What’s a life worth?

In one of the more perverse developments in immigration policy, the Productivity Commission has argued for putting a price on the right to immigrate to Australia.

The commission’s “Migrant Intake into Australia” issues paper proposes that, instead of migrants being assessed on skills or family connections, the government should consider a person’s bank balance as the main determinant for a visa.

The proposed scheme is part of a deal to secure Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm’s support for the reintroduction of temporary protection visas for asylum seekers. Leyonhjelm flagged $50,000 as a possible fee for entry to Australia.

The paper suggests two options: setting a price, with the size of the intake dictated by demand; or setting a cap on the intake and allowing demand to dictate the price of entry. It suggests creating an “immigration lottery” and implementing a HECS-style payment system for immigrants to pay back their entry fee.

The Australian government already has the Significant Investor Visa scheme, which was introduced in 2012 for those willing to invest $5 million or more into Australia’s economy. For the rich, it offers virtually automatic citizenship.

Contrast this to the racist “No way. You will not make Australia home” advertising campaign targeting income-poor refugees, and the immigration rigmarole most migrants have to endure.

This highlights the fundamental reason for “border control” – to enable the wealthy and their capital to flow seamlessly across borders, while the state puts severe restrictions on the movements of the labouring classes. We’re told it’s about “security” but it is really about social control.

Even more telling is the fact that the report quotes the research of the late right wing US economist Gary Becker: “The proposal is that governments should sell the right to immigrate. The government should set a price each year and anyone would be accepted, aside from obvious cases such as potential terrorists, criminals and people who are very sick and who would be immediately a big burden to the health system. But aside from these cases, you would allow anybody to immigrate who could make the payments.”

Becker made his career out of putting a price on everything from women’s rights to organs, claiming that the free market could help solve the problem of a scarcity of organ transplants. His dreams are alive in the gruesome international organ harvesting racket. It is an abomination that he is the considered an authority by the Productivity Commission.

This is the logic of capitalism – everything and everyone has a price and is subject to economic evaluation.

As neoliberalism shapes new markets the world over, it leaves dispossession and displacement in its wake. The rich can rely on networks throughout the world to bypass easily restrictions put on those who are economically powerless. A vast pool of cheap exploitable labour is vital to modern capitalism.

Business groups have therefore opposed the scheme. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said in a 4 May report in the Sydney Morning Herald, “skilled migrants should remain the primary source of new entrants”. Any immigration that did not primarily focus on a steady, flexible supply of labour would undermine business’s capacity to manipulate the labour market, and therefore wages.

So the scheme is unlikely to get up – not because business is opposed to the government making money, but because business thinks it can make more for itself by putting poor people to work.

In the depraved spirit of capitalism, the considerations are always economic rather than human need.