One of the
most common arguments made in support of our immigration system, is that we
need more people because the population growth rate is too low, it is below
replacement levels. Australia’s birth rate is about 1.5 children per woman at the
moment. However, this argument is based on a host of errors and underlying
assumptions that need to be addressed. In this article I will begin the process
of challenging this idea.
First,
consider the primary premise: less people is bad? Is this true? No - Now I
am going to state this outright now right at the start: this is not an argument
for lowering the world population, not in the slightest. I am simply noting that the
claim that a lower population is bad is wrong - Australia's population was
far lower than it is now in 1970 and Australia was a successful, prosperous,
industrial society. The population was about 12.5 million people, and we were
doing fine. In fact, many people consider the 1970’s to the 1990’s to be the
golden age of Australian society. In 1999 Australia still had just under 19
million people. At no point did our relatively small population cause our
nation any serious issues.
But let’s
take the 1970 population figure. Those who talk about the low birth rates and
say Australia is in trouble if we don't import more and more people are simply
wrong. At a birth rate of about 1.5, according to Grok, it would take over a
century for our population to decline to 1970's numbers, "Approximately
115 to 130 years, assuming a sustained total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.5
children per woman leads to a steady annual population decline of about
0.6-0.7%." So, it would take over a century for Australia’s population to
reduce from its current number of over 26.77 million, to 1970’s style numbers.
Hence, we are not facing any drastic population changes here, but at worst, a
steady decline that will take some time. And that is only if birth rates stay
as they are. Something which is not a given.
However, before a decade was out, if we removed anything but necessary skills training immigration, say at 10% the total immigration number of what we currently do, what would happen?
1. House prices would begin to drop and recorrect in line with income, in fact probably lower. I did an analysis with Grok not too long ago and it noted that one way to reduce house prices back to 2019 levels would be to reduce our national population, by cancelling temporary residencies and other temporary visas, back to 2019 levels. However, effectively stopping immigration would have a similar effect over time, if the building industry kept building new homes. Houses would begin to exist in greater excess, people would have more options and prices would drop.
2. Wages would increase because Australian workers would be able to command higher incomes. It is both very well-known, and established by the data, that the business sector uses working visas to suppress wages. Australians are effectively then hit from both directions: it is harder to get a home because of increased competition, and your wage is suppressed by a labour market filled with excess people looking for jobs.
Cutting
immigration would change both of these situations for most workers and
Australians. And, it would only take a few years before these two things
started happening in a significant way. Countless women who are married right
now and delaying having kids or having more kids because their teaching,
nursing, or administrator job is required to help pay the mortgage would
suddenly be much freer to not work. Think of what having to pay $600 rent for a
small home does to a family’s budget? We actually need there to be less people
coming in. And we would see this change take effect quickly.
As the population
aged the pressure on house prices would go down even more, as more assets are
put onto the market than usual. And the value of wages would also increase, as
there are less workers in the economy. Immigration is used to stop these
things from happening.
In other
words, before 10 years had passed, let alone 115-130 years, Australia's
housing, employment and birth rate prospects would have all increased for the
better. Sure, the welfare system would not be sustainable at current levels,
but that is also a good thing. Too many able-bodied people are paid to not
work, which exacerbates societal decline. This change would begin to happen
without even passing other laws like tax breaks for families with 3 or 4 or
more kids, or other policies we see improving things in anti-mass immigration
Eastern European countries. Ban the pill and see birth rates begin to escalate
even more.
Those who say
we need immigration or our population will decline, don't realize this is
neither a problem, nor something to fear. Australia is larger than most
historical empires. We have about a third of the population of the peak Roman
Empire. That makes us a massive nation historically, a nation with almost
endless resources on top of that.
The evidence
for positive effects from population decline in history are also observed. During
the black plague in a generation perhaps 30-50% of Europe's population was taken
out by the plague.[1]
What happened? Feudalism faded away and Europe entered modernity and then
conquered the whole world, literally. The drop in population created almost
endless opportunity. Historian Rodney Stark writes,
“So,
shortly after the plague the factories all across Europe became busier than
ever, the transportation system ran at full capacity, the banking ledgers
showed remarkable incomes, and in many places ordinary people enjoyed a
standard of living beyond their parents’ wildest dreams. Capitalism was growing
and spreading.”[2]
We don’t want
to go through something like the black plague, of course. But everyone who has
studied this event in European history is aware of how it changed Europe forever.
The drastic loss in population upended Europe’s social system and created more
upward mobility than had ever been seen. We are facing something far less
drastic than what happened in medieval Europe, we simply have an aging
population. Population decline through an aging population and low birthrates
that can be adjusted in time, is a much smoother transition than what
Europe faced, and nothing to fear. The fear mongering about it is clearly
social messaging designed to help push the government's immigration policies.
In fact, even
the United Nations document on replacement migration shows that the real
intention behind replacement migration is to sustain the current political and
social structures, rather than to advance the interests of the nations involved.
The report notes,
“The projected population decline and
population ageing will have profound and far-reaching consequences, forcing
Governments to reassess many established economic, social and political
policies and programmes, including those relating to international migration…
…
The levels of migration needed
to offset population ageing (i.e., maintain potential support ratios) are
extremely large, and in all cases entail vastly more immigration than occurred
in the past.”[3]
International
migration in record numbers will be needed to maintain welfare supports, that
are fundamental principles of our western social democracies. However, the
report notes even this will not be enough,
“Maintaining
potential support ratios at current levels through replacement migration alone
seems out of reach, because of the extraordinarily large numbers of migrants
that would be required. In most cases, the potential support ratios could be
maintained at current levels by increasing the upper limit of the working-age
population to roughly 75 years of age.”[4]
Of course,
this report was written before many wars in the Middle East had driven millions
of immigrants into Europe. One wonders how much poorer regions are being
deliberately destabilized to push an ongoing flow of people into the West?
Retirement
benefits are the main reason put forward for pushing immigration ever upwards.
The crafters of these policies know that our nations cannot afford them, and
hence they need more and more people to come in to replace the aging taxpayers
who become benefit receivers. These programs were always a pipedream anyway,
the idea of maintaining a large percentage of your population on the pension
for 15, 20 or 30 years was always unachievable. Especially, if you encourage young women to
either delay motherhood, or avoid it all together. These are dyscivilisational
policies.
This does not
even account for what we looked at last week, that immigrants are more likely to
be on welfare. When you consider that fact, it shows that immigration is
not the solution to any welfare or pension crisis. It is a growing welfare
crisis in the making. An escalating crisis really.
And, those
who say that we need the immigrants just in case we go to war with our
neighbours, forget two things. First, such thinking is how Briton became Angle-land
(England) and still is to this day. Second, multicultural armies historically
perform very poorly. Infighting and fifth column events increase as militaries
diversify, as the famous cry of Augustus, “Varus, Varus, give me back my
legions!” reminds us.[5] If you don’t know what
this is referring to, then go read the link in note 5.
Not only is a
declining population not something to worry about, it is a natural part of the
life cycle of a nation. Ebbs and flows. And of course, if in over a century we
had declined to 12.5 million people - which would not happen because people
would respond to increased opportunities and drastically cheaper assets - we'd
still be larger than multiple European countries are today, with better beaches.
Nations like: Belgium, Hungary, Greece, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, and
many, many more.
Our
population level is not a problem. The declining population hysterics have been
misled.
List of
References
[1] Stark,
Rodney. The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and
Western Success . Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[2] Stark,
Rodney. The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and
Western Success . Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
[3] UN
Report 2000, Replacement Migration: Is it a Solution to Declining and Ageing
Populations, Population Division, Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
United Nations Secretariat, p4.
[4]
Ibid.
No comments:
Post a Comment