ABSTRACT
One of the main features of the present historical conjuncture, the intensification of globalization, has brought in its wake not only the mobility of capital but also mass mobility of potential labor power across the globe-two types of mobility which, of course, do not occur on a level playing field.1 In a mode of production which, as indicated in the previous chapter, has always been characterized by uneven levels of industrial development (once again, see Marx and Engels, 1998), people in the subaltern part of the North-South axis move up north in search of a new life. The “specter” of the violent colonial process the “old continent” initiated has come back with a vengeance to “haunt” it. This process is itself exacerbated by the fact that highly industrialized countries require certain types of labor and that this requirement cannot be met via the internal labor market, despite the high levels of unemployment to be found within these countries (Apitzsch, 1995, p. 68).
