Let us go back to the middle ages, when most Europeans lived in poverty and squalor as serfs. What ended serfdom? Protests? An enlightened middle class? Civil war? No. It was the black plague. Between a fifth to a half of the population died, depending on location, and this had a profound effect on the labour market. If conditions and pay in one estate were not good enough, then a peasant could just walk over to the next estate to see what was being offered there. Land owners were desperate for labour; they had to compete with each other for workers. This broke the system.
What is the take-home message? Population reduction works. Too much inflation? Reduce the number of buyers by one-fifth. Not enough freedom of speech? Apply for a work visa in a country after a war because they can’t afford to be intolerant. There is no sociological problem that can’t solved with population reduction. Therefore, a population stressed for any reason is going to consider it.
How should selection for reduction be carried out? On appearances, of course. People who do not look like you are the obvious candidates. Why? You don’t want any skills or intelligence test you might fail. You want this settled in a way you cannot fail.
For people too stupid to imagine any other solution than population reduction, racism is the go-to method.
And what is the take-home message of this? There is no point in telling stupid people that racism does not work because it obviously does. The answer has to do with stress. Do not subject your population to prolonged stress and you’ll deal with fewer and milder calls for population reduction.
Why Are We So Stressed?
Pro-democracy political parties in the West made a huge mistake when they allowed the financial system to grievously stress the economy. Shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, anti-immigrant sentiments transformed into political movements. And because the causes were never properly addressed, the financial system has continued to stress the population. Greedflation and unaffordable housing are examples of artificial problems, created by and for financial elites. Ironically, pro-democracy politicians undermined democracy by failing to rein the predatory practices of a business class that has no dependency on democracy. These are not the right people to put in charge of civilisation.
What does this tell us? Fighting fascism is a retreat action. The real battle is with the financial system. It must be brought to heel before the threat of fascism can abate meaningfully.
Billionaires obviously prefer to see fascists fight with pro-democracy forces; they are not meaningfully regulated when politicians face more pressing problems and need wealthy allies.
It is up to pro-democracy citizens to pressure their governments to impose meaningful regulations on the movement of capital. Yes, this must happen even while billionaires are giving each other Nazi salutes. You may be assured that they do not care about fascism any more than they do about democracy.
