Capital and Labour mobility

I didn't want to simply highlight the vast differences in the lives of those who own capital and those who own nothing but their own labour. I think what the pictures convey is that the life of the rich is one surrounded not just by commodities but the dreams and the wish-images that accompany them. In this stage of capitalistic development what is produced and esteemed are signs, images, representations ("sign-values"). 

Of course, commodification has always relied on displays, advertising, the construction of "lifestyles" (the American Dream). But if capitalism is the exchange of abstract values then what we're seeing is a greater tendency to abstraction (financial derivatives, say) whereby the sign takes on autonomous value (the brand is the thing, just as being famous for being famous is the cheez..art for art's sake?).

It's also interesting that capital-which is supposed to be about the surpassing of all limits-will reinstate limits, borders, boundaries in order to realize more surplus (profits). So, it's not surprising that in a globalized world we witness so many border technologies (surveillance, detention centres, fences and border controls, gated communities to keep the poor separate). This goes back to an old theme: to make profits one needs  "semi-proletarianized" households (usually women) that supply labour services and affective labour that allow for the production of commodities (by men). In another sense, it could be argued that the periphery has to be a source of cheap inputs and therefore markets should be weak there (the best example of this are the slave plantations).

So, the two pictures are linked. The military-industrial complex in the north has helped create the refugee crisis in the south. Which makes you think, again, about just how insidious that Australian woman's comments were: "They're coming over here because of their original position, their original bad luck. And who wouldn't?". No context whatsoever. Instead, let's bring it down to "There are already too many Muslims" and we've got art, civilisation, roads, for Christ's sake!

One further point about limits. The rich would not be able to enjoy their wealth if it wasn't for the distribution of property rights. Property rights and their distribution (who owns what) depend on the legal order and, ultimately, on violence (and/or the threat of violence).

Of course, the other tendency of capitalism has to be kept in mind, the movement to greater and greater commodification. That requires, in the final analysis, that labour becomes more flexible (uprooted, without any attachments). This is obviously a physical process (the enclosure movement creates displaced people) but also about an "internal colonization" where market mentalities and rhetoric must hold sway. A particular kind of subjectivity must be produced. 

In economic theory preferences are simply taken as 'given'. No-one knows or cares where they came from (Hirschman calls them "wanton preferences" or "first-order preferences"). And the notion that they can be ordered according to reason or ethics is frowned upon. (Not surprising, really, because reason or ethics would put limits on what we desire). More is always preferred to less and scarcity is not a historical fact (history is not allowed in a deductive science) but a fundamental root of all economizing behaviour. Because we have infinite desires there simply will always be scarcity and therefore constrained optimization. The rich have insatiable desires but the poor, too, are just the same ("Why are they coming here if not for a better life?"). There can be no substantive notion of personhood and no determinate view of 'the good' because, once again, that would limit commodity expansion. 
Do you buy that?