The Hoax Called "Labour Shortage"

Douglas Murray in his book The Strange Death Of Europe describes how Europe’s doors were opened to mass immigration in the 1950s and 1960s in the name of labour shortage, apparently caused by second World War.

The claim of labour shortage is the most fraudulent of all claims in favour of the mass immigration. Even a most basic knowledge of economics is enough to know that there can never be labour shortage in any society. Yes, it may look at first counter-intuitive and outside common sense, but it is a fact of the science of economics that there can never be labour shortage in a society.

What is meant by the labour shortage by the politicians and industrialists is nothing but statement of the fact that labour is not available at the wages being offered in a particular profession. That is, if a particular profession needs labour but is not getting it, that only means that it is not offering the wages which will attract persons to that profession in preference to other professions. That means that it should increase the wages being offered, till they become attractive enough to draw labour from other professions, or should invent techniques and processes which need less labour for the same output.

An argument can be made that that will make the products of that profession costlier. But if society needs those products, it will pay for them; by reducing expenditure on other wants. Why should any attempts be made to cheapen that particular product by importing cheap labour? Is it not the most anti-labour step, rigging the market in favour of the entrepreneurs and masses and against the domestic labour? Why did the Left support mass immigration, the biggest anti-labour step?

Labour is a factor of production, but it is not an inert factor of production like machinery, ore, or Capital. Labour is actually human beings, and human beings have their families, their culture, their worldview, their religions, their attitudes towards the host population. Labour import means importing all of these things.

A society is a result of the beliefs of its people. Its economy, its culture, its religion, its worldview is shaped by the beliefs of the people who are members of the society. Especially, religion and culture shape the society and are shaped by it.

If people of a different culture and religion are mass imported into a society, the alien culture and religion start influencing the society. If the culture and religion of the immigrants are hostile to the native culture and religion, strife is inevitable. Mixing persons of different languages, cultures, religions, and worldviews is exactly like mixing two liquids in Physics: till the quantity of the liquid introduced into another is low, the other liquid will retain its characteristics. But as proportions start changing with the quantity of the liquid being mixed being increased, the character of the solution will change. The liquid into which another has been mixed in large quantities will no longer decide the colour, taste, and uses of the mixture. The same is true of immigration also. Every society can take in and assimilate a low number of immigrants from a different culture. But as the number of immigrants increases, the host society loses its capacity to force assimilation. And yes, assimilation is always forced, not overtly, but subtly. And once the host society has been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and is no longer able to exert the force, assimilation no longer happens, and the society is ripped apart into different factions, sharing the same physical space but not the same mental space. There come to reside in the same physical space different languages, cultures, and religions. And if the languages, cultures, and religions sharing the physical space are hostile, strife and destruction is inevitable.

There is an overlooked economic dimension also to the immigration. The schools, roads, housing, police infrastructure, court houses and justice delivery system, civic infrastructure like water supply and waste disposal, etc., are the collective Capital of society, accumulated over centuries by the host society. When immigrants and their families arrive, they simply share this accumulated Capital, reducing the per head Capital accumulated for everybody in the host society also. The productivity of the society depends upon the per head Capital accumulated and invested, and as a result of mass immigration, Capital is actually decumulated, drained, destroyed, consumed. It is the consumption of this accumulated Capital of society that creates the illusion of cheap immigrant labour. What the industrialists or the society as a whole do when they import mass cheap labour, is that they consume the accumulated Capital of the host society. This is why mass immigration into New World after its discovery was not the same as the mass immigration to Europe and, to a lesser extent, to North America now. The mass immigration into Americas was not resulting into consumption of any accumulated Capital: there were no roads, cities, and other infrastructure there at the time. The immigrants were actually creating Capital by converting land into agricultural land, by creating mines, by creating industries. And even that mass immigration even into Americas led to wiping off the host societies there, because immigrants brought with them hostile languages, cultures, and religions, and the numbers overwhelmed the host societies.

So what the Leftists’ labour shortage hoax resulting into mass import of cheap Third World labour into Europe has done to Europe is that it has destroyed the native labour class, keeping their wages low and stagnant, rendering them jobless and on Welfare, blocked innovations and inventions which would have otherwise come about to make the business process fit into the available number of labour. Mass immigration of labour has also led to consumption of the accumulated Capital of European societies, accumulated painstakingly over centuries.

The stupid Leftists, greedy businessmen, and a society not ready to pay the enough wages to its own working class have all combined to destroy Europe by mass import of people with hostile languages, cultures, and religions. Europe will die, and the death will be most painful, horrific in fact, and excruciatingly long.

All because people do not study economics. Because if Europeans had studied economics, they would not have tried to rig the labour market by importing “cheap” labour from elsewhere. The economy would have readjusted itself to the available native workforce, the adjustment of course would have caused some pain, but then to survive, a society should be ready to take some temporary pain. Related to this is also the payment of unemployment benefits and other freebies like free schools, medical care, old age care. What the society does is that it is not ready to pay wages enough to keep labour in the “unattractive” professions like drivers, hairdressers, nannies, etc., but pays people to afford to stay unemployed. Put simply, it destroys Capital, by enabling people to live without working, and blocking creation of Capital by not forcing people to work, giving them Welfare benefits instead. If the society is not getting drivers for public transport and waiters in the hotels, that only means that it is not paying them enough. If it imports cheap labour instead, it will in any case have to pay Welfare to its own people, because they are not just disappearing into thin air. Destroying in the process work culture and the character of the citizenry. Thus rigging of labour market is same as rigging of any market. It destroys first the economy, and then the society. Labour shortage must never be made up by importing cheap labour from other countries. Instead, the economy must be allowed to readjust its processes and businesses to the available labour.