LimbicNutrition Weblog

The idea that a country must continue to grow its economy through immigration without regard to the social consequences of doing so is
reckless in the extreme. It is also economically illiterate.

The weakness of the pro-immigrant argument - that we must have more immigrants to maintain our society and compete with other societies - can be seen simply by asking what would happen if no immigration took place.

In the case of the general economy, that would soon adjust to a shortage of labour. It would do this by using labour more efficiently, shifting labour to the jobs which are deemed most valuable, utilising the labour of those sections of the population currently underemployed or unemployed, eg those over the age of fifty, and by introducing ever
more efficient machines.

In the longer term, we can improve the quality of the workforce generally by providing meaningful education and training for all. Presently, large numbers of our children merge from school with precious little evidence that they had spent at least 11 years there.

Perhaps the most important thing to realise is that no person or group are indispensable to an economy. England’s history has a first rate example of how people are replaced when necessity arises. In 1290 Edward I expelled the Jews from England. They were not officially re-admitted until the 1650s. Received wisdom amongst modern British historians would have it that England should have suffered for that act, the Jews being counted as an asset to a country. In fact, in the 350 years they were
absent, England became one of the richest and most influential countries in Europe and laid the foundations for the industrial revolution. The Jews in England were replaced by Christian bankers, Christian merchants and Christian artisans. That is not to deny the abilities of Jews merely to point out that their skills are far from
unique or irreplaceable.

There is in Britain currently, in Marx’s words, a very large reserve army of labour, there being probably in excess of 3 million people unemployed. The labour force survey of the unemployed - the internationally most used standard - shows 1.8 million seeking work. To that may be added a large number of people who have retired early but
who would probably welcome a job if they could get one and the many people in higher education who are effectively delaying their entry into the labour market for no good reason.

Who would do the menial jobs if immigrants ceased to come? Many of these jobs are unnecessary. Take cleaning. With the proper equipment, one person may do what six do with a dustpan and brush. yet many industrial cleaning jobs are still undertaken with pretty rudimentary equipment. Where mechanisation is impossible, the pay for such jobs would have to be raised to a level where they attract sufficient workers or, where the jobs are not essential, not done at all.

Bringing cheap labour into a country is a sure road to ruin for an industry in the long run. Cheap labour may get employers out of an immediate hole, but in a free trading world the advantage will soon be undercut by even cheaper labour in other less developed economies and increased mechanisation in advanced countries which do not allow
imported cheap labour. This is precisely what happened to the British textile industry. In the late fifties and early sixties they important cheap labour from the sub-continent. Within 15 years most of the labour was no longer employed in the trade because the British mills had not modernised and British Mill wages although low were still nothing like as low as those in the Third World.

The future is of course always uncertain, but it is arguably more uncertain now than ever before. In the lifetimes of most people now living it is probable that genetic engineering will be used to both significantly increase average lifespans and alter the qualities and abilities of the population. To that may be added the near certainty of
advances in artificial intelligence within the next half century which will produce robots that can do most of the jobs men now do. Either of those new technologies will revolutionise society and produce great social stresses. The last thing any society will need at such times is the additional burden of racial and cultural division.

We are told that to compete with other countries we must grow our economies to become larger and larger. In fact, even with a stable or declining population, it does not follow that the country will go to rack and ruin. All it means is that the country will have to adjust to the new circumstances, which of course will occur very gradually and
allow for a for a gentle transition.

The idea that a country can only survive by having an ever increasing workforce can be seen for the fraud it is by simply pointing to the example of most of the First World economies, including Britain, whose populations have grown very slowly over the past fifty years. During that period the greatest ever expansion of their economies has taken place.

As for the pensions scare, demographic projections are notoriously unreliable. It is quite possible that in ten years time the birth rate will be above replacement level again - just looking at the people I see in the street, I suspect that the tide may already have turned because there do seem to be an awful lot of young children around. But
even if the present demographic projections are proven to be correct, the decline can be managed by making provision now. That should be done by setting up a national pension fund into which each year 1% of GDP should be invested - at present that would mean £10 billion pa - and adjusting retirement ages where necessary.

The other great lie of the immigration propagandists is that immigrants are an economic boon to the recipient country and that they pay their way through taxes. A little thought will show this is a nonsense in a country such as Britain which has a fully fledged welfare system.

Any legal immigrant coming into Britain will immediately be eligible for the full range of state provision, including healthcare, without ever having paid a penny in tax. If the immigrant has dependants they will have the same eligibility. Should the children be of school age, they will receive education free. Moreover, a large proportion of
those of working age coming to Britain remain unemployed for a considerable time, or work in the black economy where they pay no tax or NI and frequently draw benefits at the same time.

The economic disadvantage to the country is carried through to subsequent generations. We know from the statistics constantly thrust at us by government and agencies such as the CRE, that second and subsequent generation immigrants, and particularly black and Asian immigrants, are more likely than the native population to be (1)
unemployed, (2) earn less on average, (3) have a higher incidence of benefit take-up, (4) are more likely to occupy social housing and (5) commit more crime. Thus, immigrants overall down the generations do not pull their economic weight.

Immigration on a large scale will always mean that the overall quality of the immigrants is mediocre. That is so simply because there are not that many people with scarce and desirable skills and abilities. Most who come will be unskilled, poorly educated, none-too-bright and probably without adequate English. They will place pressure on our
welfare state and schools by creating additional demand. They will take low skilled jobs or be unemployed. Their availability will allow employers to remain inefficient and depress the wages of the native population who still need the jobs the immigrants compete for.

Immigrants also compete for housing, both private and public. This can have a dramatic effect as those in London are already discovering as private housing become absurdly expensive and social housing in ever shorter supply because of the pressure of immigrants.

All of these things are a cause of social disruption and expense and a good reason for not permitting mass immigration in themselves. However, there is a larger reason, namely, mass immigration is a form of conquest and should be resisted as vigorously as a military invasion.

The logic of the “ever growing need for immigrants to feed the economy” argument is that the economy is all. It assumes that men have no other concern than to grow ever richer, that the problems of race and culture are unimportant, that Man’s tribalism can be ignored. It is a recipe for incessant conflict.

Robert Henderson

The story is available at Google Groups