http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/images/a_theory_of_imperialism.jpgUntil now migration streams have been dictated entirely by the requirements of metropolitan capital; now, for the first time, people are violating the dictates of metropolitan capital, and attempting to give effect to their own preferences in the matter of where they wish to settle. Wretched and miserable, and without being conscious of the implications of their own actions, these hapless refugees are in effect voting with their feet against the hegemony of metropolitan capital, which invariably proceeds on the assumption that people would meekly submit to its dictates, including in the matter of where to live. . . . The point however is this: quite apart from the wars and aggression that metropolitan capitalism unleashes everywhere, even its "normal" modus operandi entails the dispossession and impoverishment of people in other parts of the world. Its objective is to keep them trapped within their own universes, as a distantly-located labour reserve, which it can tap from time to time by allowing carefully-controlled migration to regions where it needs labour. Its assumption is that they can so remain trapped in their own universes without a murmur, no matter what condition they are in. And of course it is on the basis of this assumption that it unleashes imperialist wars on third world populations. The modus operandi of metropolitan capitalism requires the fulfillment of this assumption. What the so-called "refugee crisis" of Europe is demonstrating is that this assumption can no longer be fulfilled.

More... (http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/patnaik161016.html)