“The Possibility of Hope”

This film, “The Possibility of Hope,” is by the director of “Children of Men.” One line stands out heavily among many others. Saskia Sassen says,

Hermetic walls don’t seem to work in this world of ours. It works rhetorically for those who want to control the border: the state, some politicians. It’s very powerful. But it also works rhetorically for making those who want to come in feel they are violating something. They are violating a country, not just crossing a border informally, but violating a nation-state. Hey, that’s a heavy burden; I wouldn’t want to have it.

This stigma is one of the keys to the system of inequality. By making some feel like they have committed such a serious crime, we allow “plantation economics” to exist where exploitable workers can be payed severely sub-market wages. If we lifted this heavy burden off the shoulders of the “undocumented” workers, equality of opportunity would have a chance to prevail in the labor market.

Advertisement