Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense.
Sanseito, while still a minor party, made big gains in July’s parliamentary election, and Kamiya’s “Japanese First” platform of anti-globalism, anti-immigration and anti-liberalism is gaining broader traction ahead of a ruling party vote Saturday that will choose the likely next prime minister.
Who exactly will work those jobs?
Anyone. That’s how the labor market works. There aren’t going to be zero people capable of doing the work, they’re just going to be rare.
The same amount of work needs to be done to keep the economy running as it is, so you’re stretching those people out over a lot of additional jobs. How many jobs do you expect a young person to take simultaneously before they decide “this sucks, I’m emigrating to Canada where you only have to work one lifetime before getting to retire”?
Yeah, or, hear me out on this crazy theory: the supply of labor is low, so wages rise and young people can finally earn more money on just one job?
And then all those bullshit jobs that are not actually producing value get cut?
It wouldn’t be the same amount of jobs.
There is a limit to how much work you can get out of a fixed group of people no matter how much money you throw at them. If you ask me to build a thousand houses in an hour I’ll say “I can’t do that” and it won’t matter if you offer me a billion dollars to do it, I can’t do it.
The reason the population crisis in Japan is called a population crisis is because it is threatening to go past that threshold. It wouldn’t be a crisis otherwise.
Right, and I’m doubting that that is the case, because nobody who claims these things actually shares data and evidence to support that claim.