Immigration Wins in Switzerland

In Switzerland, a MAGA-like political party got an anti-immigration population cap put to a national referendum and lost. It is instructive to consider the reasons it lost:

Others, in particular Swiss business leaders, feared losing Switzerland's crucial access to Europe's single market.

Over half of all Swiss products are sold into the EU, but their access to Europe's markets depends on Swiss commitment to Europe's free movement of people. Had the population cap been approved, Switzerland would have had to terminate that agreement.

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Only Swiss citizens were allowed to vote, but in the cities, which have larger immigrant communities than in the countryside, the proposal got a particularly resounding no.

In the capital city Bern, for example, almost 84% of those voting rejected a population cap.

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"The EU is still by far the most important trading partner for Switzerland," explains Minsch, adding that is it is "in our interest to have stable and clear relationships with our main trading partner".

Swiss employers were also worried about labour shortages, and losing access to a Europe-wide pool of skilled workers.

The issue of losing the EU as a trading partner strikes me as something the proponent Swiss People's Party might have demagogued as bureaucratic overreach, or an issue of national sovereignty. But free movement is an individual right, and recognizing that right is part of that country's trading agreement. The issue of labor shortages -- easily solved through immigration -- shows that respecting individual rights is in the self-interest of the businessmen, the immigrants, and their customers alike.

One issue that plausibly seems worsened by a high immigrant population -- bigger costs related to the welfare state -- is a red herring: As I and others have argued in the past, the problem is the welfare state:

Were the educational and medical sectors privately run, we would not attract or encourage freeloaders, and non-citizens who used these facilities would be paying customers.

I am glad for Switzerland's sake that its voters ignored the scapegoaters and chose freedom, the path of prosperity, in this referendum.

If only voters in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave had half as much sense!

-- CAV