The mass-migration era is over but not for the reason you think

When cheap foreign labour was needed by the higher-ups, it was imported. But what happens when the higher-ups no longer need human workers of any kind?

You’ll never live like common people
You’ll never do whatever common people do
Never fail like common people
You’ll never watch your life slide out of view
Jarvis Cocker, 1995

“If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?”
Kelly Osbourne, 2015

Australia’s Media And Political Class Turn Their Nose Up At The Dumb Bogans Being Harnessed By Neo-Nazis And Toxic Social Media Algorithms After Decades Of Neo-Liberal Governments Using Ten Dollar Words Like ‘Productivity And Efficiency’ To Destroy The Living Standards And Housing Security Of Working Class People Who Are Now Lashing Out At The Much Cheaper Migrant Underclass Brought In To Replace Them
Beetota Advocate headline, 1/9/25

The [Australian] protests marked a significant moment for the far-right in making inroads into the mainstream, Dr. Ross said. “They’ve successfully — it looks to me — met up in public with thousands of Australians. No one threw them out. No one booed them out of the rally. They had a crossover success moment. It is very very concerning,” Dr. Ross said, “and we don’t know where it’s going to go from here.”
New York Times, 1/9/25

I’d just say to people, and I have no doubt that there would have been good people who went along… have a look at who you were with on Sunday. The motivation that they have, which isn’t actually about housing or our economy or anything else, it’s about sowing division. Neo-Nazis have no role.
Anthony Albanese, 1/9/25

A political hurricane is coming… We have economic growth, but it is devoid of higher living standards or strong per capita income growth. A nexus of high immigration and weak productivity won’t work for the Australian people, and will guarantee domestic aggravation…
Elites bring an astonishing arrogance to their outlook: they assume that a tolerant liberal multicultural society is the natural destination point for human beings. That’s false – anybody with the slightest grasp of human history would know this… Human beings are tribal – a truth totally foreign to political progressives.
Paul Kelly, The Australian, 3/9/25

Immigration is, almost entirely, about cheap foreign labour.

More precisely, it’s about the transfer of wealth from those who compete with the new arrivals – working-class and lower-middle class bogans, in the Australian vernacular – and those who, directly or indirectly, employ them.

Plutocrats typically do the former, professional-managerial class types the latter.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but whenever the upper echelons of a society are allowed to import vast amounts of foreign workers, a Gilded Age-style distribution of wealth soon follows.

Perhaps it’s also just another coincidence, but during periods of mass migration, those clustered around the upper rungs of the socio-economic ladder become especially moralistic about the need to admit vast amounts of enterprising, culture-enriching, economy-boosting, Christ-like immigrants.

Regardless of any negative impacts of their arrival on the bottom three to four quintiles of the income distribution, needless to say.

But now the bogans – and their foreign counterparts (the chavs, hosers, munters, scangers, cassos, prolls, terrones and svennebananer) have begun putting their foot down.

They no longer care much about being labelled as racist, fascist, Far Right or Neo-Nazi by their social betters.

They’re no longer listening to tired fairytales about diversity being our strength.

They no longer want to hear about how the government of the day is, hand on heart, working hard to bring numbers down, at some point in the near yet never quite defined future.

They just want it to stop.

Now.

Remarkably, they will likely soon get their wish.

Not too long after anarchy in the Yookay breaks out, I suspect.

However, the mass-migration era will ultimately end – and remain ended – because it will no longer be in the interests of the professional-managerial and plutocratic classes to continue it, not because of a helot revolt.

The backstory
Migration to the Anglosphere and Western European nations has waxed and waned over the last century.

But it’s been very much a waxing cycle since economic reversals of the 1970s encouraged Anglosphere societies to place a thumb on the scale for wealth creators.

Before we get to the Big Reveal, let’s consider how mass migration has enriched the societies of all the openish-borders heavy hitters.

US: Trump elected twice, unaffordable housing in many cities, wealth inequality at Gilded Era levels.

Germany: Wir schaffen das (We can do it!) has become Das schaffen wir nicht (That’s not possible for us). Housing crisis. Approximately one-quarter of German voters now support the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The UK: Brexit. Six PMs – all of whom promised to reduce immigration and didn’t – cycled through in 15 years, with another scalp likely to be added to the pile shortly. The world’s oldest political party is facing extinction or a hostile takeover. Housing crisis. Widespread civil strife and possibly civil war now seemingly imminent.

Spain: A Significant black economy, fuelled by exploited foreign labour. High unemployment and low wages for those competing with migrants in industries such as agriculture and construction. Rise of populist parties such as Vox, now the third-largest party in the Spanish parliament.

Italy: A significant black economy, fuelled by exploited foreign labour. High unemployment and low wages for those competing with migrants in industries such as agriculture and construction. Ports and small islands frequently overwhelmed with arrivals, leading to severe overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Coalition governments fracturing over migration policy differences. The rise of Georgia Meloni’s Fratelli d'Italia. Growing euroscepticism.

Canada: Housing crisis. Severe congestion in cities such as Toronto and overtaxed infrastructure nationwide. Vancouver regularly in the running for the ‘World’s least affordable city’, despite vigorous competition from Sydney.

Australia: Oh, we’re getting to that, don’t you worry.

France: Housing crisis, strain on public services, high youth unemployment, regular trouble in the banlieues. A disproportionately large number of terrorist attacks conducted by first-generation or second-generation migrants. Around 60,000-80,000 French Jews leaving the country. Marine Le Pen on track to win the 2027 presidential election until it was suddenly discovered she was embezzling EU funds a few months ago. (Her understudy, Jordan Bardella, just might still be moving into the Élysée Palace in his early thirties.)

A land down under
Like citizens of many small (population-wise) nations, Australians spend a lot of time going on about how they “punch above their weight”.

One thing we don’t pretend to punch above our weight in is political drama or protest.

Famously, we are a laidback people blessed to live in a lucky country. A society that’s had plenty of economic good luck in recent decades, thanks to China’s rise.

So, despite my interest in the topic, I didn’t pay much attention when I started seeing reports that anti-mass-migration marches were being organised. I vaguely registered that the standard Far Right feuding had derailed the marches and didn’t even realise that they were back on until right before they were due to happen.

Watching the new reports start appearing on a lazy, post-Insiders Sunday morning, I was surprised at both the size and make-up of the crowds.

Somewhere in the region of 50,000 Australians participated in the ‘March for Australia’, with well-attended events in Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Sydney and Melbourne.

Predictably enough, media coverage focused most on attendees who conformed most closely to the bogan stereotype and any involvement from neo-Nazis. (Two actual Far Right speakers did address crowds but were reportedly poorly received.)

The problem that Australia’s academics, journalists and politicians now face is that while a proportion of those at the March for Australia certainly were Neo-Nazis, most of the attendees self-evidently weren’t.

Any more than the middle-aged, suburban ‘pink ladies’ protesting about illegal immigrants being plonked in the middle of their communities in the UK are Far Right hatemongers.

If you’ve got the time, you might like to check out what some of the non-bogan attendees, such as this Indian lady, had to say about their reasons for marching.

Here’s the tl;dr money quote: “I love everything about Australia, that’s why I chose to come here [35 years ago]. But it’s not the same… I don’t have anything against immigration, but it has to be limited.”

Like Albo, Antipodean polite society has spent recent days trying to argue that, OK, not everyone who attended the rallies is a genocidal fascist and, yes, there might be a little bit of an issue with housing affordability and, yeah alright, voters all across the world – even in Japan, somehow – are enraged with the political class for ignoring their clearly expressed wishes.

But after all the throat-clearing, they inevitably snap straight back to progressive, professional-managerial class orthodoxy.

Mass immigration and ever greater vibrant diversity is wonderful!

Anyone who questions that is, if not precisely a Bad Person themselves, then at least Bad Person-adjacent.

The other big story of the week
March for Australia analysis has dominated the papers this week.

But there has been some coverage of another story – the newly appointed CEO of a large, iconic Australian bank openly planning to aggressively ‘right-size’ his workforce.

Of course, once he’s done that, competitors will have little option but to follow suit.

Needless to say, it’s not just going to be the banking industry in which this dynamic plays out.

Which brings me back to my initial claim.

When Anglosphere elites turn down the flow of migrants, it will partly be due to public backlash.

But it will mainly be because businesses, like the ANZ bank, no longer have much call for human labour, regardless of whether it is the cheap foreign variety or not.

The common people have been seeing their lives slip out of view for the last three decades due to the little-acknowledged costs of mass migration.

The good news is that, most belatedly, the mass-migration era is drawing to a close.

The bad news is that the era of AI-driven mass automation is just starting.

In a rich historical irony, it’s coming for the knowledge workers first.

It will be interesting to see if professional-managerial class types will be willing to have their lives slip out of view. For the greater good of the nation, of course.

Or whether they’ll be marching in the streets themselves in the not-too-distant future.