by Bill Ponton
Pro-immigration advocates simultaneously celebrate and dismiss the significance of the “Great Replacement,” the theory that first-world, white natives are being replaced by third-world, dark immigrants. It is not the first time that those on the Left have held views that seem to contradict each other, but it is becoming apparent to the rest of us that the rules and terminology that they establish for discussing immigration make open and honest debate difficult.
The term, the “Great Replacement,” was originally coined and popularized by French philosopher Renaud Camus, who argued that elites in Western societies viewed their citizens as interchangeable economic units that could be replaced by cheaper migrant labor with little consequence. If the concept of elites dictating economic decisions seems foreign, then think of it in terms of consumer indifference to the ethnicity or nation status of those providing services as diverse as lawn mowing or software coding. In essence, our collective economic decisions impact society’s ethnic transformation if laissez-faire is truly the policy, i.e. free flow of labor and capital amongst countries and regions.
For many, ethnic transformation may not be the overriding concern that it is for others. For them, cultural transformation is the predominant consideration. They aspire to have their children live in a society that shares common values, though not ethnically homogenous. Given that a shared social view is utopian, not possible even with members of common ethnicity, they still have no desire to seek out and import people with vastly different cultural perspectives, who might create future social strife.
Camus’s concept of the Great Replacement paid scant attention to the role that the modern social welfare state plays in encouraging immigration. Even more attractive than employment opportunities is the social largesse that developed nations provide to immigrants. The recent influx of Somali and other third-world refugees into the United States and the internal migration in the 20th century of Southern blacks to Northern cities are prime examples. In both cases, migrants were enticed by both potential employment and welfare benefits.
Europe’s current predicament is also driven by lavish welfare benefits that immigrants receive upon entering the European continent. Politicians who court current liberal sentiment and future migrant votes are easy targets to blame, but it is difficult to absolve the European voters of their responsibility for their fate. It was their desire to see themselves as being generous to the underdeveloped peoples of the world, communicated through their political leaders to the world.
However, concern for humanity’s suffering stops being a pleasant pastime when the multitude show up at one’s doorstep wanting to make themselves at home. Retreat into the protected recesses of one’s back rooms will only buy time. At the current rate of immigration and immigrant reproduction, the natives of Europe will find themselves subjects of this new wave of colonizers within a century. That is how shifting demographics and democratic rule conspire to create the “Great Replacement.”