Marxism, Migration, and Inequality

Contrary to popular belief, Karl Marx and subsequent Marxists theorized the relationship between capital accumulation and migration. As David Norman Smith notes, Migration is not the first word that comes to mind when people discuss Karl Marx. But in fact migration—and in particular, forced migration—is one of the cornerstones of Marxian theory, which revolves around two basic realities: the expropriation of farmers and the exploitation of workers. They are both the engine of capitalism and the potential engine of socialism ( Smith, 2021 , pp. 151–152). 1 Similarly, as the editors of Marxism and Migration argue “the history of capitalism is the history of people, commodities, and value on the move ” (emphasis in the original. Ritchie et al., 2022 , p. 1).