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Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

swissinfo.ch

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Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#141

Post by joe_mamba »

optimalsolver wrote: post #137
Saline9515 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

I find it hard to believe the kids of the Swiss elite would be cleaning sewers if not for the low pay.

Switzerland has onlite elite kids? What do all the Swiss with <80 IQ do for a living? They're probably not gonna get a job at ABB, Google, UBS or ETH.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#142

Post by [deleted] »

mrtksn wrote: post #96
brightbeige wrote: post #68

Recent, related New Yorker article that goes into the background leading up to the vote https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/15/could-switzerl... Despite the prosperity, many Swiss had mixed emotions about the guest workers, who came largely from Southern Europe. As the Swiss novelist Max Frisch observed, “We wanted workers, but we got people.”

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…

[deleted]

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#143

Post by mrtksn »

optimalsolver wrote: post #137
Saline9515 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

I find it hard to believe the kids of the Swiss elite would be cleaning sewers if not for the low pay.

No no, they would have totally done it if the immigrants didn’t suppress the wages and the pay was %15 higher. Now they need to do some office jobs for 5 times the pay since the unemployment rate is %3. There are no Swiss sitting around and not cleaning the sewers because the pay was too low, it will have to fetch workers from other industries.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#144

Post by dyauspitr »

mrtksn wrote: post #96
brightbeige wrote: post #68

Recent, related New Yorker article that goes into the background leading up to the vote https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/15/could-switzerl... Despite the prosperity, many Swiss had mixed emotions about the guest workers, who came largely from Southern Europe. As the Swiss novelist Max Frisch observed, “We wanted workers, but we got people.”

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…

>More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around.

They don’t want the southern Europeans around. That’s textbook xenophobia.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#145

Post by anonymous908213 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #90
anonymous908213 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That doesn’t commit you to moving out if they refuse to budge The vote did commit you to amending your federal constitution with a population cap, period. > If the 10-million threshold is exceeded, Switzerland would have to terminate these agreements, including the one with the EU on the free movement of persons after two years. This would also render the other agreements under Bilateral Agreements I null and void.…

> no room for negotiation in it. The government page itself spells out the hardline consequences There is always room for negotiation. Bilaterals is a treaty, not a diktat. And again, 2 years provides time for another referendum. > wonder how many Swiss were aware they were voting to end their own freedom of movement, that blocking EU immigration would mean they would no longer be able to move elsewhere in the EU the…

> Bilaterals is a treaty, not a diktat.

The "diktat" is the thing you just voted on which says "we will not negotiate". There is always room for negotiation until you vote for a law that says "no negotiations, we are now legally mandated to do X".

> 2 years provides time for another referendum.

Voting for a no-negotiations amendment to your constitution as a negotiation tactic with the idea that you will later pass another constitutional amendment in a small window of time to revoke it is some kind of 4D checkers strategising that I suppose I am not enlightened enough to grasp.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#146

Post by kuerbel »

Saline9515 wrote: post #127
mrtksn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

Locals are not going to clean sewers and you know it. Society in general made it very clear over the last decades that jobs like that are shit, only losers are doing them, and that you need a degree to be worth something. If you want to blame something for this, blame neoliberalism. It helped create a culture in which educational credentials, professional careers, and market prestige became dominant measures of success, making many forms of manual labor appear less desirable.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#147

Post by FabCH »

blockmarker wrote: post #119
Arodex wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>55% no is… ok? Typical for such votes? Very typical, and even higher than usual. The Swiss have votations all the time. They also can vote by mail. Those who didn't vote had no opinion, or no strong opinion, on the matter. Also, cities who should suffer the most of overcrowding by immigrants voted against, as well as cantons situated at the border, while the backcountry who never see any immigrant voted in favor.

Overcrowding by immigrants does not mean the location will vote in favor of restricting immigration. After all, those are the places with the highest number of immigrant voters, who will not support such restrictions.

Immigrants can’t vote.

Citizens with immigration background have been in the country for 10+ years, because 10 is the minimum for getting citizenship, at which point their voting patterns are more likely to be influenced by other factors and not their immigrant background.

Plus, it’s a bit of a phenomenon that many citizens with immigrant background’s tend to vote for stricter immigration policies.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#148

Post by kensai »

dyauspitr wrote: post #144
mrtksn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…

>More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around. They don’t want the southern Europeans around. That’s textbook xenophobia.

Who told you that? Swiss don't even want Germans, which is actually the biggest minority apparently. FFS, Germans! The original racists.

PS. I am German.

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#149

Post by project2501a »

Saline9515 wrote: post #127
mrtksn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs. It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the j…

They don't want their son to do it because immigrants prevent the salaries of those jobs to rise naturally. Mass immigration is capitalism's answer to the Baumol law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the bourgeois left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary. My g…

> The "locals don't want to do those jobs" comptemptuous rethoric of the left has always been false, locals don't want to clean the sewers for the minimal wage, but will do it for a proper salary.

apologies, but those of us in the Left agree more with the second part of your sentence than the Left. Are you mixing Leftists and Liberals, perchance?

Re: Swiss voters reject proposal to cap population at ten million

#150

Post by michaelmrose »

bluescrn wrote: post #101
geremiiah wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems like EU countries are independently embarking on the Canada-policy of importing a whole bunch of South East Asians and Latin Americans. From Hungary to Ireland, you see the same trend. Part of it is by economic necessity. For example finding nursing staff is very challenging and you have to compete with the US and Australia and other rich countries. But part of it doesn't make much sense. We really don…

> For example finding nursing staff is very challenging No. Finding staff that'll work for very low wages is very challenging. It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages.

This is literally what anyone means when they can't or can't easily find anyone for anything which isn't evil or suicidal.
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