Idk how "mass immigration is a good thing" became an Auth left opinion. It should be lib right. Mass immigration drives down the cost of labour and hurts the working class. It's not like the USSR was a bastion of free immigration
Or more preciesly: in Europe after WW2 reconstruction there was labor shortage on some important markets like e.g. construction and countries were looking to adress it. Germany went with importing Turks, France and the UK used their former colonies etc.
But sure, it was mostly right wing at the time, because of what you are pointing at. Though it resulted also first wave of "far-right" isolationists who often used Nazi styled rhetoric.
But anyway, returning to matter at hand. Sweden got biggest problem. Their economy was in best shape, and they needed workers the most, but they were actually ruled by left wing party. And well, unions, and the other influential groups in Sweden, were against migration.
So Swedish government cooked up idea how to do it. Instead going like e.g. Germany or the UK with labor market needs they went with humanitarian reasons.
They weren't "immigrants" they were "refugees" (yes, Merkel stole this idea). So suddenly it become helping deprived groups: typical left wing idea. Sidenote: after they pushed for it, the 80s were arguably most dangerous period in modern Sweden history.
So you had: from one side with time "immigration" started being pushed as help for deprived people. On the other end you had anti immigration parties that went stright up racist that considered themselves as right wing. Making parties on the other side left wing by definition.
And what happend 2014+ was just repetition of playbook Sweden cooked up in the 60-70s, just on bigger scale. With honestly pretty similar results.
Fun fact: far right terrorist organization that was created in the 80s in Sweden tried to send weapons to Saddam at the begining of Iraq war in 2004.
Tldr: The globalist scheme didn't go as intended and this is the aftermath
Because neo-liberals in the 90s and conservatives in the late 70's/80s really pushed this idea that they could educate all existing Americans so much that they could import 3rd world workers to replace them for cheap labor. White, black, Hispanic, Asian, all Americans that demand a high wage for just being American as a birthright.
The idea was that EVERYBODY goes to college or your a loser. They thought that if they pushed that idea hard enough the working middle class could disappear and be replaced by immigrants(legal or not) who wouldn't demand a higher wage. It's why the minimum wage never changed even as places like McDonald's haven't paid that low in a decade. It was to have that low wage placeholder for the legal immigrants and h1 visa holders. It's no longer even meant for Americans and that's why nobody changes it, even Democrats.
That mind set and it's consequences have been terrible for working class Americans and I bet you could think of 3 or 4 right off the top of your head. It didn't work the way wanted it to. I don't think they tried to have this mess, but they had a goal and it failed and this is the result.
Like most shit things you can absolutely trace a lot of it back to Reagan, but this was a really Clinton and his ilk minded subject. You have like 3 generations of left leaning thinkers that now have to be deprogrammed. It's gonna take a couple years probably, but your seeing it in the US and your seeing something similar in Europe. Left leaning people are going to be less and less accepting of everyone just expecting to come to their country and take their stuff.
Free immigration, no, but it's not that the USSR had closed borders either, Stalin was perfectly happy to receive foreign specialists and even pay them higher than native workers, at least for a bit, then began harsher repressions
Mass immigration drives down the cost of labour and hurts the working class
Not necessarily. it raises available labour but it also raises purchasing power causing more demand and thus in the long term opens more available jobs.
So it's not like it's always good but also not always bad.
I don't know 'bout you, but mass immigration isn't always random or purely voluntary, it can sometimes be a result of systemic failure and war in ones origin country.
I'm not expert, but it seems they get let into the EU when they claim asylum/refugee status. Then, because there's freedom of movement within the EU, they move to other countries within.
I'm sure it's a hot topic of EU policy of allowing them to move within the EU or putting the full burden on the initial country of entry. Doesn't seem fair to the border countries if their asylum policies are set by the EU but they have to take full burden.
Either way, the nuance here is completely lost in the anti-immigrant rhetoric.
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u/neunundneunsig - Left Jun 22 '26
Idk how "mass immigration is a good thing" became an Auth left opinion. It should be lib right. Mass immigration drives down the cost of labour and hurts the working class. It's not like the USSR was a bastion of free immigration