Zero immigration and sustainable populations
By Eric Claus
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
In April 2006 the Australian Government Productivity Commission published a report entitled Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth. The study included economic modelling of an increase in skilled migration of an extra 50,000 migrants per year, for 20 years, compared to the skilled migration numbers in 2004-05. Some of the conclusions were:
• economic gains accrue mostly to skilled migrants and capital owners (page 151);
• hourly wages will drop slightly under high immigration (page 161);
• the incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than would otherwise be the case (page 151);
• these results are consistent with research both in Australia and overseas (page 161); and
• environmental impacts are likely to impose a drag on productivity and living standards, but the details are "too hard" to quantify (page 122).
This is not a report by some racist group that wants to limit immigration to keep Australia white. This is not a report by some deep green environmental group that wants everybody to live in communes and wear jute shirts. This is the Productivity Commission. The Productivity Commission - primarily an economic research organisation.
If the economic case only benefits the capital owners and makes the average citizen worse off economically, without even considering environmental and sustainability impacts, why is it being done?
The obvious answer seems to be that the capital owners are running the show for their own benefit, at the expense of the average Australian. And why shouldn’t they. Their goal is to maximise profits and high immigration helps them do that. High immigration increases the supply of workers. Increased supply of labour, lowers the cost of labour. Lower labour costs means an increase in profits.
High immigration also increases the supply of consumers. Increased demand means higher prices. Higher prices mean increased profits. It’s a double bonus. Higher profits from lower labour costs and higher demand. Whoopee.
But something that obvious would be quickly exposed by the ever diligent media. Or perhaps they have other incentives. On October 28, the Sydney Morning Herald ran an editorial entitled “Keep the doors open”. The sales pitch is that Australia needs high immigration to have solid economic growth and then the implication is that this economic growth will benefit every Australian. But it just isn’t so. The editorial writer’s trick is to say that “the 2006-07 migrant intake benefited the economy by $516 million in the first year” and then we are supposed to think that we got some of that $516 million. The SMH is smart enough to make sure they don’t mention that the average Australian gets none of that massive $25 per person.
With a significant part of newspaper profits coming from real estate advertising, it is not hard to understand why newspapers pump up the housing market, but how far can their logic be stretched. They admit that there is a housing shortage, rents are too high and finance is hard to get in the current climate, so the answer is … wait for it … bring in a lot more people to increase the demand for housing. That will make housing harder to obtain, rents will become higher and finance harder to get, but it will increase profits for the housing industry. At least we know who comes out ahead.
Another angle we hear is that we need immigration because we have a skills shortage. What that really means is: we have a skills shortage at the salaries we are willing to pay. We never have a skills shortage for investment bankers. We always have plenty of them, because they get paid a motza. We have a shortage of qualified tradesmen because it is a really tough job that doesn’t pay very well. If the pay was increased, there wouldn’t be a shortage of qualified tradesmen, but that would reduce the profits of the construction companies and factory owners. The easier solution, for business, is to call for increased skilled immigration to keep wages down and profits up.
The skills shortage is a major change from the usual “can do” attitude of business. For example:
• ask business what we should do about climate change and they respond, “Business can sort that out - use market forces with a carbon trading scheme and use geosequestration in coal fired power plants”;
• ask business what we should do about water shortages and they respond, “Business can sort that out - build new desalination plants, dams and pipelines”;
• ask business what we should do about Fossil Fuel depletion and they respond, “Business can sort that out - replacements for petroleum will be found as soon as the price gets high enough”;
• ask business what we should do about depletion of farmland and they respond, “Business can sort that out - market forces from higher food prices will give farmers incentives to repair their land”; then
• ask business what we should do about the skills shortage and they respond “Oh, nothing we can do. Government needs to bring in lots more skilled migrants or the Australian economy will fall apart.”
Another issue sometimes associated with immigration is the ageing population. Most commentators know that increased immigration doesn’t significantly slow the ageing of the population, because the average age of migrants is only a little less than the average age of the overall population and migrants age, just like existing residents. Not everybody is clear about that, though.
A few years ago, Louise Markus, Federal Liberal Member in the seat of Greenway, rang me in response to a letter I wrote her regarding the negative environmental impacts of increased population. She said something like “But Eric, we need increased immigration to battle the effects of our ageing population.” I said immigration doesn’t do anything for the ageing population and the phone went quiet for a few seconds. She then said “Well I don’t think most of the people in Greenway agree with you on population.” Game, set and match.
What really mattered to her, and to all politicians, is what the majority of voters think. Politicians don’t need to clutter their minds with logical arguments, as long as they are on the same page as the electorate.
It would be easy to blame business for lowering our standard of living and politicians for being their accomplices, but that is wrong. It is NOT up to business to make Australia sustainable (although it would happen more quickly if they led the way). It is up to the citizens of Australia to vote in the politicians who will best serve their interests. Both major parties now serve the interests of big business.
We have given business the goal of making profits for themselves and they have done that very well, and provided us with the goods and services that make Australia one of the best places on earth to live. When business is given limitations and guidelines, they adapt to those guidelines and continue to produce the high quality goods and services that make Sydney such a great place to live.
If Australia adopted net zero immigration and made efforts to become more sustainable, business would adapt and smart businessmen would continue to make millions and billions, because the changes would not be that great. It is also likely that the average Australian would be better off and the average Australian’s children and grandchildren will be better off in the future.
Eric Claus has worked in civil and environmental engineering for over 20 years.
Original article
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There is now a large body of research that completely undercuts the view that diversity of race, religion, or ethnicity is a strength.
“In ethnic conflicts, people seem to follow a similar behavior pattern across all existing developmental, civilizational, and cultural boundaries. The more the population is divided into separate ethnic groups, the more they seem to become organized along ethnic lines in interest conflicts, and the more often they tend to resort to violence in ethnic conflicts.”
And likewise: “Ethnic nepotism belongs to human nature and … it is independent from the level of socioeconomic development (modernization) and also from the degree of democratization.”
"Robert Putnam of Harvard did a large-scale study of 41 different American communities that ranged from the extreme homogeneity of rural South Dakota to the very mixed populations of such places as Los Angeles. He found a firm correlation between homogeneity and level of trust, with the greatest distrust in the most racially diverse areas. He was not happy with these results, and checked his findings by controlling for other variables that might affect levels of trust, such as poverty, age, crime rates, population densities, education, commuting time, home ownership, etc. He found that none of these had much effect on trust, and concluded that “diversity per se has a major effect.”
In extensive surveys in these 41 communities, Prof. Putnam found that as racial diversity increases, there is a consistent pattern of lower levels of happiness, withdrawal from community life, and less confidence in local leaders and news media"
"Dora Costa of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Matthew Kahn of Tufts University analyzed 15 recent studies of the impact of diversity on social cohesion. They found that every study had “the same punch line: heterogeneity reduces civic engagement. In more diverse communities, people participate less as measured by how they allocate their time, their money, their voting and their willingness to take risks to help others.”
"A wide-ranging "global attitudes" survey of more than 45,000 people in 47 countries released yesterday by the Pew Research Center finds assorted populations are warm to the benefits of global trade. But they're cool — downright chilly in some cases — toward the toll it could exact on their national identities.
Should each country guard their innate culture and lifestyle? The answer was a rousing "yes" — again in 46 out of 47 of the countries. In the U.S., 62 percent said we should protect our way of life. Those sentiments were more pronounced among Republicans (71 percent) than Democrats (60 percent).
The number was just more than half in Britain, France and Germany, but 90 percent in Egypt, Indonesia and India.
Perils of immigration concerned people in 44 out of the 47 countries, where the majority of respondents said immigration should be more restricted in their homelands.
Only Japanese, South Koreans and Palestinians were comfortable with their immigration policies. Three-quarters of the American respondents wanted more restrictions; similar findings were revealed in Spain, Britain and Russia."
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/05/immigration-loss-of-culture-worry-nations/
http://www.workforce.com/section/11/feature/23/42/49/
"Employers spend billions on diversity programs, but there's little evidence of improved business performance, financial results, or accountability. Meanwhile, discrimination cases are on the rise."
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