But the details are disappointing. It turns out that the focus of many Australians is on limiting family size rather than immigration levels:
Families should have no more than two children to limit their environmental impact, one in three Australian say...
The Australian National University survey found most Australians want the population to stay at or below current levels, suggesting Julia Gillard hit the right note by rejecting Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" push.
Just 44 per cent of respondents favoured population growth.
About 52 per cent said Australia had enough people already, and further population growth would harm the environment, push up house prices and place pressure on water resources.
But there were also concerns that skills shortages could hold back the economy, with 83 per cent of respondents calling for more skilled migrants to be allowed into Australia.
That really is a losing combination of ideas. First, aiming for each couple to have two children will not lead to stable population growth, but to massive population loss.
To explain why, just consider my own family. Both myself and two siblings have married and had the standard two children. But one of my brothers hasn't married and looks unlikely to do so. So the four of us have produced six children. That's a fertility rate of 1.5. If that were the standard, then Australia would lose a quarter of its population (initially 5 million people) every generation.
In short, to have stable population growth you need a large percentage of couples to have 3 children to make up for those having none. Limiting families to 2 children won't work.
Perhaps someone will object at this point, by claiming that it would be a good thing for the environment if the population were to trend downward.
But that argument doesn't work either. The open borders lobby uses the below replacement fertility statistics to justify massive immigration into Australia. And it is open borders which is the much greater environmental threat in the long term than the already very modest family size we have in Australia.
In other words, we need at the very least to get to replacement fertility levels in this country if we are to take on the open borders lobby. There is no way that the business lobby would accept a situation of massive population loss through sub replacement fertility.
Finally, it shows a loss of faith in ourselves to want to limit population growth by restricting family size, whilst at the same time calling for more immigration. That's like saying that there should be fewer of us, but more of everyone else.
The more spirited outlook is to train our own young to lead future economic growth.
Update: It seems that similar attitudes exist in Germany. I was reading an article on poverty in Germany, which found (unsurprisingly) that poverty was highest amongst single mothers and lowest amongst the standard family of dad, mum and two children.
One of the commenters at the site couldn't even bear the thought of a two child family. He wrote:
Those who don't have any children don't contribute to the further overpopulation and destruction of this planet. To protect the environment and to conserve resources, children ought to attract tax penalties.
That's how crazy it gets. Germany had a woeful fertility rate of 1.37 in the year 2007. It's a nation which desperately needs more children. And yet our German commenter wants to apply tax penalties to those few Germans who are actually having children.
I'm generally supportive of environmentalism, but I fear that there are some in the West who will use it to express their own nihilistic tendencies.
Why haven't people even commentators on blogs like yourself who appear to be clued in realise that the polls are rigged.
ReplyDeleteAre Australians really so utterly lacking in self-confidence that they do not believe their own children can learn any necessary skills in which there is a "shortage" in the economy?
ReplyDeleteIn the USA, at least, when "they" talk about "skills shortages", they mean "shortage of people with desired skills willing to work for nothing... and therefore we'd like to import some cheap immigrants".
I didn't know you read German. Did you see that Schroeder said the biggest danger is not Political Islam, but Christian Fundamentalism?
ReplyDeleteYes I'd think an ANU poll was dubious too.
ReplyDeleteHere's some questions:
1. Do you think we should have fewer children to ease the pressure on the environment?
2. Should we have fewer children if it means immigration rates will be increased to cover the shortfall?
I wonder which way people would flop on those two questions.
Anon, Jesse,
ReplyDeleteI agree that polls can be set up to elicit a certain response.
Alte,
I've got an OK reading knowledge of German (I did a few languages at uni).
I wasn't aware of Schroeder making that claim. Interesting what people are willing to believe.
The increasing immigration might create a vicious circle of sorts, as no sane non-Muslim would want to risk having children in a country which is well on its way to becoming an Islamic state ruled by sharia as a result of Muslim immigration.
ReplyDeleteBut that argument doesn't work either. The open borders lobby uses the below replacement fertility statistics to justify massive immigration into Australia.
ReplyDeleteThe argument doesn't work because the immigration lobby twists it to its advantage, not because the argument itself is without merit.
The Earth is finite. Nothing can grow indefinitely, not populations and not economies. The ideal situation for Australia and the West would be a stable or slightly (and temporarily) diminishing population coupled with an absolute moratorium on 3rd world immigration. You would still have a vibrant West and the opportunity for your children to experience the wild places of the country while they remain wild. I do realize that this option is not currently viable, but one must not lose hope.
Edward Abbey is my inspiration for most things when it comes to the natural world, and I highly recommend his work. I believe he visited Australia once and wrote about his experience in the Outback.
I would favour slightly decreasing living standards due to population losses over bursting at the seams with Third World migrants any time. Even if fertility rates suddenly shot up well above replacement levels, there would still be a time lag in order for the population to recover. Now, do not get me wrong, I believe it should not matter. We should accept that Western populations are going to decline, at least in the short run, but how is it that people think it would be such a nightmare (in Europe, the debate is obviously different in Australia)? They point to 'skills shortages' (whilst only 5% of non EU migrants to France have a job when they land here) or the sustainability of pay-as-you-go pensions systems. However, as some hinted at in the polls, there are also further consequences: rising housing prices and congestion of public infrastructure, not least healthcare and education. Several surveys also point to the fact immigrants take out more than they contribute. It does not even seem a bargain in economic terms, not to mention the 'cultural' invasion, our countries being flooded with millions of unassimilable illiterate Third World migrants.
ReplyDeleteAs usual, Global Warmism brings it up again. Whilst environmentalism is a worthy cause, pursuing spectres that do not exist is blissful oblivion, and tends to make them forgetful about real issues. People need to get a grip, and speak out loudly against immigration for economic as well as cultural reasons. If there is a shortage in skills, why not educate natives who could do the job? 8% of the German 'working' population are unemployed, surely there should be a sufficient pool of human resources to be trained and hired instead of snatching bodies from the Third World.
The environmentalists' argument against children is not as devastating as they seem to imagine. What childless adults fail to understand is families share resources. Our family of five gets by on one income, making our per capita impact 0.2. The childless couples (gay and straight) with whom I work get by on two incomes, making their per capita impact 1. Of course my descendants will eventually consume/impact more than theirs, but I will die having had half the environmental impact they have. Voluntary childlessness is simply a selfish strategy to avoid sharing one's resources, and high-minded rationalizations of childlessness should be met with derisory laughter.
ReplyDeleteJMsmith said:
ReplyDelete"Voluntary childlessness is simply a selfish strategy to avoid sharing one's resources, and high-minded rationalizations of childlessness should be met with derisory laughter."
I agree with that.
Here is the original Schröder article.
ReplyDelete8% of the German 'working' population are unemployed, surely there should be a sufficient pool of human resources to be trained and hired instead of snatching bodies from the Third World.
Yes, but the Germans won't do the work that the low-skill immigrants do because of the welfare state. It's the same in the States. People won't take such work until they're literally starving. The foreigners are already starving, so they are grateful for the work. Neither America nor Germany have substantial populations going hungry yet (thank goodness), so they don't have substantial populations willing to do such work. How hungry would you have to be to pick tomatoes in the rain, or repair roofs in New Mexico in 120 degree heat? Pretty darn hungry, I bet.
In Germany a few years ago, the politicians had a "hire-a-foreigner" moratorium in the agricultural industry, because of the high unemployment. No German workers showed up, and those that did quit within a day or two. The asparagus just rotted in the fields while the workers all simultaneously developed horrible "colds".
Since then, they've been mechanising the process. People blame foreigners for taking their jobs (jobs they don't even want), but most lower-skilled jobs have actually been killed through mechanisation and automation. I used to work for a big German industrial company. They had a huge production hall with massive machines, with four guys watching the machines. There used to be over 200 workers there, but they were automated out over the years. It's the same throughout all of the industries, once the workers become too expensive they get outsourced or mechanized away.
Another point to remember about that 8% is that it contains a lot of unmarried women, elderly, and unmarried men. Those are all less productive groups than the married men with children who make up the majority of full-time employees (and whose share of the employment pie is set to grow quickly in the future because they are the highest-value employees for most jobs). The women used to not be in the statistic at all (as they were mostly housewives), the elderly used to live with their children (so it didn't really matter if they were unemployed), and the men were married and therefore employed.
ReplyDeleteTo get back to my previous post, if you want those unemployed, unmarried men to take up those crappy, thankless jobs (instead of having foreigners do them) then you'll have to marry them off first. They won't get on the roof for themselves, but they will for their wives and children. This is the way the social welfare state encourages low-skill immigration, it destroyes marriage in the lower class and the men spend their time playing World of Warcraft instead of picking oranges. If those men were married, they would get a job, the woman could be a housewife, the birth rate would increase, and Granny could move in. Problem solved.
The economy is collapsing because it can no longer supply enough jobs for the highly fractured society that we live in. As JMsmith said, families are very efficient in using resources, so you need fewer jobs to feed more people. Divorce, illigitimacy and the collapse of the extended family is fueling the economic collapse. People are responding with higher cohabitation, sinking divorce rates, and "multi-generation households". In other words, feminism/hedonism is expensive and we can no longer afford it.
That is the silver lining on the Great Recession. Church attendance is rising, as well.
On the issue of mass non-European immigration into the West, I think the following article hits the nail on the head:
ReplyDelete“Multiculturalism is Dead, So Where Do We Bury the Body?”
Country by country, continent by continent, there’s a sense that the newer, darker arrivals are receiving preferential treatment over those who’ve been there for generations. In the UK, it’s called “Positive Discrimination.” In America, it’s called “affirmative action” and “amnesty.” And across every border where whites are a majority, there’s a creeping sense that politicians don’t give a f*ck about how they feel. They never asked for these new waves of immigrants, and they had no choice in this odd social-engineering experiment that’s demolishing whatever they used to share as a common culture.
Suddenly, this doesn’t seem so much like a celebration of all cultures as it does punishment of a specific culture. And that doesn’t sound like such a swell recipe for having everyone get along.
We’ll be continually reminded that European satellite nations such as Canada, the USA, and Australia were settled atop indigenous skulls, so the land-grabbing descendants of those race-murderers have no right to whine about being gradually wiped out themselves by newcomers.
Once again, for Christ’s sake, whether he’s dead or alive: Two wrongs don’t make a right. If colonialism was wrong then, it’s wrong now. Multiculturalism is merely colonialism with a prettier name. I realize and concede the fact that it awards us with a dazzling array of ethnic restaurants unparalleled in their tastiness.
Under multiculturalism, we have a wider selection of food…and no one talks to anyone anymore. Many of us now speak different languages and wouldn’t even know how to talk to one another. Rather than erasing borders, multiculturalism has merely created new borders within borders. Rather than destroying nationalism, it creates mini-nations within nations.
If we’re going to push multiculturalism’s glories, shouldn’t we point out where has it worked in the past? If diversity is a strength, why did stretched-too-thin empires such as ancient Rome and the Soviet Union eventually fall from the weight of their own diversity?
Stop calling me a racist and shoot some believable answers at me. I really want to hear them.
As always, the “chattering classes” are working out their postcolonial guilt complexes at the lower classes’ expense. Either they’ve known what they were doing all along or they haven’t, and I’m not sure which is worse.
It’s dangerous to ignore the fact that all the technology in the world, the ceaseless multicultural brainwashing that’s been laser-beamed into our eyeballs over the past 65 years, has not eradicated the basic human tendency to be tribal. If they didn’t fully murder such instincts in the Germans—and God f*cking knows they tried hard with the Germans—maybe such instincts can’t be killed.
Yes, I realize we’re all human. If that’s your point, you’ve already made it—and, I might add, at a tremendous expense. What you fail to realize is that humans tend to be tribal. And if you get too many tribes, you don’t have a nation anymore.
Alte
ReplyDeleteActually, in the US every time a meat packing plant is raided by immigration authorities and illegal workers arrested, within days there is a huge line of American citizens to apply for the jobs. It happened in the South, it happened in the Midwest, it happened in Colorado. Packing plants with a lot of illegals in Iowa were also found to have safety violations as well as underage workers. When a workforce can't complain to authorities over safety violations for fear of deportation, obviously there's going to be problems.
The employment of illegals generally goes along with substandard wages, as well. Whatever job someone does for money, they might not do it for 30% less absent some serious situations, and that's what we see with illegals. A lot of houses built in the latter stages of the bubble in the US are substandard construction, due to incompetents on the job.
There aren't too many jobs Americans won't do, actually, so long as the pay is in line with the market. And that includes working on roofs in New Mexico in the summer...
Well, yes. But then they'd have to pay you a small fortune to do such work. I suppose it's a wage-death-spiral. We have less money, so we put downward pressure on the wages, so we get paid less, so we have less money...
ReplyDeleteAlte, I have to agree with AP on that one particular point.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a near monoracial society (Australia in the 1970s). There were no jobs that people refused to do, even in the harsh Australian climate.
The problem is that when you have open borders some of the less skilled work falls below a living wage.
An illegal arrival can work for below a living wage because they don't have to pay taxes. And even those here legally often start out as unmarried young men who are willing to live in cramped conditions with up to 20 or more sharing the same house.
I don't think it's fair to expect native workers, who are looking to support a family and have a house of their own to follow this pattern.
Yes, but the Germans won't do the work that the low-skill immigrants do because of the welfare state. It's the same in the States. People won't take such work until they're literally starving. The foreigners are already starving, so they are grateful for the work. Neither America nor Germany have substantial populations going hungry yet (thank goodness), so they don't have substantial populations willing to do such work. How hungry would you have to be to pick tomatoes in the rain, or repair roofs in New Mexico in 120 degree heat? Pretty darn hungry, I bet.
ReplyDeleteAll right, Alte, but figures show there is a shortage of 400,000 jobs in engineering and IT sectors. Admittely, this would require highly educated workers. I was thinking of these sectors, so yes, I think educating German natives to fill in these vacancies is the right option, none of these two jobs are demeaning and many would definitely be glad to have them, if they had the adequate skills. As for natives purportedly unwilling to fill in low-skilled job vacancies, I concur with Mark. I also believe anyone living on the dole and refusing to fill in a reasonable job vacancy should be denied the dole.
That's interesting Mark. I've never lived someplace geographically isolated. In Germany, the Poles just pour over the border.
ReplyDeleteWe have been taught to believe that Children = bad.
ReplyDeleteAny society who takes up this belief, for whatever reason, is doomed.
The only way around would be Mark Steyn's proposal for a progressive pro-natalist tax system. You have 4 kids and a stable marriage you pay half the tax of a childless single.
It is the only way to make kids economically viable again. Simply telling people over and over again probably won't do it, even if you did have all the advantages of the far left in educational environments.
The only way around would be Mark Steyn's proposal for a progressive pro-natalist tax system. You have 4 kids and a stable marriage you pay half the tax of a childless single.
ReplyDeleteIt is the only way to make kids economically viable again. Simply telling people over and over again probably won't do it, even if you did have all the advantages of the far left in educational environments
There is a second option, and that is to reverse urbanisation with some sort of "back to the land" movement. Children are a boon to a family living on the land. They are a burden to urban couples. Whatsmore, growing up close to nature creates far more healthy children than the sort of street urchins you see today.
All right, Alte, but figures show there is a shortage of 400,000 jobs in engineering and IT sectors.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's just BS. They've been saying the same thing since the 80s. They do that for political (pro-immigration) and wage-arbitration reasons. It's discussed in-depth (and very humorously!) here (in German). My husband and I were both cracking up reading it. They guys there are spot-on.
Where I think Mark Steyn drops the ball is that he supports things like child based tax brackets to oppose the Muslims, which I think is fine and great, but then as far as I know he's casual on immigration. Why don't you just import a bunch of Mexicans if you want a growing birth rate? Its pointless to look at the proposals in isolation.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's just BS. They've been saying the same thing since the 80s. They do that for political (pro-immigration) and wage-arbitration reasons.
ReplyDeleteWhether it be nonsense or mendacities is irrelevant, for, even though there were looming shortages, the native unemployed should take precedence instead of importing millions of inassimilable foreigners. Obviously, I am very aware of the wage depression effect, being versed in economics. It is very convenient for unscrupulous entrepreneurs and managers to have reserves. You will not be demanding a pay rise if 8% of the workforce are unemployed, and can potentially fill in your job in a trice, should you protest. As an employee, you lack leeway and bargaining power, and you keep your mouth shut, and even lower your expectations and stomach salary cuts. Mass unemployment is therefore a powerful instrument when it comes to depressing wages. How do they ensure that there is enough unemployment to pursue such strategies? They tap into virtually boundless reserves of starving people in Third World countries, and who fancy that we are a sort of earthly paradise. Not only do they procure reserves that allow to keep wages down, but they [the leftist-liberal establishment] relax naturalisation laws to make sure they have new voters dedicated to their multi-culti dystopia. We do agree that, most of the time, these announcements are decoys to justify further mass immigration, but shortages do exist in some economies, e.g. Norway (where unemployment has been consistently under 3% for more than a decade). Except they could train and educate natives instead, which would be a much more profitable investment than planting alien tribes in our midst.
There is a second option, and that is to reverse urbanisation with some sort of "back to the land" movement. Children are a boon to a family living on the land. They are a burden to urban couples. Whatsmore, growing up close to nature creates far more healthy children than the sort of street urchins you see today.
Surely it is not an option we can take seriously; most Western countries are at least 75% urban. Reversing the trend would be immensely costly, not to mention falling output in towns and the fact we would not be taking advantage of production facilities located in urban centres. I believe Mark Steyn has a point, even though he has not been that consistent, as Jesse_7 rightly pointed out. I looked forward to reading his book 'America Alone', but was left disappointed and hankering for more after I did so. He clearly identifies and exposes the Islamic take-over of Europe, but he fails to address the same issue in the United States, i.e. the gradual Mexican take-over of the United States, especially in the Southern States. Unfortunately, this is extremely common among American writers who tend to gloat over Europe's misfortunes but do not grasp the nettle when it comes to their own country. This is notably the case in Bruce Bawer's 'While Europe Slept'. Surely we would all benefit if American authors exposing Islam also had the courage to stand up to the Mexican invasion (roughly 13 million undocumented people of Mexican extraction are thought to reside in the United States, and are especially well represented in the construction industry, farming and retailing). Legal Mexican workers take out much more than they contribute according to several surveys (Borgas, The Economics of Immigration, Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXII, December 1994). Consistency would greatly advance the traditionalist conservative cause everywhere.
Southern Cross,
ReplyDeleteYes there's a certain triumphilising at Europe's expense. I find this irritating because Europe is the cradle of our civilisation and I don't want to see it fail. Also as you say it ignores the Mexicans as a significant problem in their own right
Yes there's a certain triumphilising at Europe's expense. I find this irritating because Europe is the cradle of our civilisation and I don't want to see it fail. Also as you say it ignores the Mexicans as a significant problem in their own right
ReplyDeleteIt is all the more aggravating since I, for one, do not gloat over America's difficulties, whether they be of an economic or cultural nature. We are different countries, but we are also subgroups of a same Western Christian civilisation, and we should be supportive to one another instead of putting spokes into our own wheels.
I despair of both America and Europe's difficulties. Nobody has reason to gloat right now, I think.
ReplyDeletebut shortages do exist in some economies, e.g. Norway (where unemployment has been consistently under 3% for more than a decade)
In fact, many German engineers are moving north to fill those shortages rather than face unemployment in their own country. The German stats are based upon job adverts. But since almost all hiring is now done through temp-agencies (even for engineers!), one job is often listed multiple times. One advert for each temp agency trying to fill the position. In that thread I linked to above, there is a comment saying that the commenter knew of one position that was advertised 10 times. Those agencies are the tool the German companies use to swell the hiring pool and depress wages while simultaneously claiming a skills shortage.
It is a devious scam, but very politically effective.
I do agree, Alte.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I have just procured an e-book version of Thilo Sarrazin's "Deutschland schafft sich ab". If you would like me to pass it on, just give me your e-mail address.
Cool! CatholicMarriagePro@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteForgive me the corny email address; there was a point to it at one point. :-)
I have just sent you the book through YouSendIt. Hopefully you will receive it and enjoy reading it. I am proceeding very slowly as other matters must take precedence, besides, even though I have a working knowledge of German, I am unfortunately nowhere near full mastery of this beautiful language. I assume you will be done with it before I am!
ReplyDelete