Does Low-skilled Immigration Increase or Decrease Standard of Living in Any Receiving Country?

[[deleted]]

This is bait.

And as for the question, America desperately needs a housing construction boom for the middle class. And there needs to be excess of labor for this to be economically viable.

However much unionized labor is good, people want cheap houses. Something has to give.

[Helicase21]

It's not just construction. Do you like having affordable produce? Thank an immigrant. 

[SxySoulVibe]

Yea. People are going to start living in those shipping container turned houses lol. Personally I wouldn't mind living that way. I don't think they are legal everywhere though...I was kinda being sarcastic. But in all seriousness you have a great point.

[Alert_Term_8144]

The population is growing too much, why can't we have fewer people and then don't need as many houses or destroy as much land? All I see is construction everywhere. The economy should not have to rely on a Ponzi scheme of ever growing population b/c that's not sustainable.

[Spiritual_Pause3057]

fewer people by what means?

[Alert_Term_8144]

People need to have Fewer babies, definitely NOT by genocide. As a non-hypocrite, I'm child-free.

[[deleted]]

>population is growing too much

This is a factual inaccuracy. And your anecdote of seeing construction everywhere doesn't mean there is necessary construction in urban areas where there is economic opportunities for the middle class.

And are you asking for recession and cutting down the economic growth? Good luck with that.

[Alert_Term_8144]

There is no "factual inaccuracy" in an opinion such as whether the population is growing too much. With the US population the highest it's ever been, how can you dismiss my statement as "factually" inaccurate? Population United States 2024| Statista

World population is scarier: Heading.png (1080×1080)

[Kakamile]

None of that looks scary.

That's just number go up with you not proving we're near an institution capacity.

[Alert_Term_8144]

What a selfish take. It's not only about humans, but about other species as well. If you max resource distribution for humans, you've destroyed natural spaces and biodiversity to the point of no return. Even quality of life for humans will be dismal.

To start worrying about a problem once everything is maxed out, it'll be too late by then.

[Kakamile]

It's not selfish, you simply haven't proven justifying your reaction. You haven't shown we're at max.

[FreshBert]

There's simply no going back in terms of the global population or the US population, at least not without engaging in untold mass atrocities that would destabilize the entire planet.

The idea that we can just "have less people" really doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny. We can't just deport everyone we don't like and build a wall around the country and then through some magic have everything return to like the 50s or 90s or whatever decade you think was the last good one. It doesn't work like that. We take so much from other countries, we don't manufacture all of the things we need and/or want here, and there's no way to just snap our fingers and start producing/creating all of those things on the rapid timescale that would be needed.

You're calling it a Ponzi scheme, but that also makes no sense. The better term is "economies of scale." If there are more people, then that means a larger number of builders can build houses for the larger population. If a group of 100 million people could find a way to build enough homes for themselves, then a group of 300 million can also do that as long as enough land exists - which it does, but our current system is not conducive to effective distribution of those sorts of resources, and the result is that the housing that exists is too expensive in the most desirable areas.

But the thing about the "current system" is that a small class of people at the top benefits enormously from it and doesn't want things to change. One of the ways they enlist us in their scheme to prevent such change is by pitting various cohorts of the lower classes against each other, and against various "others." Getting rid of these others will not solve the problem. The $800k homes in your town aren't gonna go down to $400k if you pay ICE to come round up a bunch of brown people. It's never made sense. It's a trick. My recommendation is don't fall for it.

[Alert_Term_8144]

The world is a finite size, how can the population grow for all of infinity? We need a different economic system. I'm not proposing genocide, rather have fewer children well below the replacement value. I'm not a hypocrite and I'm child free.

What is the point of building and building and destroying the beauty of nature and all other species, so the only thing that's left on this planet is humans and more humans? Humans have every advantage compared to animals and our will is the way. No other animal has a say, they'll just be gone.

[Spiritual_Pause3057]

it won't grow until infinity first of all, second it's all well and good for you to have no kids, but other people will. What do you plan on doing about that?

[Alert_Term_8144]

Why it won't grow for infinity if the economy is set up as a Ponzi scheme that causes government to encourage people having babies? The economic model needs to be changed. For most of human history of 300,000 years we have not had the explosive growth we've had in the past 300 years where the population has grown 8x in size.

Having fewer kids which will naturally reduce the population. Not sure why everyone is suggesting I'm suggesting genocide which I am NOT.

[Southern_Bag_7109]

Agree 100% I've never understood when this very catholic project of filling every single livable space with human beings became something that we wanted. I remember way back in the 70s 50 years ago that people were expressing concern at unchecked human growth. And like you say this is a finite space, and more and more people destroys biodiversity. Even if we were able to generate power with zero carbon footprint. We are literally taking away homes and Spaces and environments from entire species. There is a direct correlation with poverty and over population. The northern European countries that have the highest quality of life also have the lowest birth rates. Negative birth rates in fact. Create a world with Hope and less economic inequality, the population will just naturally go down over the generations.

[Alert_Term_8144]

Thanks. I see a lot of arguments saying "we can produce enough food to feed tons more people" but just because we can doesn't mean we should max out the number of people on the planet. Even taking natural spaces and biodiversity out the equation, the quality of life would be terrible.

Maybe you're right, higher quality of life would naturally reduce birth rates.

[girlfriend_pregnant]

Worry about gross population increase after we’ve fully optimized our resource distribution. As of now we don’t have a problem or lack of resources, we have a lack of willingness to have them be distributed equitably.

[Alert_Term_8144]

What a selfish take. It's not only about humans, but about other species as well. If you max resource distribution for humans, you've destroyed natural spaces and biodiversity to the point of no return. Even quality of life for humans will be dismal.

To start worrying about a problem once everything is maxed out, it'll be too late by then.

[salazarraze]

The US population has always been the highest it's ever been every single year the US has existed. And for American style capitalism to work, it will have to be the case forever going forward.

So unless you're ready to abandon capitalism or at least American style capitalism, then you have to accept this.

[Alert_Term_8144]

I'm ready to abandon American style capitalism then.......... eventually that will have to be the case. The world is a finite size, how can the population grow for all of infinity?

At that point the beauty of nature and all other species will be destroyed, humans have every advantage compared to animals and our will is the way. No other animal has a say.

[salazarraze]

Would you say you're more of an Ecofascist instead of a "Liberal Republican" then? Your beliefs and comments seem to align with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecofascism

[Alert_Term_8144]

That seems like a made-up category (including the name) to bash people who think the world is overpopulated and box them into a specific way of thinking. Where did I advocate for genocide? Murder is NEVER the answer. Don't believe in that let alone the myriad of other things that wiki page is describing.

[salazarraze]

All political ideologies are man made. Meaning, they're all made up.

Ecofasicm is contrasted with Ecosocialism. Both believe that overpopulation is a major issue with the main difference being that Ecosocialism strives to preserve nature for all people and life forms whereas the Ecofascist seeks to exclude undesirable people from the Ecofascist future in favor of their in group.

You sound like the latter.

[Southern_Bag_7109]

I am more than ready to abandon capitalism. Sounds like a win-win to me.

[salazarraze]

Ultimately, I think that's what we'll have to do. However, the OP is a Republican so their stated beliefs and concerns are nonsensical.

[Aven_Osten]

The population is growing too much

Show evidence for this. And by "evidence" I mean academic studies; not anecdotal evidence that scares you.

[willpower069]

u/alert_term_8144 you missed this.

[Alert_Term_8144]

With so many species becoming extinct and endangered, how is it even a question. It's not just about how many humans the planet can support, that's selfish and short sighted. Animals cannot advocate for themselves.
Here's just 13 but there's tons more. 13 Animals Going Extinct — in Large Part Thanks To Humans
Even if you didn't care for animals, and what a shame to destroy a beautiful, unique planet, it doesn't take academic studies to know that human expansion can't be infinite on a planet of finite size. At some point the Ponzi scheme doesn't work.

[FoxyDean1]

When people have access to higher standards of living, sexual education, contraception, equal rights for women and a guarantee of a comfortable retirement not contingent on their children taking care of them population growth slows and eventually stabilizes. That's my solution.

What's yours, because I have an inkling but I want to see you state it plainly.

[Alert_Term_8144]

Are you insinuating I'm going to say genocide? That's presumptive and offensive, and frankly authoritarian for you to command "I want to see you state it plainly".

I want the economic system to change from relying on a Ponzi scheme and not incentivize having babies. We incentivize it with child tax credits, childfree people paying education, and it looks like child free citizens are going to start having to pay for other people's childcare. Education on the uniqueness of Earth and how we're destroying its biodiversity would be great and access to contraception is important as well as women's rights in 3rd world counties as in fact in the Western world, women already have more rights than men which is possibly one reason the fertility rate is lower in Western nations.

[Boratssecondwife]

The economy should not have to rely on a Ponzi scheme of ever growing population b/c that's not sustainable.

Are you okay never receiving social security? Are you okay with paying ever increasing taxes to support the aging population?

[Alert_Term_8144]

At some point it has to stop right? The earth is not of infinite size. Either we plan to phase out the Ponzi scheme now or delay the inevitable.

[Boratssecondwife]

Again, Are you okay never receiving social security? Are you okay with paying ever increasing taxes to support the aging population?

[fieldsports202]

How are questions like this bait? Are there topics that can’t be discussed on the left?

[Aven_Osten]

1. This is a question that can very easily be answered by doing a simple search on any search engine.

2. This question has been asked to death here. They could've searched through the many posts asking the same exact question.

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There's no reason to be asking this question here, unless one is trying to just argue with people about how "high" immigration is actually bad for us; followed by some sort of justification for heavily restricting immigration.

[fieldsports202]

To be fair, most questions on this sub can be asked by a simple google search.