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Switzerland to vote on far-right proposal to cap population at 10 million (lite.cnn.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Beep@lemmus.org to c/europe@feddit.org

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Keystone-SDA;
Bloomberg.

Switzerland is to hold a landmark vote on a right-wing party’s proposal to restrict the nation’s population to 10 million, amid divisions over immigration.

The proposal, put forward by the country’s largest political grouping the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), would require the government to act before the population – currently at 9.1 million – rises to the proposed 10 million upper limit.

If the vote, due to be held on June 14, is passed, the government would have to refuse entry to newcomers including asylum seekers and the families of foreign residents once the population reaches 9.5 million.

If the population hits 10 million, the government would be forced to end its free-movement agreement with the European Union (EU), which is Switzerland’s largest trading partner.

top 29 comments

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[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 26 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

"Let's cap the population at ten million."
"Letting the government regulate the population is inefficient. Let's use a market-based approach instead. Each year we'll have a certain number of birth licenses and auction them off to the highest bidder."
"Birth licenses are too expensive. Let's let future parents take out loans for birth licenses in their future children's names. If you think about it, it's only fair."
"I was born with a $1 million debt I will never pay off."

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago

Oh no. I didn't even think about that, but yeah... that's entirely plausible. Why? NYC already went through that with taxi cab medallions.

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 68 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Almost as stupid as Brexit.

Stupid right wing parties.

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 4 points 6 hours ago

Am Swiss. Can confirm.

We can't limit our population growth without cancelling the contracts with the EU. And that would be would be literal (not figurative!) economic suicide. We literally (not figuratively) cannot survive without our European friends and partners.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 38 points 1 day ago

If this passes, that means they will have voted against taxing the rich but for this dumb shit.

[–] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (3 children)

Damn, that would mean that if foreign millionaires want to get a resident visa, the Swiss would refuse them? Up to now the money grabbing yodelers didn’t object to any funds coming in, they even stole it from the nazi victims, the dirty b******s hehehe.

[–] Fokeu@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 hours ago

They will just kick poor ones out or manipulate the population statistics

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 1 points 6 hours ago

The rich would be above the law, of course. The SVP is like the GOP or the AfD: a few very rich people conning the dumbest 30% of the population into supporting their interests.

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 4 points 1 day ago

Clearly they will just throw some poor people out to make room for the „useful“ millionaires

[–] susi7802@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah just cancel the economic agreement with them again, they’ll come crawling back begging for mercy.

[–] jenesaisquoi@feddit.org 3 points 6 hours ago

Don't underestimate the stubborness of thr stupid. Just look at the UK. They'd rather be poor than admit they fucked up

[+] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world -13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

They are right for the wrong reasons. Population control is necessary. The environment cannot handle infinite people.

[–] j4yc33@piefed.social 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Ok, just to speed this along: Any discussion that starts this way will eventually come to the questions:

Who do you want to remove from the populations?
Who do you want to prevent from having children?

If we just open the conversation with this question, we can find out what your real motivation is here.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Thank you! That's exactly what irks me about "overpopulation is the problem". Their path inevitably leads to genocide. I'll try anything to stop us from cooking the planet, but not that. Malthusianism is morally wrong

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world -4 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

Holy misconstrued reading, Batman!

How about I flip your argument like you did to me:

Are you proposing forced rape to impregnate women?

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

I'll believe you this isn't your intent, but this path will lead to nasty stuff down the line. As soon as we start saying there should be fewer people, that this is the solution, the question becomes "who has to go?".

[–] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Lol, not even close. Also, yikes. Just quit while you're behind

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world -1 points 8 hours ago

So when I say that a declining population isn't a disaster I'm promoting genocide, but when you take the opposite position it's not forced birth for women?

Stop being a hypocrite. I didn't claim genocide just like you didn't claim rape.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 0 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

None! I didn't even hint at a forced population reduction.

In the developed world, fewer people are having children and those that do are having smaller families. That means instead of a worker supporting both his parents and children they only need to support their parents. When the parent dies there is now more land and resources so things like real estate gets cheaper. Fewer workers means each worker is more valuable and can demand more pay from the ownership class.

I have no fucking idea how stating this gets construed into meaning genocide.

(supporting doesn't necessarily mean direct support but through their job that helps everyone in society and taxes that go to schools and healthcare.)

[–] j4yc33@piefed.social 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Your response, combined with your original statement of

Population control is necessary

brings us to:

See question 2: which group of people do you want to tell aren't allowed to have kids?

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world -2 points 8 hours ago

A woman's right to birth control isn't forcing anyone.

There are many things that are necessary but that doesn't mean forcing people.

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

And yet affluent countries have birth rates below the 2.1 required for a steady population, meaning that in a generation’s time, the ratio between pensioners and productive workers will be a lot worse.

If the population is locked in to shrink in a few decades, a country will need immigration to stave off economic collapse. If Switzerland is concerned by large numbers of new immigrants arriving in a short timeframe and changing the culture, the sensible thing to do is to keep a slower, steady influx of immigrants coming in, assimilating and guiding the next ones in.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 3 points 22 hours ago

If the population is locked in to shrink in a few decades, a country will need immigration to stave off economic collapse.

Eh. This is malarkey. Have you ever noticed how new technologies never seem to reduce the number of hours worked? Office computers and the internet didn't reduce the work week. They did free up time; the work simply expanded to fill the available hours. Things that were once taken care of with a one-page typewritten memo are now handled by 100 page reports with charts and graphics. Analyses became ever more complicated and elaborate. It's the bullshit jobs phenomenon.

And this is also why I don't worry at all about decreasing population. As labor becomes more scarce, companies will simply be forced to cut back on the amount of bullshit fluff work in their workflows. There is a ton of useless fluff built into the modern workplace. That waste is only possible because businesses have been used to having very cheap labor for a very long time. When markets force wages higher, companies are forced to become more efficient and to cut back on the number of bullshit jobs in the economy.

Realistically, we could produce all of the things we currently do even if we cut the labor force by 30%. Maybe we won't be able to hire as many vice presidents of social media marketing strategy. But we'll get along just fine.