Most developed countries are quickly losing population. The ones that have a slight deviation from that trend is due to immigration.

Foreign labor is what will keep most of these countries afloat for the following 50 years.

Japan is a good example, they lose about 1 million every year.

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retinaros 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Most of developed economies dont need blue collar foreign labor in the future. Some dont even need it now. There are no industries in uk or france and this labor role is mostly to suppress wages (we ve seen it with brexit and english truck drivers) . For industrial nations like germany before they shot themselves you do need this labor until robots and automation makes them obsolete. Way before 50years and then being a nation with low immigration is becoming a key advantage for a country cohesion and future. Finally every country at 25% youth unemployment (like france and spain) shoould block all immigration beside highly skilled immigrants

	▲	dlisboa 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Robots and automation won’t replace health care workers. Aging countries will need more of those. And the unemployed youth would be working those low skilled jobs today if they wanted to, fact is they don’t pay enough for them and if those jobs are automated away they will still be unemployed. It obviously suppress wages, which is a necessary condition for capitalism. Any country where it costs 10x to build infrastructure because there is no cheap labor will be less competitive.

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carlosjobim 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When a person migrates, I would believe that the origin country has one less population. So why is it good that this person props up population in the destination country instead of in the origin country?

And why does the destination country need that persons labour and expertise, but not the origin country?

If the native population is becoming exterminated with or without migration, what exactly is the "country" that needs to be kept "afloat"? Your stock portfolio? Your treasury bills? Your real estate investment?

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dlisboa 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It’s definitely a possibility that a country dwindles away and is happy to do so in order to avoid immigration. We’ll probably see that with Japan and South Korea by the end of this century.

Ultimately it’s their choice.

Whether a country with high population composed of immigration is still the same country we can look to the Americas. Countries with extreme high degree of immigration and assimilation, yet still very much worthwhile countries. Maybe not the countries the natives from 500 years ago would have imagined, but their culture has survived more than 100 years and contribute significantly to the world still. New Zealand is also a good example of native culture not being wiped out even with assimilation.

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carlosjobim 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The fate of the native North Americans is one of the largest catastrophes in the history of humanity. Just as so many other times through human history when natives were displaced and replaced, whether by violent or non-violent means, or a mix of both.

Immigration doesn't change the fact of natives dwindling away or not. A nation is the native people, not a name on a map. The exceptions are the United States and other new world ex-colonies. But there was a very dear price paid in blood and tears to make them.

America has had almost no assimilation of immigrants into the cultures which existed there before. Very good arguments have been made that the Enlightenment (or Age of Reason) did originate from native North American ideas and ideals being brought to Europe through cultural exchange, but it's not assimilation on the part of the settlers.

	▲	dlisboa 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> America has had almost no assimilation of immigrants into the cultures which existed there before That's almost a uniquely United States problem, not at all as big of an issue in most of the Americas. Only a few countries in the Americas have had their native population pretty much entirely wiped out without any assimilation whatsoever. The US is one of these few countries (Cuba and Hispaniola would be other examples of total replacement). The rest has had large degree of intermixing or wholesale population preservation. Aspects of native culture is those countries were suppressed historically but are still preserved in some way to this day. It's also very fair to say sovereign countries today can build a healthier immigration policy than 1500s Europeans with their extermination campaigns. I'd be the last to say that is an example to be followed. More to the point here: Japan can be exclusively Japanese for another 200 years and die forever, or be Japanese + something for another 10 thousand years. Unlike 500 years ago, they get a choice.