State, Capital and Migrant Labour: A Theoretical Perspective

Abstract

<p>The bourgeois liberal system of rights representing the constitution of the State in law and the formation of the circulation sphere anticipates the modern production conditions which are "supported" by abstract "bearers", constituted as "economic subjects" positioned in production relations. Such positions are invested with abstract economic, dehistoricized and depoliticized, aestheticized and metaphysical connotations and ideology. These positions which have been formed during the last phase of the transformation of capitalism are not constituted in law. In the present conjuncture capitalism does not require the system of rights necessary for the competitive 19th century conjuncture. Modern migration phenomena point and attest to these phenomena imposed by imperialism in the "electronic age". Our gaze is directed towards the phenomenon of the guest-workers in the Federal Republic of Germany. The continuities of this phenomenori with the role of the State and the labour-process as well as the system of rights that are entrenched presently by current measures are established.</p>