Abstract
In this concluding part of the book, I argue that the polarization of the migration debate and the rise of anti-migrant perspectives is not only an instrument of authoritarian governments, but a real historical event and represents the emergence of a new epoch. The Eastern European developments have been shaped by the interplay of global and local demographic transformations, a wave of marketization, and structures of capitalism—most importantly reification and biopolitical competition. Eastern Europe is not a passive victim in this historical change, but it has been legitimizing the neoliberal order for a longer period of time and it is now questioning some of its consequences without any systemic critique. This has led to the isolation of humanitarian discourses and the rise of anti-migrant populism. These discursive developments have also been facilitated by the particular varieties of migratory capitalisms and mechanisms of unequal exchange in the region that have promoted ideas of migratory competition and the nationalist claim for further sovereignty and national emancipation with regard to intra-European hierarchies. After summing up some points concerning local regional development, the book ends with reflection on why the enormous tensions of marketization and the reification of migration (the migration turn) have become immanent engines of further change—a change that will be inseparable from the growing need and urgency for social redistribution and social care through systemic transformation. Otherwise, demographic and migratory developments will increase biopolitical struggles and intensify the deadly and destructive competition between capitalist states in a hierarchical world and thus the structural crisis of capital, as described by István Mészáros.
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Melegh, A. (2023). Conclusion. In: The Migration Turn and Eastern Europe. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14294-9_5
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