitalize on religious differences.  I will emphasize the difference between socio-economic conflicts that were manipulated into sectarian clashes and actual sectarian clashes that unfolded from ensuing acts of terror.  Though committed by only a few individuals, the attacks were absorbed by the sectarian community, installing a universal fear and hatred that would grow to define them as enemies.  Finally, using Zahra A. Hussein Ali's theory on the media's role in the “genesis” of our interpretations of the Sabra and Shatila genocide, I will examine how the use of the word sectarianism influences their portrayal.  

As Makdisi states, sectarianism is a modern problem.  In Religion as the Site of the Colonial Encounter, he writes that sectarianism was produced concurrently with European hegemony and Ottoman reforms and that its “articulators” (colonial, imperial, and local) “used the historical past to justify present claims and future development”.  Essentially, forces in power knowingly or unknowingly manipulated the meaning of different socio-economic clashes for their own benefit.  With the emergence of an opportunity to capitalize on religious differences, sectarianism became a fabricated problem of the present.  Before the 19th Century, the main dividing line between the people located in Lebanon was between ruling families that owned land and had ties to the Ottoman Empire, and  common people.  As Europeans began doing business with the Lebanese, they demanded legal protections.  The French, who had their monopoly on the Christian Maronites, sought to protect them and other non-Muslims from the influence of the Muslim population (or more likely, Muslim elites).  Once Britain and the United States took an interest in Lebanon, they chose to support the Druze.  Unsurprisingly, the slow influence of the Western powers that secured rights for non-Muslims led up to a series of peasant uprisings, which were followed by sectarian clashes.  Landlords and other people in power had begun to capitalize on sectarian differences.

After the Ottoman Empire lost the Greek war and was unable to give Cyprus to Egypt, the Egyptian king Muhammad Ali sent his son Ibrahim Pasha to conquer Lebanon. In 1841, the Druze had an uprising against him.  What started as an issue about taxes being too high resulted in a sectarian clash, because Pasha offered a reward to the Maronites in exchange for their help in fighting the Druze.  A few years later the Ottomans were pressured into dividing Lebanon into two separate provinces that would compliment the European spheres of influence: Christian and Druze.  The governor of each province was supposed to have a council with one councilor and one judge each from the main religious sects: Maronite, Druze, Greek Orthodox, Melkite, Sunni Muslim and Shi'i Muslim.  This reform legalized the sectarian differences, putting an emphasis on how the divisions were “age-old”.  However there is little evidence to suggest that this is true.  Quite simply, Ussama Makdisi argues that sectarian conflicts are founded in the fact that certain groups are becoming more rich at the expense of others.  It is difficult to gauge how affected the poor were by this disparity, who were already in servitude to the elite.  It is possible that these conflicts over who was becoming more rich mattered mainly for the elite.  Perhaps the poor were swept up in the conflicts of the elite and only later internally experienced the sectarian divide, likely following acts of terror.

The creation of Israel along with its preceding and subsequent acts of ethnic cleansing and the ensuing mass migrations have heavily contributed to sectarian rifts in Lebanon.  Acts of terror further the divide between sects because they instill lasting fears in the community.  Atrocities that are committed by a few individuals against a particular group are felt by the entire mass of people who share that identity.  During a conflict between fishermen and President Chamoun's fishing company in 1975, the army was sent in to pacify the fishermen.  The Phalanges took the side of the President. Some partisans were shot at, sparking civilian attacks by the Phalange militia.  This is considered one of the turning points in the start of the Lebanese Civil War.  Very quickly the differences between sects were emphasized and the crimes committed shaping their perceptions of each other.  The issues between sects in Lebanon often still have socio-economic roots but they are also the result of accumulated traumatizing experiences and continuous hateful acts. The differences are not emphasized because of a purely ideological conflict; rather, the daily lives of community members are affected by real disparities and collective hatred.  Since it is clear that sectarianism is a problem of the present and not an age-old one from the past, we can now examine its role in our media's coverage of the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Firstly, the artifactuality of the news.  According to Jacques Derrida, this refers to a “trait” that shows “actuality is, precisely, made”. While the media claims to be truthful and objective, its selection of pictures and accompanying commentaries have actually been selected according to “invisible ideologies dictated mostly by ownership and control, in addition to the relationship between the media and national and international power structures,” (Ali). Artifactuality and the very nature of photojournalistic work- the “monofocal perspective... grainy depthless surface... frequent immersion in stereotypical conceptions... engulfment by diverse, unrelated international, local, and sundry pieces of news” (Ali)- provide a very narrow pathway for processing.  The “genesis” of our understanding of catastrophes is preceded and followed by ongoing advertisements, sports, mundane events, and banal discussions.  

Zahra A. Hussein Ali uses the coverage of the Palestinian massacres at Sabra and Shatila as examples of the media's limited ability to portray tragedies.  At what point does this method of presentation take away from the reality of a horrific event?  When does the event get reduced to “yet another” exploitation of the marginalized other in that it loses all uniqueness and gravity?  When is it normalized? Ali argues that the media is unable to handle the genuine portrayal of immoral activities such as the Palestinian massacres and he uses the work of Sami Mohammad, Jean Genet, and June Jordan as examples of artistic work that filled in the gaps left by the media in portraying a living picture of the atrocities.  Because these artists were driven by their own emotional responses to the events themselves, the result is that their accounts are more genuine in that they evoke powerful imagery and a moral energy that is able to portray the events in a more wholesome, complex way.  The tension of attempting to articulate the indescribable is a perceivable dilemma to these artists, who are perhaps drawn by moral obligation.  

Mohammad's, Genet's, and Jordan's work is described by Ali as a “genuine gnostic frontier”, “a matrix for new cognitive modalities not rooted in profitability, collective interests, and diplomatic considerations”.  By its very nature, the work of these artists contests the method of portrayal that begins with a “ubiquitous news anchor [and that] eludes retrospective critique,” (Ali), running the risk of creating discourses that reflect the invisible influence of “narrow political stratifications and their concealed ideologies,” (Ali).  Furthermore, he proposes that these artists set up an opportunity for the critique of artifactuality.  To counter artifactuality, Ali writes, Genet's Four Hours in Shatila engages with the concept of empathic unsettlement, which Dominick LaCapra defines as an act of “attending to, even trying, in limited ways, to recapture the possibly split-off, affective dimension of the experience of others”.  She argues that there is an objectification present in the historiography of tragic events that causes a numbing effect to the masses.  Emphatic unsettlement is used to denote the counterforce employed by individuals such as Genet to account tragic events in a way that is neither formulaic nor explanatory, nor exploitative of overarching terms such as “sectarianism”.  In this excerpt from Genet's book, his emotional response is evident: “I had to go to Shatila to understand the obscenity of love and the obscenity of death.  In both cases the body has nothing more to hide: positions, contortions, gestures, signs, even silences belong to one world and to the other”.  His description maintains the humanity of the tragedy in a way that the media cannot even come close to emulating.

In conclusion, the context in which they are received inevitably shapes our interpretations of tragic events.  In the case of Lebanon, the rhetorical use of sectarianism in placing the catastrophes within an explainable frame of reference removes them from the realm of tragedy and normalizes them.  As Makdisi defines sectarianism as the “antithesis” to nation, its use in the media serves to classify products of sectarian clashes within this umbrella category.  Horrendous acts of violence can be dismissed as what they do, the others, as result of their “age-old” sectarian differences.  Just as leaders of the past capitalized on sectarian differences to secure power interests, the media of today is influenced by power interests in spite of claiming objectivity.  The idea of sectarianism being age-old further normalizes the massacres and this is propagated during media broadcasts.  Our limited understanding of events that lead up to mass killings and our limited understanding of the actual experiences of victims are hampered by this.  Without an artistic approach that is driven by an emotional response, great tragedies will never be received in a way true to their horrific nature. Genet's account of Shatila presents an empathic unsettlement that destabilizes our preexisting perceptions of it because it comes from a place of emotion.  His work inherently contests the artifactuality of the media, because its moral energy refuses to present a formulaic or passive account of the tragedy.  Unlike the photojournalism present in expedited accounts of catastrophe, art that is able to create living pictures in which suffering becomes eternal and inseparable from the art itself generates a lasting account of the horror.

Bibliography:

Jacques Derrida and bernard Stiegler, Echographies of Television: Filmed Interviews [Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2002]

Jean Genet, Four Hours in Shatila, [Institute for Palestine Studies and Kuwait University – 1982]

Ussama Makdisi, Reconstructing the Nation-State: The Modernity of Sectarianism in Lebanon. [Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP) – 1996]; Religion as the Site of the Colonial Encounter [California Scholarship Online – 2012]

In the night she returned to the place of her heart, where the waves whispered wishes and the wind made her move. Oh the cliffs she could climb and the fast-moving moons! their orbits were traced, translated, then tuned to sing events of the future, unfolding in bloom.

There are ruins up there, atop the green hill, where nobody’s around but it doesn’t feel still.

She ran through an empire fallen to ash, felt the stories unleash like ribbons. It was cast out and absorbed so as to no longer be itself the past, absorbed into the hills so as to no longer be itself, a collapse

Power and might, what that some might call “tragedy.”

But the birds don’t see it as so, in fact in these ruins they’ve built their homes. So much better a thing when it is lost, so our will and perception can rebuild it with thought. The mystery and chaos will surely ensue, thereby creating an essential essence of some thing that’s new