Toward Fortress Capitalism: The Restrictive Transformation of Migration and Border Regimes as a Reaction to the Capitalist Multicrisis

Abstract

The article develops the concept of “fortress capitalism.” The concept has two dimensions. First, it describes those elements within today's migration and border regimes that aim to control the mobility of the global working class in repressive ways. Second, it designates a dystopian future scenario, in which these repressive elements have massively expanded. Such a formation might develop as part of a twenty-first-century fascism. Based on historical materialism and critical theory, the article makes four points. First, it asserts that migration regimes are being transformed toward a new level of restrictiveness. Second, it argues that fortress capitalism complements theoretical motives that emphasize the uncontrollability of migration. Third, it contends that migration and border regimes in their emergence, dynamics, forms, and effects are closely linked to the intersectional dynamics of global capitalism as a whole. Fourth, it points out that global capitalism fundamentally depends on border regimes to regulate its contradictions.