By Eddie McCabe
The far-right mantra that ‘Ireland is full’ is a sinister and stupid lie. In Ireland, we can easily prove this because this is the only country in the world with a smaller population than it had 200 years ago. Its high point was recorded in the 1841 census when 8.2 million lived on the island, compared to 7.1 million today.
The reason for this is that Ireland’s population dramatically decreased with the Great Famine, and continued to decline for the next century, only beginning a steady increase from the 1960s. Emigration, not immigration, has long been the real problem facing Irish people.
The primary cause of both the famine and the subsequent stranglehold on the Irish economy, which forced people to leave, was the brutal colonial policy of British imperialism. This point is generally understood by most Irish people, which is why it would be outrageous to suggest that the cause of the famine had anything to do with there being ‘too many people’.
It should be equally outrageous, however, to suggest that any famine, including those happening in parts of the world today, are ever the result of there being too many people. Unfortunately, such suggestions are indeed made, and too often and easily accepted. But the logic here is completely warped and wrong, and not just when applied to famine, but to any question of scarcity in society – whether jobs, houses, or public services.
Yet virtually every mainstream politician, whether conversative or liberal, speaks of immigration as something that has to be carefully controlled, lest our ‘limited’ economic and social resources be drained. But the truth is that such ‘limits’ are artificially imposed by an irrational economic system, which is incapable of harnessing our collective human potential. Rather than an inherent drain, every person in society, young and old, is someone who can contribute to the betterment of society – by working, creating, teaching, collaborating, caring.
The problem is never that there are too many people. And not just in Ireland, the same applies to Britain, the United States, China, or anywhere else – where the population has increased exponentially in the last 200 years. These countries – and the world as a whole – are not poorer now that they have more people, quite the opposite.
Capitalist economists are quick to point out that there’s more private wealth in the world today than ever before, approximately $450 trillion (according to the World Inequality Report 2022). Plenty to go ‘round, then. The problem is that the richest 10% own 76% of all wealth; while the poorest 50% – four billion people – own just 2%.
In fact, the problem is always the unjust and unproductive policies of the capitalist ruling classes. To take one glaring example: globally, nearly one-third of all food produced is lost or wasted each year, while hundreds of millions of people go hungry. And those hungry people, as well as those whose lives have been upended by wars and environmental disasters, often become refugees or migrants in other countries – seeking a better life for themselves and their families.
Of course, the rulers of this cruel world – whose system is responsible for all of this inequality, war and climate chaos – need to deflect the blame for all of the problems they are responsible for, both at home and abroad. So they developed and continually foster racist ideas – myths about ‘those others’ – to divide the working people they exploit, pitting them against each other, and cutting across class solidarity.
In this way, capitalism is an inherently racist system, even though capitalists are generally not against immigration per se. On the contrary, they need migrants – both as a source of cheap, more easily exploitable labour, and also as potential scapegoats for society’s problems.
What they fear most is solidarity between all workers, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, religion, etc., because that would make a stronger working class to challenge their power. That’s why socialists fight unwaveringly for unity between all workers, and for the freedom of movement for all workers around the world, who are innately part of the same class and the same struggle – regardless of the borders they’ve built up around us.
