Capitalist Restructuring, Development and Labour Migration: the Mexico–US case

Abstract

The current dynamics of South to North migration flows can be explained by the nature of the ongoing process of capitalist restructuring, but in order to examine these issues we must approach them from the perspective of critical development studies. Mexican migration to the USA is paradigmatic of the regressive consequences of neoliberal structural adjustment policies and processes of regional integration based on access to cheap labour. From the lens of the political economy of development the dialectical relationship between development and migration can be analysed through three major movements: the dismantling and rearticulation of the productive apparatus, the creation of vast amounts of surplus population, well beyond the conventional formulation of the reserve army of the unemployed and the acceleration of migration flows. An examination of these issues leads us to conclude the following four facts: capitalist restructuring results in forced migration; immigrants contribute to capital accumulation in labour-receiving countries; migrants help sustain the fragile socioeconomic stability of the migrants’ country of origin and, if used as a tool of social transformation, development can curtail forced migration.