“A reasoned case can be put that the NHS, the education system, welfare state, housing stock and even our transport infrastructure cannot cope with a rapid and relentless growth in the number of people living here. However, these are all areas run or heavily controlled by the state. It’s rare to hear Tesco complain that there are too many customers wanting to buy groceries or cinemas that too many wish to watch movies.”
|
|||||
|
We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people. Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house] Authors
Arts, Tech & CultureCivil LibertiesCommentary
EconomicsSamizdatistas |
Samizdata quote of the dayJanuary 18th, 2023 |
 12 comments to Samizdata quote of the day |
Who Are We?The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling. We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe. CategoriesArchivesFeed This PageLink Icons   |
|||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||
The idea that there has always been mass immigration to the British Isles is a myth – when it was legal it was quite rare, the genetics of these islands were much the same for centuries (other than a few aliens such as some of my ancestors) before recent decades.
The line applies “Welfare State or de facto free migration (weak borders) – pick one, you can NOT have both”.
And before anyone pipes up with the United States as a counter example – it very much is a Welfare State (just a very badly organised one), and has been since the mid 1960s. And, oddly enough. it was the 1965 Immigration Act that really messed up the American immigration system.
Senator “Teddy” Kennedy kept saying that he had no intention of changing the demographics of the United States with his 1965 Immigration Act – thus showing that this WAS (not was not) his intention.
As for the United Kingdom – England (specifically England) is massively overpopulated, unless one thinks it should be giant city-state.
As we already import food, fuel (yes fuel – we have plenty of our own, but things are so bleeped up that we have ended up importing it) raw materials and manufactured goods, things are going to go well in the future here – at least for those of us who do not hold that “money” that is just lights on a computer screen (lights that can be turned OFF at any time – since what happened to the “foreign exchange reserves” of Russia, everyone knows that now) are going to be accepted for food, fuel, raw materials and manufactured goods, for much longer.
By the way – if (if) any Americans are smiling at this, I suspect your trade position is worse than ours. There is nothing for any of us to smile about.
Even some countries with Social Democrat governments seem to have a better grasp of things than we do.
For example, Denmark, yes high taxes, I know – and, no, I do not approve – although its reputation for high taxes is rather biased because it does not take into account that Denmark does not have “national insurance” taxes. Denmark controls immigration (even Sweden does not allow vast numbers of Albanians and so on – in fact it allows none), and has a balanced budget.
I do not believe the Danish Welfare State will survive in the long term – but they are acting in a way that might (might) allow it to survive.
Britain and the United States, with their de facto open borders (and most of the people coming over those borders are low skill, net benefit takers, – if they are not actual criminals) and massive budget deficits, really are not acting in a sustainable way – not even close.
And the Danish government is not pushing Covid injections on the young.
I missed a “not” from the first comment – things are not going to go well in the United Kingdom and the United States in the future. This whole economic model of paying bills (domestic and foreign) with “money” that is created from nothing, is not going to work.
And the mass immigration, fake “asylum seekers” and so on, is mostly of relatively low skill people (benefit and public services seekers) – even when they are not members of criminal gangs – and they often are members of criminal gangs.
It is not going to work. Indeed this system, this new United States and new United Kingdom, is already not working well.
Socialized medicine changes the relationship between provider and patient. You are no longer a customer – a source of income – but since they already have their funding as a line item in a budget, the patient now becomes an expense.
Paul Marks writes:
The idea that there has always been mass immigration to the British Isles is a myth – when it was legal it was quite rare, the genetics of these islands were much the same for centuries (other than a few aliens such as some of my ancestors) before recent decades.
There have been some sizable migrations. The Irish who left Ireland in the 19th Century, working as “navvies” and in the docks and industrial cities of the time were a notable influx, and plenty of unflattering things were written and said about them. There were the Hugenot French, various Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, and of course groups from the Indian sub-continent, Africa and Caribbean in the 20th Century. There have been enough moves to weigh up the overall impact, which – with the possible exception of those from the more conservative muslim lands – haven’t been particularly difficult in terms of culture and social cohesion. Look at Hindus in the UK today – they seem to have assimilated very well, ditto those from the Caribbean. (To the extent that this hasn’t happened, it is often the Left making culture war mischief, although old-style racial bigotry was an issue in the early days).
By the way, Paul, I have always wondered whether you were an alien, and now you confirmed it. (Grin.)
Surely it doesn’t have to be that way though. How difficult would it be to arrange for hospital trusts and doctor’s surgeries to be paid based on how many patients they treated with successful outcomes? Combined with the ability of patients to choose which practice they went with.
I don’t think it’s the socialised medicine that’s the issue, it’s the whole social welfare model where those who have not contributed can claim. If we were still operating upon the social, co-operative, charity and insurance model pre-WW1 where these weren’t crowded out by statist interventions (such as Beveridge), then there would still be a pull for migrants, but less of a freeloader problem.
It’s those that get a free-ride that not only cause costs to rise excessively, but lead others to abuse the system as well. I mean why not? If Abdul can do it, why can’t Jonny Smith?
Meanwhile in Japan
Japan city hall refused Brazilian woman’s welfare request, said ‘go back to own country’
JP – the Irish who came to England in the 19th century were not really immigrants, as it was one country at the time (although, yes, they were often treated as if they were immigrants) – as for the British Isles (“these islands” as I called it), the last real population replacement, other than what may (may) be happening now, was at the start of the Bronze Age – something like a 90% of the population were replaced then (it happened in most of Europe – although not all of it, for example it did not happen in Sardinia).
The east of what is now England got a bit of a transformation on the fall of the Roman Empire (we know this from genetics), but it was new Indo Europeans (Germanic ones – the English) pushing out (or replacing – there may have been massive plague) other Indo Europeans (the Romano-British – or “Celts” if we are still allowed to use that word).
Me – yes I have alien genetics, on a whim I had my DNA tested some years ago, I am, mostly, not English (I knew that – but it was scientifically confirmed).
James Power (my maternal grandfather) was British armed forces in both World Wars and in another bit of unpleasantness (so no Waterford Ireland for him). My paternal ancestors were violent East End Jews – , but just the right side of the law (I have also stayed on the right side of the law).
But I do have a bit of English ancestry – my maternal grandmother, “Ethel Draper” was her maiden name, hard to imagine a more English name than that.
Long dead now – so I have no opportunity to ask her how the lady ended up marrying James Power, or what the lady thought of her daughter marrying Harry Marks – he of the various bullet scars, that he did not get in the war. “And what did the lady think of YOU Paul” – best not to know.
By the way – it as my mother (not my father) who was assumed to be Jewish, because she (however these things are supposed to work) “looked Jewish” more than he did.
By strict Jewish law I am not Jewish – at it is supposed to be passed on down the maternal line, but everyone assumed I was, because my mother “looked Jewish”.
The late Denis O’Keefe said I “looked Irish” (given his ancestry I took that as a complement) and was baffled that I could be any relation to my Half Brother Tony Marks.
Tony Marks was on the other side in the ideological conflict – I wonder if he is still alive. He was in 2000 when our father died in 2000 – he was tracked him down to inform him that our father was dead (which may have been an alarming experience for him, I do not know, but there was no hostile intent, the Cold War being over).
There have been some sizable migrations
Not on the scale of the past 25 years, which has totally (and most likely permanently) changed the demographics of the UK.
I have had this change rammed home recently- I started a job at my old secondary school a few months ago. When I joined it over 30 years ago there were around 600 students, of which 90-95% were white British. Now they have over 1400 students, and the white British students are less than 40% of the total.
This huge increase is all due to immigration, and if replicated nationwide will result in us being a minority in the not-too-distant future.
Paul Marks, writes:
JP – the Irish who came to England in the 19th century were not really immigrants, as it was one country at the time (although, yes, they were often treated as if they were immigrants) – as for the British Isles (“these islands” as I called it), the last real population replacement, other than what may (may) be happening now, was at the start of the Bronze Age – something like a 90% of the population were replaced then (it happened in most of Europe – although not all of it, for example it did not happen in Sardinia).
Unfortunately a lot of people who disliked Irish immigrants were not swayed by the fact that Ireland was, at the time, part of the UK. After all, under legislation in the late 1940s, and as explained by J Enoch Powell in the 1950s and 60s, lots of people from Commonwealth nations were entitled to try and come and live in the UK.
The fact is that a lot of Irish people, for various reasons, came to England in the 19th century, as they also moved to the US, Australia and other places because of the Famine, the economic hardship and so on. Their arrival was not always enjoyed by the locals. Prejudice against Irish people, often accused of being drunks, violent and chaotic, existed for years.
Andy writes: Not on the scale of the past 25 years, which has totally (and most likely permanently) changed the demographics of the UK.
I’d go a bit easy on the use of the word “totally”. Since Brexit, for example, a lot of Poles have left the UK to return to Poland, where they can enjoy a better relative living standard (cheaper housing). And I am guessing that unless economic growth increases under the current managerialist Sunak administration, lots of other people, from all ethnic backgrounds, might want to go, such as those in their 20s and 30s who are in despair about affording a house and raising a family.
Those who fear immigration might soon be more focused on stopping an exodus. Rather as the doomongers on the Green side might soon have to confront a shrinking global population. China’s population is now in decline.
Mass, sustained immigration can be a problem, but as the Littlewood quote makes clear, it tends to be the rigid parts of a country, free of the ability to use the price signal and respond to profit and loss signals, that have the most issues with this.
J.P.
The demographic transformation that is now underway in the British Isles, including the Republic of Ireland, is without any recent precedent – indeed it may be the most radical demographic transformation since the Bronze Age when the Indo Europeans came in and largely replaced the Neolithic population. Although there is still a lot of debate about that – with some people arguing that there was massive plague and civil wars among the Neolithic population, rather than genocidal ethnic cleansing by the incoming Indo Europeans with their horse drawn spoked wheel chariots.
There are similar arguments about the coming of the English into what is now England – in many areas there was indeed a genetic transformation, but was it genocidal or did plague and civil wars mean that the Anglo Saxons were expanding into an partly empty land? The arguments continue. Yes “mass sustained immigration can be a problem” at least if one is thinking of the existing population – ask Sitting Bull, but as old nations and cultures die, so new ones are born – it may just be the turn of Britain, America and other Western lands (the cultures-nations of Western Europe) to go – to be replaced by new cultures and nations (I do not know).
Your point on China is interesting – indeed this year, 2023, may go down in history as “the year India overtook China in population”.
In all the thousands of years of Chinese civilisation they have never encountered a culture that had more people than them – well now such an encounter is going to take place.
India, not China, will be the largest population in the world.
Paul is right. The Huguenot influx was about 50,000 people. The late 19th century and early 20th Jewish immigration was approximately 200,000 across almost 50 years.
Although I appreciate economic statistics come with a health warning, the statistics here for UK net migration show high net migration as a phenomenon of the past 25-30 years, exploding under Blairism and continuing since.
Where are they going to go? Maybe immigrants or those from diasporas can return to their countries of origins if they are cheaper places to live because of family/language ties.But most Brits don’t have particularly good foreign language skills so would be mostly restricted to English language countries. Which English speaking country has cheap housing and cheap family formation? None of them. Plus there aren’t many places that let Brits move to easily now. Moving to Australia isn’t anything like it was in the £10 pom days. And with Britain out of the EU, Brits can’t easily move to these countries, even if they can speak the language.
It’ll largely be the wealthy and/or well skilled/connected/educated who will be able to take advantage of this. These may not necessarily be the people struggling to afford houses though.