International Man: Previously, you have said that “demographics have no more mercy than a glacier.”
What did you mean by that?
Doug Casey: There are eight billion humans on the planet. A mass that size amounts to a force of nature, and demographics actually have a life of their own. They’re like the ocean tides; very hard to resist. Like the tidal wave now washing over Europe and North America.
Genesis says, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Americans and Europeans, unlike populations in the relatively primitive Third World, mostly believe that’s bad advice.
When society was agriculture-based, children were an asset. They were not only cheap labor, but they acted as a Social Security policy when you got old. Now, in the industrial West, children are not only a major expense but can no longer be relied upon to provide for you in your old age. No wonder that people in advanced societies aren’t having many kids. Only the Third World is still reproducing.
These facts have major repercussions.
International Man: Mass migration has changed the demographics in Europe and the US.
What are the implications?
Where is this trend headed in the US and Europe?
Doug Casey: The demographics in the US and Europe are changing radically, but it’s not the first time that’s happened in the US. American Indians can tell you how the Anglo invasion changed the demographics and the nature of their culture totally and irrevocably. The same happened in Latin America with the Spanish invasion.
Of course, it’s true that the US has always been an immigrant country. But people overlook the fact that when immigration took place in the US in the 19th and early 20th century, the immigrants were essentially other Europeans—Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews, and such. They were essentially of the same race, with similar cultures, and religious/ethical foundations.
More importantly, when past immigrants arrived, they got absolutely nothing from the government. They knew they’d have to be self-reliant. That meant the US famously drew enterprising and hard-working opportunity seekers, the best kind of people. Now, however, not only are almost all the migrants of radically different racial, cultural, and religious backgrounds but they’re being massively subsidized. Free transport, free credit cards, free cell phones, free housing, free medial, and more. We’re purposefully drawing in serious problems.
It’s said that just in the last four years—nobody knows the exact numbers—perhaps 10 million migrants have been transplanted into the country. Nobody knows who they are, where they are, or what they’re doing. That’s a lot of people. Are they mostly military-age males looking for trouble? Who knows. But, on the bright side, the US has 330 million people.
It’s much worse in Canada. With only 40 million people, they’re importing about 1.5 million per year. Most are from the subcontinent, and it’s totally transforming the nature of the country, on top of the fact that most are Muslims, who are notorious for not getting along with their Hindu and Sikh countrymen. Or anyone else, truth be told. I’m not talking about individuals but large groups—this is about demographics.
A radical transformation is taking place in Europe and North America. Both continents are being re-tribalized. The new groups naturally stick together and generally take an antagonistic attitude toward the current occupants. They understandably hold them in contempt, seeing them as weak and stupid. I can’t blame them. Migrants are logically wondering: What’s the matter with these people that they’re paying us to be here, putting us up, and feeding us for free?
The situation is still developing in the US. But in Europe, this has been going on for a couple of decades. The migrants stay on welfare and rarely become self-supporting. They are, however, quite politically aware, getting into government at all levels. Because they have racial, cultural, and religious cohesion, they usually wind up capturing the State apparatus, using it to their exclusive advantage. That’s what tribalism is all about. As in all of Africa’s artificial states, the tribe that captures the State uses it to enrich themselves and oppress outsiders. Poverty and violence are the predictable results.
International Man: You once wrote:
“Eighty years from now, Lagos, Nigeria, will be the largest city in the world. It’s on track to have a population of more than 90 million.
The world’s second biggest city will be Kinshasa in the Congo with about 80 million people.
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, will be the world’s third biggest city with a population of roughly 75 million people.”
How do the demographic changes in Africa compare with the rest of the world?
Doug Casey: Those are United Nations projections. The UN also projects that by the year 2100, 45% of the world’s population will be Africans from south of the Sahara. This is an absolutely massive change.
Meanwhile, many Africans resent Europeans for having conquered their continent. I can certainly understand that; it would’ve been much better for both parties if, when these two alien cultures met, it had been peaceably through trade.
But complain as they do, Africans have actually gotten the best part of the bargain, notwithstanding the violence and injustice accompanying the conquest. For instance, the Europeans are solely responsible for the tamping down, if not elimination, of slavery in Africa. And the progeny of Africans who were shipped to the New World have basically won the lottery; they’re vastly better off than their relatives still in the homeland.
Frankly, if when da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope, he’d just thrown out a wheel, the Africans should have been eternally grateful because they didn’t have wheels. But he would’ve also had to throw out an instruction book on how to use it except almost nobody knew how to read either. Sorry if these things are non-PC. But it’s better to confront facts and discuss them than allow smoldering resentments to fester.
In the meantime, the population of Africa is expanding at a breakneck pace largely because of imported European capital and technologies (food, medical, construction, sanitation, etc.).
However, I suspect that the UN’s projections are wrong. When the going gets really tough in Europe, as the incipient depression builds steam, the trillions of dollars of aid and investment going to Africa from Europe will stop. It’s entirely possible that the population of Africa could collapse even while scores of millions of Africans continue moving to Europe.
I’ve been a booster of opportunities in Africa for years, but things change. Almost all African countries are artificial constructs, prone to civil wars. Meanwhile, their armies are much better armed and trained than ever. Africa is on the cusp of becoming very violent and unstable.
International Man: It seems there are a lot of negative consequences from the ongoing demographic changes around the world.
Is there any silver lining?
Doug Casey: Silver linings will be in short supply.
The biggest negative the world faces is that Western civilization, Europe’s gift to the world, is being purposefully washed away. The Third World, regrettably, shares almost none of the Western values that transformed the world from a place where life was generally solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short into a civilization where even vagrants live as well as medieval royalty. Despite that, the masses have been taught to hate Western Civilization. Profoundly destructive ideas are being widely promoted everywhere by evil and stupid people. I’d like to explain the full meanings of those two words, but let’s save that for another day.
Although we’ve discussed them at length before, let me list some characteristics that are unique to Western Civ—free thought, free speech, free movement, free markets, the idea of limited government, individualism, rationality, science, political liberty, the concept of progress, privacy, solid property rights, rule of law, industry, and entrepreneurialism. Those concepts and beliefs were basically unknown in the Third World.
Almost all the good things in today’s world originated in the West. The rest of the world has brought next to nothing to the party. China had a sophisticated civilization but has given little to the rest of the world beyond martial arts and General Tso’s chicken. India has given the world yoga and curries but not much else. You can forget about all the rest. The world would still be living in mud huts and beating earth with sticks if it wasn’t for the West.
The West, however, is being overwhelmed by both bad ideas and demographics. There’s nothing innately wrong with the “newcomers.” But throughout 300,000 of years of human history, there’s always been a genetically programmed fear of outsiders. If there are enough outsiders, and they’re different enough, they can amount to invaders. That may sound (gasp!) “racist”.
However, all societies are basically racist. Americans, as provincial as they are, don’t understand that. Every society is highly racist to outsiders, including the Chinese, the Indians, the Africans, and everybody else. Whites—Westerners—contrary to politically correct opinion, are the most accepting of different cultures. There is no mass immigration from Europe to China, India, or Africa. Other than a few businessmen and social experimenters, there’s no wholesale migration such as Europe and the US are accepting.
Huge numbers of anything are innately destabilizing. But the biggest problem is that most migrants come from the world’s two billion Mohammedans. That’s especially destabilizing because Islam is not just another religion; it’s a highly dogmatic way of looking at the world that comprehends science, philosophy, politics, art, and literature. If you enjoy the features of Western Civ, you must understand that Islam and Sharia are antithetical to them.
The Quran and the Hadith make it very clear that Islam (which means “submission”) is not about living in peace with unbelievers. Kafirs are to be converted, eliminated, or, at best, reduced to a second-class status. Inviting large numbers of Mohammedans into a culture is very much like inviting in fanatic communists.
That’s not good if you believe in Western civilization and its values. Marxism, socialism, communism, fascism, Nazism, Greenism, and Islam are essentially totalitarian. Oh well. As Gilda Radner said: “It’s just one damn thing after another. It’s always something.”
International Man: What can people who are concerned about these trends do about it?
Doug Casey: It’s as if a glacier was bearing down on you or a tsunami was on the horizon. It’s tough to battle a force of nature, and you really can’t change them.
Remember that birds of a feather flock together. Racism is both unaesthetic and intellectually unappealing, but it’s a part of humans’ genetic makeup. On the bright side, though—and I always like to look at the bright side—whether you like it or not, the problem will solve itself in the long run.
I’d refer you to one of my favorite science fiction books, The Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. He projects human history about two billion years into the future and points out that pretty soon—on that time scale— all of today’s races and cultures will integrate, mutate, and disappear. Humanity will reform into totally new species. About 20 or so, as I recall. Today’s problems will become non-problems as much bigger problems arise. Not to worry. Life isn’t just full of problems. Life IS problems. Unfortunately, that realization doesn’t help us in the present moment.
So what, if anything, can you do about the rapidly evolving, or perhaps devolving, nature of world demographics?
Make sure your personal ethics and morality are in order. And sort out the people you associate with and do business with by their values and character, not by their physical characteristics. Don’t let the larger world bother you too much; it has a life of its own.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.
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