Economic "growth" seems to be doing less and less for most people in the developed world (though the opposite is true in the developing world). Its financial benefits mainly accrue at the very top of society; most people just get squeezed. Less housing, depressed wages, ever more crowded and less available services, the list of consequences of constant growth goes on.
The issue has a toxic element of anti-immigrant racism, but many are turning against the idea because they think the net negatives outweigh the positives. Switzerland's upcoming referendum is this in a microcosm. The right-wing anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party got 100,000 signatures to trigger their referendum, but support for the measure is also coming from outside their base. Polling has the result at near 50:50. If it passes, it will force a Western government to do something no one has ever had to do before – run a country where you cannot have endless economic growth.
While some countries worry about falling birth rates, Switzerland may go in the opposite direction. They're having a referendum to cap their population at 10 million.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
16 Comments
Clickbait isn’t it though, they don’t want a population made up of people who aren’t swiss in Switzerland hardly a crazy idea.
Imagine actually giving a fuck about your own people.
What happens when someone gives birth to the first child past ten million? Are they going to exile the baby because the country is at capacity? This seems ill thought out…
>Economic “growth” seems to be doing less and less for most people.Â
That’s because we haven’t been allowed to grow. The left ties one hand behind our backs. Too much success is bad to them, so they won’t allow it. And then you end up complaining about not having enough.
This isn’t about economic growth. They just don’t want immigrants.
Talk to the 3rd world about the greatest reduction in poverty in human history that happened over the last 2 decades before saying “Economic “growth” seems to be doing less and less for most people”.
All I can say is, careful what you wish for.
This does not address main cause of immigration – so called first world counties prospered on pillaging the rest of the world for centuries and continue doing so today. Brains follow resource pillage and deprive most of the countries a potential to grow. Dollar slave system should be abolished, corporations should be held accountable of any wrongdoing by prosecuting CEO and board members, not just by fines which they consider simply a cost of business.
If the population exceeds 10M people, they don’t start euthanizing people. They just drop net immigration to zero. Since fertility is below replacement, they could in theory use immigration to maintain their population at this level.
This may be (okay is) rooted in anti-immigrant sentiment. However the idea of wanting to stabilize the population at 10M is a very sound idea. But the sentiment of many redditors seems to be that a population which isn’t growing is a catastrophe.
Nothing to do with racism, infinite growth is impossible and leading to catastrophe. If every country capped thier population alot of problems would be reduced.
Switzerland isn’t a normal country.
Switzerland has hit a sweet spot where the government finances itself with the taxes from foreign deposits in their banks, which allows them to keep taxes on their citizens low and public job wages (for their citizens) high, while having immigrant temporary workers do most if the actual work for much lower wages…
Swiss citizens aren’t either creating much wealth, or doing much work, but If there were more citizens, they would have to distribute the same amount of wealth among more people…
This shit is so lame.
You can’t benefit from a system of exploitation and then get mad when the exploited ask to be let in.
People are way too worried about immigration while putting like zero blame on the governments and organizations that displace people in the first place.
The Swiss birth rate is 1.3. they’re definitely “worrying” – this is a response to that.
While other countries are propping up their GDP by having an “increasing population” via immigration. The Swiss know at least as well as anyone: GDP is just a number, not an economic reality.
The horseshoe of freaks trying to bulldoze and replace their own cultures with identitarian mythology is coming together with the “degrowth” freaks wanting to bulldoze their own industry and infrastructure and making a deal they think they’ll both be able to best the other at. This is happening all over the west, but there was another time not too long ago, not too far from there, where the nationalists and socialists held hands to vie for power and it didn’t take long (a night, really) for the latter to get wiped out.
The main trap these movements set is against anyone doing earnest analyses and considering rational holistic approaches to dealing with these very real issues, leveraging polarization and fake centrists to shut them down as working for opposite extremes simultaneously.
Not really sure what to do about it exactly, but there will continue being headlines on sweeping and poorly thought out policy proposals (can’t wait for Brexit 2) until something changes.
That’s a surprisingly SANE idea! Good job Switzerland!
I’ve always said that economic growth that disguised as devaluation is fake. The numbers are all fake and come at the cost of working poor.
One in 4 workers are foreign. Switzerland needs the babies.
Me and everyone I know are voting “no”.
SVP is a racist party run by billionaires. Fuck em.
This initiative was spearheaded by the SVP (Right wing, populist, nationalist) It has no merit and basically insane. Hopefully (and most probably) will not pass.