I acknowledge and sympathize with the pain this will cause, but in regards to Japan itself: Good for them. Not because it is a rightward shift, but because it is a shift toward pragmatism in the face of the inherent tension between respect for all people and respect for one's own people and culture.
In my humble opinion, an ideal world is a liberal one with cherry-picked, tightly controlled, practical conservative elements that boldly take on the intimidating job of maintaining the balance between love and reason.
> I mean, sure, so long as they're willing to deal with the consequences of an aging population and a shrinking workforce.
They're pretty clearly aware of the dire fear-mongering, and chose their path accordingly. They decided to sidestep the pyramid scheme of perpetual growth.
Here in Canada we've been pitched this same scary argument for decades, leading to outrageous levels of immigration, coupled with a growing entitlement among the class (which leads to a complete refusal to integrate in any meaningful way, often while incanting the laughable pablum about mosaic versus melting pot while dragging regressive, destructive habits and cultural norms to Canada, tragedy of the commons behaviour, etc).
Somehow this mass immigration has made us older, and less competitive, moving in exactly the opposite direction of the magical solution it promised while giving away the country. It has led to massive lines for every job, downward pressure on wages, and oversubscribed services at every level.
---
Every now and then there is a discussion about the difference between an "expat" and an "immigrant", but it really is important that people are honest about the difference, because it is very real, and it is informative to why the myth of immigration as a solution doesn't track with the reality that immigration is often massively destructive.
An expat is usually some Westerner that moved to some random country for adventure, a change, whatever. Occasionally they send a postcard home and share videos from the beach. Whatever.
An immigrant, on the other hand, is someone that moves to a country as a beachhead to drag their entire extended family there, often then expanding out from there. Which is precisely what many Western countries have seen where they bring in the "skilled worker", and then the skilled worker drags over their elderly parents, and also their "auntie" as a purported childcare giver, and then registers a business and sponsors their village through every loophole and circumvention, and then... This has destroyed the acceptance of immigration and completely obliterated the "oh you're getting older, something something labour shortage" nonsense.
We need to move on from the mass immigration is the solution horseshit, because all it has done is led every developed country to lurch perilously to the right, giving an easy open for charlatans to take advantage of a real problem to push a lot of ancillary things as well.
> the skilled worker drags over their elderly parents, and also their "auntie" as a purported childcare giver, and then registers a business and sponsors their village through every loophole and circumvention
It's a balancing at the regional/global level. People desire to move from worse situation to better, which leads to an averaging tendency of the source and destination. You don't like it because average means there's a little less per person where you are, since it's a destination. People at the source like the emigration because there's a little more per person (which hopefully isn't mostly absorbed by some "protective" group, like mafia, bad govt, etc). Let the balance happen; it leads to a better world overall.
Yes, physically that's a good description of the natural flow of things. No, it makes no sense for successful nations to suffer for the benefit of unsuccessful nations, generally speaking. What they should provide is aid, with varying specifics on what that means (e.g. it could be as simple as favorable trade).
To move everybody into the successful nations, rather than engage in the slow work of making all nations somewhat successful, is cruel and insane.
How are those nations suffering, when the reason that they're destinations is because they have a surplus of resources (I won't touch on the history that usually led to that surplus in the first place)? As long as a significant number of the immigrants aren't committing crimes and play by the rules the citizens go by to the best of their abilities, why is there an issue? Isn't the - ideal of the - "free market" supposed to be a thing all should aspire to?
Nations demonstrably are suffering, though. You may make arguments about what you think is/isn't the core issue (economic, cultural, crime, xenophobia, whatever), but the result is simply observable in hundreds of millions of voices.
I am not a free market absolutist - I don't think I implied that anywhere.
That's a vibe, not an argument. And the data doesn’t line up with your catastrophe story. Migration tends to raise global output and, on average, has positive effects on destination GDP per capita over time[0]. It turns out that immigrant effects on native jobs is near net zero, as there are small losses or gains depending on skill mix in the various local labour markets. Actually new immigrants have a greater effect on the jobs of old immigrants[1] (news to me, but makes sense). Similarly in welfare, there's pretty much negligible impact in more advanced economies, leaning positive over time especially when immigrants arrive as working-age adults, which is the norm[2].
I could go on, but I think that's enough research out of me. You don't have to be a "free market absolutist" to see that the reality is far more mixed than “nations are suffering.” Yes, poorly designed immigration policies can lead to problems. No, there's nothing authoritative to backup claims that immigration is broadly destructive, which makes those voices uninformed. Or prejudiced.
happytoexplain · · focus · HN ↗
In my humble opinion, an ideal world is a liberal one with cherry-picked, tightly controlled, practical conservative elements that boldly take on the intimidating job of maintaining the balance between love and reason.
greggoB · · focus · HN ↗
llm_nerd · · focus · HN ↗
They're pretty clearly aware of the dire fear-mongering, and chose their path accordingly. They decided to sidestep the pyramid scheme of perpetual growth.
Here in Canada we've been pitched this same scary argument for decades, leading to outrageous levels of immigration, coupled with a growing entitlement among the class (which leads to a complete refusal to integrate in any meaningful way, often while incanting the laughable pablum about mosaic versus melting pot while dragging regressive, destructive habits and cultural norms to Canada, tragedy of the commons behaviour, etc).
Somehow this mass immigration has made us older, and less competitive, moving in exactly the opposite direction of the magical solution it promised while giving away the country. It has led to massive lines for every job, downward pressure on wages, and oversubscribed services at every level.
---
Every now and then there is a discussion about the difference between an "expat" and an "immigrant", but it really is important that people are honest about the difference, because it is very real, and it is informative to why the myth of immigration as a solution doesn't track with the reality that immigration is often massively destructive.
An expat is usually some Westerner that moved to some random country for adventure, a change, whatever. Occasionally they send a postcard home and share videos from the beach. Whatever.
An immigrant, on the other hand, is someone that moves to a country as a beachhead to drag their entire extended family there, often then expanding out from there. Which is precisely what many Western countries have seen where they bring in the "skilled worker", and then the skilled worker drags over their elderly parents, and also their "auntie" as a purported childcare giver, and then registers a business and sponsors their village through every loophole and circumvention, and then... This has destroyed the acceptance of immigration and completely obliterated the "oh you're getting older, something something labour shortage" nonsense.
We need to move on from the mass immigration is the solution horseshit, because all it has done is led every developed country to lurch perilously to the right, giving an easy open for charlatans to take advantage of a real problem to push a lot of ancillary things as well.
skeledrew · · focus · HN ↗
It's a balancing at the regional/global level. People desire to move from worse situation to better, which leads to an averaging tendency of the source and destination. You don't like it because average means there's a little less per person where you are, since it's a destination. People at the source like the emigration because there's a little more per person (which hopefully isn't mostly absorbed by some "protective" group, like mafia, bad govt, etc). Let the balance happen; it leads to a better world overall.
happytoexplain · · focus · HN ↗
To move everybody into the successful nations, rather than engage in the slow work of making all nations somewhat successful, is cruel and insane.
skeledrew · · focus · HN ↗
happytoexplain · · focus · HN ↗
I am not a free market absolutist - I don't think I implied that anywhere.
skeledrew · · focus · HN ↗
> hundreds of millions of voices
That's a vibe, not an argument. And the data doesn’t line up with your catastrophe story. Migration tends to raise global output and, on average, has positive effects on destination GDP per capita over time[0]. It turns out that immigrant effects on native jobs is near net zero, as there are small losses or gains depending on skill mix in the various local labour markets. Actually new immigrants have a greater effect on the jobs of old immigrants[1] (news to me, but makes sense). Similarly in welfare, there's pretty much negligible impact in more advanced economies, leaning positive over time especially when immigrants arrive as working-age adults, which is the norm[2].
I could go on, but I think that's enough research out of me. You don't have to be a "free market absolutist" to see that the reality is far more mixed than “nations are suffering.” Yes, poorly designed immigration policies can lead to problems. No, there's nothing authoritative to backup claims that immigration is broadly destructive, which makes those voices uninformed. Or prejudiced.
[0] <a href="https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/088/article-A001-en.xml" rel="nofollow">https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2021/088/arti...
[1] <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/87518/1/11-103.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/87518/1/11-103.pdf
[2] <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/np/g20/pdf/2015/111515background.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.imf.org/external/np/g20/pdf/2015/111515backgroun...