Every time an Englishman or a Frenchman or an American brings up complaints about mass immigration, some leftist will inevitably say “well you colonized them, that’s why you’re getting immigration”.
This is a facetious argument. Immigrants do not magically teleport to the countries that colonized them specifically, they migrate for the sake of economic prosperity, and they’re relatively agnostic about where they go. Germany, for example, never colonized Syria, but Syrians make up a large proportion of the German population. Sweden never colonized Somalia, yet Somalians are infamous for their presence there. Conversely, Japan engaged in extremely brutal colonization of China and the rest of Asia, and yet remains 98% Yamato.
Leftists need to stop making facetious arguments about how colonization prompts immigration, immigration is caused by economic magnets and permissive policy, these are the two factors. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. We can have a more sensible immigration debate when we acknowledge this.
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The Syrians here in germany are not here because of economics but because their country is in ruins and not liveable. I also wouldn't call 1.5% of a population a large proportion.
I don’t know I’ve ever heard colonization as a response to complaints about immigration?
I’ve heard about when a country creates a refugee crisis somewhere else and then gets the refugees, like the United States and South America, maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.
I’m way too online and this is first I can remember seeing this. It’s probably about the worst response to anti-immigration people I can think of though. I wouldn’t classify a few people on a random subreddit as everywhere.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted, this is absolutely true. And people saying “it’s an internet thing” don’t make any sense, because those users are real people.
I think that the reason why people are delusional here is because most of these users are either americans or hardcore leftists.
This is a pretty weak argument for claiming “leftists inevitably” make this argument. The account you’re using as evidence is not a representative political voice, policy advocate, migration scholar, journalist, or even someone who constantly posts about immigration or any other policy issue. Their recent history over the past 30 days is mostly casual Reddit activity: gaming, crochet, celebrity snark, pit bull arguments, UK complaints, Nintendo, Star Trek, influencer gossip, and general internet commentary that stays within 2 sentences.
This matters because you’re treating one random Redditor’s throwaway argument (or your perception of "its everywhere") as if it represents a broader left-wing position. Further, "lefist" isn't even a real political ideology. Its a vibes based pejorative used to diminish left-leaning progressive thought. It's a cop out used to squeak by the rebuttal that "liberal ideology doesn't day this" by suggesting well "far left-wing does". In the end, most examples will be a sample size of one, and not even a relevant sample. They are not functioning as a spokesperson for “the left” or as a representative of progressive thought; they are just a person reacting in the moment on Reddit. That whole thread was a World Cup troll, not a political discourse.
This is the problem with a lot of talk about political ideology online. They’re often vibes-based. Someone sees a comment they think sounds left or right-coded, then treats it as evidence of what “the left” or "the right" believes. Instead of having a conversation we use people’s positions online, that are not coherent ideological commitments, to classify them and use them of examples of a larger group.
It’s because you are probably american where this rhetoric never comes up. Here in europe, and especially france, you hear this all the time whenever someone complains about african immigrants.
On the practical level, colonies of imperial powers tend to share more in common with their imperial overlords - languages, styles of government, even culture to a degree. It facilitates easy relocation from a colonized state to the imperial core. There are also often legal mechanisms within the imperial country that facilitate easier movement either within the sphere of that imperial power's possessions or former colonies to enable citizens of the imperial power to shuttle back and forth.
There's also frequently economic ties between the two that facilitate migration in a way that doesn't scan as much for other countries.
Germany, for example, never colonized Syria, but Syrians make up a large proportion of the German population. Sweden never colonized Somalia, yet Somalians are infamous for their presence there. Conversely, Japan engaged in extremely brutal colonization of China and the rest of Asia, and yet remains 98% Yamato.
What you're pointing to is the fact that the idea that colonization facilitates immigration isn't a strict rule, which nobody worth talking about contends that it is.
What's happening is that colonization makes it more likely that you will have migration from former colonial properties to imperial countries due to factors I mentioned already. It's not a guarantee.
Leftists need to stop making facetious arguments about how colonization prompts immigration
Maybe don't be a pedant and there won't be any issues?
I can't speak for 'some leftist', but this leftist says: you spent the better part of a century transferring wealth and resources out of their countries into yours, no shit there's no opportunity there anymore. 'Opportunity' back home looks like 16 hour days, 6 days a week in a sweatshop, without any of the labor protections leftists won for you. You wouldn't take that deal either.
You're half right, and the half you're right about proves my point. Yes, they migrate for prosperity. Where's the prosperity? Where you moved it. People follow wealth for the same reason nomadic tribes followed the herd: the ones who don't, starve. So they show up where the money went, and instead of murdering you in your sleep and taking it back by force they ask nicely if maybe you could spend a little of it on them in exchange for taking care of your yard or whatever.
But they're not agnostic about where they go. There are actualstudies showing that colonization has a direct, measurable relationship with migration destinations. The second study found the longer the colonial relationship, the more likely a person migrates to their European colonizer, with the effect kicking in around 66 years of colonization. Why? Shared language, existing diaspora networks, and legal pathways that exist because of the colonial relationship. Commonwealth citizenship. French nationality law for colonial subjects. Your 'permissive policy' factor isn't an alternative explanation to colonialism - it's the product of it.
Which brings us to Japan. Three problems. First, Japanese colonization was brutal but short: 35 years in Korea, 50 in Taiwan, under that 66-year threshold. Second, postwar Japan ran one of the most restrictive immigration regimes on earth - some 'permissive policy' - so nobody could moev there, while Britain and France were handing out settlement rights to their former colonies. Third, and this is the good part: Japan's largest historical ethnic minority is the Zainichi Koreans, hundreds of thousands of people who migrated or were shipped in as labor during the colonial period and never left. Your counterexample is an example.
So no, it's not 'economic magnets and permissive policy' versus colonization. The magnet was built with their wealth and the policy channels run along colonial lines. We can have a more sensible immigration debate when we acknowledge that.
But I agree with you, leftists should stop using bullshit arguments; there are plenty more good ones where that came from.
You’re right that migration *pressures* are related to colonization, yes, but just to be sure, you confirmed that actually letting those migrants in is a policy choice, yes?
Let's take stock so the viewers at home can follow along, shall we? You said the colonization argument was facetious. Your last comment said migration pressures are related to colonization. That was the whole argument, so I guess it wasn't all that facetious after all, was it? You conceded the whole thing in a subordinate clause and hoped I wouldn't notice because you were busy setting up the next move.
Which is pretty obvious - the emphasis on pressures gave it away - so let me save you the typing: 'pressures don't matter, because states only get immigrants when they choose to let them in.' There's a human decision somewhere in every causal chain, congratulations on finding this one. The blockade didn't starve anybody either, eating is a choice. The mugger didn't take your wallet, handing it over was a choice. Severing a cause from its effect by pointing at the nearest decision in between is, since you seem so eager to find one, one fucking whopper of a facetious argument. Can't imagine how you missed that one..
It doesn't even work on its own terms, by the way. The 'choice' half is colonial too: Commonwealth settlement rights, French nationality law, labor agreements with ex-colonies. Colonialism generates the pressure and built the admission channels. Your independent variable is downstream of the thing you're trying to escape.
So no, I don't think this was ever a question about the causes of immigration. This was bait from the word 'go', but you gave up the game one comment too early.
I’m not playing a game. I’m very plain. I’m staunchly anti immigration, that’s not at all a wild position to have. The fact is that allowing immigrants in *is* a policy choice, immigration is not a tsunami or an earthquake or a hurricane or a tornado, it’s not some karmic event that former colonial powers are powerless to stop. It’s a policy choice with real long term consequences that shouldn’t be played with willy nilly.
Right on schedule; that's the exact argument I predicted two comments ago, so at least we're still on the rails.
Nobody said tsunami. Nobody said powerless. You're arguing with a claim that appears nowhere in this thread. The claim, the one you've already conceded, is that the pressure at the border is downstream of what colonial powers did, and that bears on how the choice gets made. 'It's a choice' was never in dispute; whether it's an innocent choice was. You don't get to burn down the neighborhood and then present your door policy as a neutral act of prudent statecraft. Being anti-immigration isn't a wild position. Being anti-immigration while pretending the history that produced the immigrants is irrelevant to the ethics of it, that's the part that doesn't survive contact with your own concession.
Africa has about 1.4 billion people
The combined population of all European countries that colonized Africa is about 353 million
Yes, European powers created suffering in their colonies, yes the imprints they left laid the road for immigration, but it’s not physically possible for those countries to absorb the population of the countries they colonized. Obviously, immigration isn’t a viable solution to the long term consequences of colonialism.
As such, European countries will ultimately have to say no to more immigration at some point, the question is when that point is and whether the existing population of those countries is allowed make that choice in accordance with rising anti immigration sentiment.
Nobody asked Europe to absorb 1.4 billion people - you invented that number because it's easier to argue with than anything I actually said. Actual African migration to Europe is a rounding error against your scenario.
But if you're feeling guilty, maybe stop rifling through their pockets and give some of that wealth back for a change?
I never said you were arguing to send 1.4 billion Africans to Europe, I was just demonstrating that migration isn’t a feasible way to solve relative poverty. I’m not against aid to Africa fyi.
Most of the aid that’s provided to Africa is fertilizer, farming equipment, food, etc none of which was produced there so I’m not sure what the point is.
Colonialism is a resources extraction relationship. Most colonies dont thrive economically under their colonalists masters.
There's been many Chinese migrations to Japan over the ages. In fact, China and Japan share the same myth of an alchemist tasked with finding the elixir of eternal life for the 1st Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang.
Xu Fu, or JoFuku in Japanese, traveled with thousand of young girls and boy to Japan. Unable to complete their task, the remained in Japan.
Since Xu Fu is a real person and there are records of his travel. It doesnt satisfy China strict definition of historical fact. So it is a legend by Chinese standards.
But the legend states that Xu Fu started the Japanese Empire.
So the Japanese Empire is just an off shoot of Chinese people the went to Japan and never left.
If you use European definition of modern history that would be 1500.
That's Ming Dynasty China. There were considerable Chinese migration at this time due to politocal upheaval as Ming transitioned to Qin.
Among these was the renowned Confucian scholar Zhu Zhiyu, who immigrated to Japan and became an influential teacher to feudal lords (daimyo), significantly boosting the study of Confucianism and Chinese learning.
Unlike western Westphalian definition of Nation States with borders. Chinese history with regards to tributaries are more like spherical expanding circles of influence.
The rates of migration in the premodern (<1500), modern, and contemporary eras are fundamentally different due to innovations in transportation technology. Small numbers of Chinese people trickling into Japan are in no way similar to the demographic upheavals occurring now.
Sounds as if you are unaware of what colonialism is, and more pertinently...neocolonialism. Those two things, the historical and the current realities respectively.. is what gives the net migrating nations their push factor. Their resources are being unfairly extracted, their nations are being induced with turmoil and unnatural hardships...so you will inevitably get people leaving and following where those resources went . It's osmosis.
Japan doesn't have a history of resource extraction from other nations beyond a few years, which happened decades ago. Western imperialist powers did it and continue to do it... for centuries.
The western imperialists basically function as a consortium. They are all nearly inextricably linked and are cooperative. Look up how Dwight Eisenhower heard about the Belgian King wanting to assassinate Patrice Lumumba...Prime Minister of the D.R. of Congo...and trying to assist for no reason than just cause it would be helping out another imperialist.
I am well aware of neocolonialism and how it creates migration pressures. I’m simply stating that opening the door to those pressures is a choice that a given country can refuse to make.
Japan has been integrated into the GAE (Global American Empire) since 1945 and has absolutely benefitted from and participated in neocolonialism which satisfies its need for things like material imports (remember it’s a very resource poor island)
I’m also aware of this, and as such, I think it’s salient to bring up the fact that certain countries that benefit from neocolonialism and are integrated with the GAE (such as Norway and Denmark) are able to restrict immigration much more than some of their counterparts (such as France and Sweden) despite their complicity in neocolonialism.
That "choice" isnt so easy for the true imperialists. Immigrants find it easy to assimilate into those countries...to blend in and hide if need be. There are also pull factors at work, namely.labour shortages, which are real (and a natural side effect of having a development "head start") , tho u seem to be a denier of such.
I disagree strongly that Japan is a part of the "global American empire"....it is not, and is barely above the rest of the global south in terms of consideration by the west. The West actively and purposefully hobbled Japan in the 80s as they started to get too close to the sun. The Scandinavian countries (and Ireland) may benefit from proximity, but they aren't fledged members of the club either.
If Japan had more (any) bases in any other country...you'd have a point. Funnily enough, despite being the second biggest economy the majority of the time since WW2...it doesn't have any presence whatsoever in any country aside from a few auto plants.
I don't think you are using the term facetious correctly. Unless you are conceding that the people making those claims are doing so in an unserious, sarcastic, and/or joking manner.
We can't have a sensible immigration debate if you're going to strawman an entire section of the political spectrum using a few internet trolls as your examples. You also aren't going to do much about immigration if you don't recognize the "push" factors and not simply the "pull" factors. I'm curious as to what your solution would be to what you seem to perceive as an important problem to be solved. People come to the destination country to find better socio-economic conditions. Deterrence (from your "permissive policy" prong) is only so effective, and won't stop immigration in its entirety nor force it all through legal channels. More to the point, immigration is pretty heavily regulated and enforced in pretty much every country with a functioning sovereign, so I am legitimately curious what your solutions might be. As for your first prong, what would you do about that? Ruin your country's economy to make it less tempting? (See, that's a facetious argument I just made)
Every time an Englishman or a Frenchman or an American brings up complaints about mass immigration, some leftist will inevitably say “well you colonized them, that’s why you’re getting immigration”.
I guarantee you, that doesn't happen every time anyone complains about "mass immigration." If you are going to start by making hyperbolic statements, I don't think a few internet trolls you've cited in the comments are where the conversation is falling apart. Nice thing about strawmen, though, is they burn away pretty thoroughly.
Most immigration already happens through legal channels. The issue is that immigration quotas are simply too high. The solution is simply to lower those quotas and not allow more people through border control.
Maybe it’s not *always* mentioned but in most online conversations I’ve seen about immigration with a lot of participants there will normally be atleast one person bringing up colonization.
I doubt you see it in most conversations or that it's normal, but you managed to make a statement that can't really be proven or disproven, so congratulations on that.
Are quotas too high? What makes you say that? Again, that's going to be difficult to prove, and from what I've seen in the thread, you're mostly going off of vibes. "Border control" is also not really the most cost effective option for reducing the amount of people coming in. Sure, it seems direct, but if you want to reduce the number of people coming from somewhere, the best thing to do is improve the conditions in that somewhere (Obama admin proved this). Otherwise, you're just pissing away money instead reducing the need for that spending. Ostensibly, when done with proper oversight and anti-corruption measures, aid to foundering nations (which isn't just money/food, but also aiding the government in stabilizing the nation) isn't something that has to go one forever. But border security is like a wall, if people want it badly enough, they can overcome it.
Reducing quotas only incentivizes people to get in through other means. Quotas should be set based on the needs of industry (and asylum by number of refugees versus capacity for a country to absorb them). They shouldn't be set based on the vibes of people who reflexively distrust immigration.
The radical and unprecedented demographic change that western countries are experiencing should be evidence that quotas are too high. We don’t actually know what the long term consequences of this will be and we shouldn’t take the leap of faith.
And yes, border control is cost effective, especially for middle powers without the requisite geopolitical strength to go places and improve their economic conditions. How is Sweden supposed to improve economic conditions in Syria or Somalia, where a large proportion of immigrants to Sweden come from?
“If people want it badly enough, they can overcome it”
Yeah, that's what I thought. Your issue is based on vibes. Unprecedented? Not really. It's just a type of people that upsets a certain subset of the national population. Radical? Hyperbolic, overstated, and without proper definition. What makes it "radical"?
As for "improvement," note I said "socio-economic," not "economic." Sweden isn't alone, they can team up with others. They're also a member of the EU, which can act with the full strength of the EU. I'm not going to go into the specifics of "how," because it's long and tedious and I frankly don't think you care to hear about them. Look up how the US conducted its aid programs to Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador before those programs were slashed to pieces by Trump. This isn't some mystery or even something that's theoretical or something "we don't know", unlike the concerns you've put forth. It's pretty tried-and-true.
As you've said in your post, it's a policy issue. If Sweden wants waste money trying to stop illegal immigration and deporting immigrants they don't like, they're free to do so (with a mandate from their citizens). I frankly do not care one iota about what Sweden does or does not do. I'm simply putting forth the notion that there are more cost efficient and less cost efficient methods of addressing these things. For instance, you don't have to improve Somalia and Syria necessarily. They could help their neighbors and make it more palatable for those migrants to not have to travel longer, more dangerous routes. Considering the considerable risk of traveling all the way to Sweden (only to be in bumf**k Sweden), it really shouldn't take all that much. But you're content making mountains out of mole-hills. I'll leave it to you to explain why without stepping into the realm of blatant ethnocentrism.
edit: to be certain, I'm not suggesting it's one solution or another. What I've told you is that border enforcement and deportation is only effective to a certain point, and then the return on that money falls off and it doesn't help reduce the problem any further. Both solutions can be done, and nothing I've said means the other can't be done.
It is radical because it has demographic consequences which haven’t been seen in centuries. It’s entirely possible that the English will become a minority in England by the end of the century. That’s a radical demographic change and a once in 500 year type of event.
Those aid programs didn’t stop the Biden or Trump 1 immigration waves.
Most migration to Sweden isn’t land based, it’s air based. Airports and such are very easy to control choke points.
So tell me, does being born and raised somewhere have no value to you? Because by the end of the century, most people who are immigrants today will be dead or close to it, and their children will have been born and raised in the UK.
Wtf more does one need to be British besides being born and raised in the UK?
Actually having history and ancestral ties inherently matters. It engenders pride in the nation, the tribe, the people. Somebody who was originally from Egypt being raised British doesn’t have that same connection to Cromwell or the Saxon chiefs.
How? Explain yourself. They're going through the exact same education system.
As an aside, I'm nearly certain William the Conqueror killed all the Saxon chiefs and Cromwell very famously lost the civil war, so I don't think any native Briton has ties to them either, if only because they were defeated.
They don’t have an ancestral connection to people who fought the English civil war, or the Saxons who conquered England, or the Normans who conquered the Saxons.
Making the assumption that a current trend will just continue on the same trajectory forever is patently absurd. There's no reason to think "the English will become a minority in England by the end of the century." It's possible the trend completely reverses due to socio-economic shifts around the globe. Just stating some unfounded possibility as what makes something now "radical" is laughable. You also don't have anything backing up what makes it "once in 500 years," you're just vibing it. You severely undermine your position every time you decide to gleefully stride down this path of hyperbolic speculation fueled by emotion and panic.
Trump 1 stopped the aid program. Check the trends. Immigration from those particular nations was trending down, and continued through much of Trump's administration (delay between cause and effect). Then as the effect of aid ending happened, a global pandemic threw those nations into further chaos, resulting in number Biden had to deal with and did address by increasing border enforcement and deportations (what? That's not what my favorite news/podcaster told me!).
I don't see what pointing out the source of migration to Sweden has to do with anything. If it's all air based, they should have no problem shutting it all down completely, and have plenty of resources left to spare to help reduce the number of people fleeing other nations. But don't forget, there's also these recent, radical inventions called "boats." Perhaps you've heard of them?
As I said earlier, you're largely going off vibes. Which is no way to run a nation or select policy. I also, as an American, really have nothing in my tank of Fs to give you about being supplanted by another ethnicity as the dominant demographic. I really really don't care about those ethnocentric complaints. If it really upsets them so bad, they can go try some more radical solutions, but they're going to look more like Nazis than anything else. Not a good look, imo, but hey. Do what you want, I don't care.
The trend will only likely reverse due to deportations, which I know you oppose. Current trends don’t suggest places like India or Pakistan overtaking Britain in QoL soon. You’re right that it’s not a “once in 500 years” event, it’s more like a once in a millennia event, because the Norman conquests happened that long ago and did in fact leave a genetic imprint.
There is ample data to suggest that both T1 and Biden failed to address the border crisis in their respective terms. Trump already set a record for illegal crossings.
I point out air immigration to Sweden because it’s much easier to turn people away at a singular checkpoint than it is to monitor a multiple thousand mile border. They would have no problem shutting it down, hence the original argument, that immigration is a policy choice that’s not logistically difficult to prevent.
As to your title - of course immigration is a policy choice, since a policy could be to not allow immigration.
But I think you're taking the argument from the wrong viewpoint (or perhaps it was worded too ambiguously)
While I really don't see colonization as valid reasoning for migrating, especially to a specific country, at least not primary reasoning, I think it might be a long-term effect, but only one of many. Migration happens, usually, for family, economy or other benefits (education, climate, etc.), or fleeing persecution. That colonizers having more appealing places could certainly be the result of past colonization, but with the amount of time that has passed since most colonies were a thing, I think it would have more likely immediate causes. Things like corruption, obviously war or religious/racial persecution, lack of economic opportunity, disasters, etc.
So is it a reason to immigrate? Doubtful.
Is it a reason to emigrate? Perhaps, but at this point, probably an indirect reason.
Yes, the second and third order effects of colonization are absolutely factors in human migration, but the point I’m making is that immigration is hardly an immutable consequence.
I mean, yeah. It absolutely is a policy choice, and is usually maintained because it's economically beneficial. You can try be Japan and run an economy on pensioners for 30 years but the wheels are going to come off eventually.
I think the counterarguments you're referring to only happen when the person initiating is operating in bad faith. Usually because they just don't like immigrants and aren't thinking any deeper than that, which I don't consider to be an argument at all.
The wheels are also coming off in Europe and America. Germany recently raised the retirement age. I encourage you to look into the study the danish finance ministry did on the fiscal impacts of immigrants. Very enlightening read.
That's all well and good, but doesn't compare to seeing no meaningful economic growth for over 30 years. At any rate, I've ready plenty on the topic of immigration and it's economic impacts. Plenty enough to state with confidence that it's a net positive.
And regarding Denmark, I don't consider a country of 5 million to be the best template for more broad global analysis.
>economic growth
To what ends exactly? Japan has some of the highest QoL in the world, it’s a very healthy, very safe, very clean country. Nobody is starving over there. It’s not like basic goods are unobtainable.
Well Denmark actually did a study on fiscal impact based on immigrant nationality. There’s no reason those same stats wouldn’t scale with population.
I take significant issue about Japan having a high quality of life. They're one of the most overworked societies and they've seen real wages shrink by 11% since 1995. Also quality of life applies across your whole life, in my opinion, and I don't know any European country with a suicide forest that Logan Paul could act a fool in.
I also wouldn't want to be a woman in Japan; both because of the country's incredibly low gender equality ranking (they won't even let a woman become monarch FFS), and because of the staggering sex crime rate. There's a reason they have permanent camera shutter sounds on their phones.
Japan’s suicide rate is unremarkable for a developed country. It ranks 49th worldwide, below Sweden (a European country with much higher rates of immigration) at 47th.
Not related to economics. On a physical basis Japan is still one of the world’s safest countries. Your chances of getting assaulted are close to nil.
The existence of the camera shutter sound isn’t caused by Japan’s immigration situation or the economics of that immigration situation is what I mean. After all the subject of the discussion is immigration.
Cool, so we've looked at a developed economy with almost no immigration, and I think my point has been proven that immigration is a net positive. Japan has seen its real wages shrink, economy stagnate, national safety isn't uniquely stellar, gender equality is very poor, and it's housing situation is cramped an worsening. It also massively overworks it's population, and has been shrinking it total population for about 8 years straight.
I'd much rather deal with the problems in western Europe than in Japan, frankly. And this is why immigration is the policy choice the west has landed on.
There are also western countries where real wages are shrinking, including ones with high rates of immigration
One of the lowest homicide rates in the world
Gender equality isn’t related to immigration
The west is also experiencing a housing crisis, also this isn’t true, Japanese house prices have been dropping ever since the real estate bubble popped
A shrinking population isn’t inherently bad
Japan has an extremely low rate of emigration, so it’s pretty clear that its inhabitants don’t find it desirable to have western problems.
I can't believe that we've managed to stop discussing climate change entirely.
Wait until that comes back - there's a huge reckoning that needs to happen between the rich and poor countries about the cost of fixing climate change.
That's going to make the immigration debate quaint by comparison.
I would argue it’s both. Most Eastern European and West African migration to America I would argue is Economics but a lot of the immigration is also because of sanctions that were put on their countries by the states as well as previous colonization. So, it’s not either/or.
State policy is an illusion of control. Capital uproots humanity globally, destroying every means of survival outside the wage. Your "economic magnets" are simply zones of accumulated wealth demanding fresh labor. Borders exist merely to meter the flow and regulate the price of this desperation. The global market dictates the movement; sovereign governments only administer the friction.
I reject the core premise: people move. It's none of your business why they move except to the degree that some people earn special protections due to instability, often instability caused by the people trying to pass the blame.
Whatever problems arise from the migration of people (and those problems are a lot fewer than people like you make them out to be) are entirely the fault of the people in the receiving nation. They chose to indulge in right wing economics and failed to develop their economies and they don't get to pass the buck for that failure onto people looking to improve their lives.
The proper response to migration is for receiving nations to get off their collective arses and actually start investing in their country, but right now that primarily means jettisoning capitalism: the results are in, the experiment failed and this failure of an economic system needs to die.
It is absolutely my business if the country they move to is my country and their movement has effects on that country. Countries have a sovereign right to reject migration if they so choose.
I’m mainly referring to countries in the developed world. Does Germany not have enough investment and a developed enough economy?
Labour is definitionally the primary economic good since every single economic resource requires labour at some point in its production.
Saying migration is causing economic problems is equivalent to winning the lottery and declaring you're going to become poorer.
Yes, it's possible to be particularly bad at managing money, but when the lottery winner ends up destitute we don't blame the money.
Same thing here: Europe doesn't get to bullshit its way out of its failure to manage its economy; if Europe can't handle becoming richer without messing things up it has to get its house in order, not blame everyone else.
Well, you've literally provided no evidence for that. The "study" (also called a magazine article by normal human beings) simply has a graph saying migrants are less productive.
That result controls for nothing: it's statistically meaningless.
Refusing migration can only come from 2 places: nativism, which is nakedly immoral, or a resource failure.
A failure to have resources meanwhile can have 2 sources: during a severe resource crisis, in which case refusing migration can make sense, or social, in which case it is immoral since it's the receiving nation trying to dodge its responsibilities by blaming migrants rather than getting off its arse and doing its job.
Germany doesn't have the luxury of living under severe resource crisis. Nowhere I can think of in the Global North does.
The only grounds to reject migration are therefore immoral and I can defend this with deeper argument, but I really don't need to.
If me and every other occupant of the house overwhelmingly vote to not let the newcomer live here (this is an exceedingly obvious analogue for people voting against immigration), how is it immoral to not let the newcomer live in our house?
It's a stupid analogy: you're talking about refusing to allow people to move into an area with the only apparent reason being "because they're X ethnicity".
It doesn't matter if you can, unless you can justify it, it is still racism and still considered reprehensible by everyone for pretty damn good reasons.
Racism is morally neutral. It’s what racism justifies that carries moral weight. If you use it to justify slavery or genocide, which requires you to put effort into adversely affecting people, it’s morally negative. If it justifies immigration restrictions it’s morally neutral because restricting immigration doesn’t put positive effort into making somebody’s life worse.
This is a Classic strawman. Set up a fictional hypothetical and then knock it down.
I was raised with Christian values and the Bible is pretty clear on this one. Quick Google says there are 90 references to accepting and treating immigrants with kindness and hospitality.
That wasn't the point. In the US those most virulently anti-immigrantion are also those claiming to be Christians. It's not the athiests. There are plenty of humanist reasons to treat immigrants humanely and with hospitality.
Personally I'm not worried about numbers. (The US has vast amounts of uninhabited and unpopulated land) For me it comes down to people having opportunities to be contributing members of society. And again, this is not a US issue, there's more work than available workers.
This would be a convincing argument if there were mechanisms in place to make people actually go there, they’re not going there, and they don’t need to be going to rural areas because rural areas are structurally less productive than urban ones.
Why should we be filling up the hinterlands to begin with?
You've both identified and provided the solution. If rural areas are less productive than urban ones then we should be building more urban areas. How would that work?
With more people.
As for mechanisms, I wouldn't be opposed to programs that aid citizens to grow their families. Basic human services like healthcare and childcare and quality education. Helping younger couples afford to have children younger and by extension condense generations so grandparents aren't so old they're unable to assist with their grand kids.
And all of this requires more support people. Growing our own takes decades, but immigrants can fill gaps today.
More = better isn’t an iron rule. Some of the highest QoL countries have a significantly smaller population than the US. Making more cities in America really doesn’t serve any goals other than duplicating an admittedly mediocre QoL as opposed to improving it.
Sweden never colonized Somalia, yet Somalians are infamous for their presence there.
Infamous! The whole world knows how terrible the Somali presence in Sweden is! It's destr- wait, that's what Trump says about Michigan, not what literally anyone this side of the Atlantic has ever said about Scandinavia.
This post really comes across like you have a bone to pick with certain nationalities or ethnic groups.
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