Global Capitalism Makes Migrants “Economic Refugees” – Not Immigrants

A good portion of William Blum’s article is designed to help comprehend the  misunderstandings that the Yankee public has about why people migrate to this country. The first problem is the word “immigrant”. In Cross-cultural psychology, immigrant means at least three things: a) the person is coming to a new country voluntarily; b) they have thought about it and planned to move and;  c) they have some kind of small savings to bring with them. The category of “refugees’ is the opposite of an immigrant. The second problem is that the Yankee public imagines nation-states as self-contained entities whose economics and political life is self-determined. Blum’s point in this article is that most people who are called immigrants around the world are really ‘economic refugees because they are fleeing their country after western capitalism has invaded it and makes self-subsistence on their own land impossible.