Despite the prosperity, many Swiss had mixed emotions about the guest workers, who came largely from Southern Europe. As the Swiss novelist Max Frisch observed, “We wanted workers, but we got people.”
Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs.
It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around.
It’s first “I don’t want illegal immigrants”, when the immigration is legal they start doing things like take back control(UK) or sustainability (Swiss).
What they should have done was unprotected heterosexual sex 20 years ago or robots now.
I find it annoying that they screw other stuff just because they don’t want to face the truth about their character.
When people have no hope of not making it as a permanent resident or citizen, their incentives to perform well are not as high. Also immigration is a global market, you compete with other countries that might offer better conditions so you lose on the best workforce.
I don't know the overall ratio, but my experience working with many immigrant workers is that they had no real intention of staying and instead are just arbitraging cost of living between [rich country] and [poor country] for their family back home. Emphasis on home.
Sounds like you have a really limited interaction with immigrants. I’m lifelong immigrant (4 different countries) in every single one of those countries majority of immigrants want to stay. Permanent residency is a constant conversation topic. There are definitely immigrants thinking like your explanation, but definitely a minority. .
There are 40k naturalisations each year (a similar number relative to population as in the US). Around 13% of the Swiss citizens have acquired the nationality via naturalisation (8% in the US).
Even more ironic is that “the indigenous people didn’t want foreign workers for the vile and parasitic foreign ruling class and no one asked them if they wanted to be forced to share their home with alien and foreign people against their will that destroy their culture; in this case one that is probably tens of thousands of years old.
It seems more the indigenous people of Europe and their cultures are being eradicated all over Europe after the vile and demonic, parasitic ruling class of the planet turns on Europeans once again after having previously destroyed and plundered the rest of the planet.
Maybe a personal analysis: It's a trend that is growing all over Europe. It's the equivalent of overtourism and a problem for the ruling parties (except the SVP that proposed it). Expect it to continue quite soon in Switzerland and other European countries (France, Germany etc.). Of course it doesn't make sense to curb immigration at 10 Mio and many know it. It was also for many a vote against the ruling parties. Although Switzerland is an immigration country, Swiss don't think this way. It's more farmer/alpine style: Welcome guests but expect them to leave again. Many Swiss also don't interact with foreigners a lot, including myself (besides at work). Many of my friends don't want to give up their prosperity. They are fairly advanced in their career and it's more about enjoying life. So for many of them it's more a rational decision than really a belief we should have more immigration. As long as I can benefit, it's good. For younger people it may be different. My wife, who is not native Swiss, was in favor. And compared to other countries, I think Xenophobia is low.
> And compared to other countries, I think Xenophobia is low
I would agree and also suggest that initiatives like this play a large role in doing so. While there's a lot of bullshit arguments coming from the "yes" camp they do make some reasonable points and it's important that we discuss them to show what the trade-offs are.
I cannot speak for all Swiss but knowing that it was a democratic decision to continue with some, high skilled, immigration makes it far easier to accept than if some government employee in Bern would've made that decision single handed.
The current system permitting freedom of movement across the continent while devolving immigration policy entirely to members creates a fundamental tension the EU needs to resolve. Because otherwise, Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly, which is bound to generate backlash even if they run a perfect programme.
To me it seems like EU countries are independently embarking on the Canada-policy of importing a whole bunch of South East Asians and Latin Americans. From Hungary to Ireland, you see the same trend.
Part of it is by economic necessity. For example finding nursing staff is very challenging and you have to compete with the US and Australia and other rich countries.
But part of it doesn't make much sense. We really don't need to import any kind of engineers from outside of Europe when we have about 2,500 EU universities pumping out graduates each year.
When a person relocates to a country where their labor is more productive, a large amount of new economic value is created. Much of that value is captured by the migrant through higher earnings, but a lot also accrues to the people in the community they join.
So an engineer joining a country that already has engineers still creates a ton of value in the destination country
> if they displace someone trying to join the engineering workforce say right out of school? What about housing?
Civilisations that learn to balance this conflict between growth and limited resources thrive. Those that cap their growth can do fine, but they obviously won’t be as rich, powerful or influential as those that manage it.
> For example finding nursing staff is very challenging
No. Finding staff that'll work for very low wages is very challenging. It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages.
> It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages
Sort of. You’re simply not going to have an agricultural sector with at Canadian and American wages without significantly higher food prices and protectionism. One day we may automate that. But that will still be more expensive for the foreseeable future.
Voters seem to be picking domestic production and low prices, with low wages being a side effect. (Business interests of course love those.)
> We really don't need to import any kind of engineers from outside of Europe when we have about 2,500 EU universities pumping out graduates each year
False economy. More engineers, particularly diversely trained ones, are more likely to create self-reinforcing clusters. Nobody complains Silicon Valley has too many engineers (other than during a hiring off cycle) because in general, more engineers means more wealth and opportunities for each engineer.
> The current system permitting freedom of movement across the continent while devolving immigration policy entirely to members creates a fundamental tension the EU needs to resolve. Because otherwise, Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly, which is bound to generate backlash even if they run a perfect programme.
You do realize German nationals (followed by French) are the top contingent in term of immigration to Swizerland.
(Only EU citizens benefit from freedom of movement to settle in Switzerland)
I think this somewhat federation causes problems similar (by design!) to those that the Federal System within the United States encourages. The "finger pointing" allows for status quo to carry on as usual, while the overlapping & glacial judicial systems legislate glacially from their antiquated benches...
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Hopefully we can all take inspiration from the living memories of balkanization – smaller groups, hopefully with shared interests and common backgrounds, ought to be in charge of themselves; and themselves, only.
It's a give/take. Even Israel & Spain have fenced borders (the latter on African continent)[i.e. it's not just USA "being racist"].
Every jurisdiction needs to limit immigration more (which EU's dispersed jurisdictions make impossible, by statute) before any one country can tackle any of their other lacks/disputes. The current EU setup is the inverse of USA's, where the feds technically regulate most immigration issues (instead of EU's individual memberstates having most power), but not all.
Balkanisation refers to fences within one’s borders. It’s fragmentation that leads to less wealth, less security and eventually a loss of sovereignty to a powerful neighbor who notices.
I understand and encourage the "breaking up" aspect. Smaller, more home-rule societies.
Looking at it from the Slovene POV (which ultimately benefited from the dissolution of Yogoslavia, occurring within my/most lifetime), local industries/GDP benefitted greatly.
I believe the point was more that Germany can accept lots of immigrants being a large country, and freedom of movement will allow them inside all countries, which can lead to backlash.
> Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly
That's what I was responding to.
Note the UK left the EU and accepted more immigrants than before. We didn't force them. Hungary and Poland never accepted Syrian immigrants either and they weren't forced to accept them iirc.
Switzerland getting Indians with German passports, maybe not something that was thought back in those days when there were signed? Western Europe will be a massive powder keg in 20 years
> While they're at it, they should kick out the French, the Germans, the Italians, and any other immigrants refusing to speak Swiss.
What's this Swiss language you speak of? I never heard of it. You must mean Romansh but that's only 0.5% of the population or so. You'd have to kick out 95.5% of the Swiss population too then?
That’s their point. Switzerland is a nation of immigrants. We don’t tend to be portrayed as such outside. And the SVP tends to forget this. (As does the GOP.)
I know this is tongue in cheek. But one of the hallmarks of a nation of immigrants is the enforced tolerance of speaking multiple national languages. Lots of people who only speak on throws off that balance.
And Indian immigration tends to be the most educated and wealthy. It's also the wealthiest ethnic group in the US. By far.
In any case, leaving Schengen for Switzerland would be de facto equivalent to Brexit, an economic disaster.
Switzerland thrives by attracting highly qualified professionals for it's service and manufacturing industries and yes, also at the lower end where Swiss nationals aren't lining up to be plumbers, couriers or cleaning staff.
Maybe they prefer living amongst themselves than make number go to the moon. If these guys are such GDP rocket fuel and a solution, they can make their own country the best in the world.
I visited few times and I like the country but I don't expect them to accept or cater to me.
> If these guys are such GDP rocket fuel and a solution, they can make their own country the best in the world.
Not every country in the world gives the same opportunities, it's only natural many motivated individuals may try their chances elsewhere, I see nothing wrong with it.
I'm an European and I have many grandparents and their relatives who emigrated to Argentina, US, Canada a century or so ago.
My parents left communist Poland for Italy in the 70s.
Many of my friends left Italy and now reside in the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia and some in the US too.
Overly xenophobic anti immigration stances don't resonate with me at all.
Immigration is a net benefit for humanity, it has had a huge impact on distributing human capital where it could best express it's talents.
Like everything it has its cons and regulations are needed. But none of those should be rooted on open racism.
IDK about Argentina, but the US, Australia and Canada went through the whole cycle post WWII. At first they opened up their borders because they were in need of workers. However, at some point, due to various factors, including rising anti-immigration sentiments, they retightened their immigration policies again. This all happened pre-1990s. And all of those are immigration countries, unlike countries in Europe.
> Western Europe will be a massive powder keg in 20 years
Western Europe has been a powder keg for at least three millennia. The only thing keeping a cap on it recently was American hegemony. (EDIT: to be clear, American hegemony is waning. The powder keg is uncapped, and we’re one of the parties throwing in matches.)
> Only if Berlin starts handing out German passports do they dictate EU immigration single-handedly
Fair enough and great point.
It’s incredibly hard to naturalize in Switzerland. Less so in Germany. (Though still much harder than in America, at least based on my American friends who naturalized there and this Swiss of Indian and Germanic origin who naturalized in America.) It’s fair for those countries to want to maintain those differences.
> It’s incredibly hard to naturalize in Switzerland. Less so in Germany
Is it? Asking out of curiosity, from a cursory look both countries require self-sufficiency, language (in fact Switzerland looks a little easier on this), no criminal background, an integration test to be taken (and both seem easy) and time in the country.
Only major difference seems to me is Germany takes 5 years in paper (more like 6-7 in reality with bureaucracy) and Switzerland takes 10 years in paper.
Some countries print them out very liberally though. Sweden did not require financial self-sufficiency or language ability until like 2 weeks ago. I raised this point back in like 2015 and was promptly called a racist. So these have been handed to people who have nothing to do with the country. Few other countries have done this too but less so. Now all their children etc. will have unfettered access to Switzerland.
Tbh I cannot see anything else but Swiss people at some point voting themselves out of this somehow.
Your comments do land on the xenophobic side though.
E.g."Indians with German passports": You need to pass a naturalization and language tests before applying for citizenship. Until recently you couldn't even apply without living in the country for 6+ years - now reduced to 4+. So how do you or potential Swiss know they are Indians? The first thing that comes to mind is that you're assuming it by the way they look.
I asked Opus 4.8 to "see if viking123 comments on hacker news could sound xenophobic to some people", here's the verdict that it produced:
Short verdict
Yes — a meaningful subset would read as xenophobic to a lot of people, and the heaviest cluster actually tips past "xenophobic" into recognizable antisemitic conspiracy framing. That said, the large majority of his comments are just generic snark about AI companies, model quality, and pricing, with no ethnic angle at all. The problematic material is concentrated in a handful of threads. Let me show you the specific stuff and why it lands the way it does
...provides your specific comments...
How to calibrate "could sound xenophobic to some people"
Honestly, the framing undersells it. The immigration and "youths" material is the kind of thing where some people would call it xenophobic and others would call it edgy realism — genuinely contested. But the antisemitic-trope cluster isn't really in "some people might read it that way" territory; it's material that most neutral readers, and basically any platform trust-and-safety review, would flag as bigoted. If your goal is "would this get him in trouble / read badly," that cluster is the exposure, more than the immigration takes.
One caveat for fairness: his persona is a contrarian edgelord across the board — he's equally caustic about American CEOs, "boomers," "normies," "plebs," crypto, and AI hype. The bigotry-flavored stuff isn't the bulk of what he posts; it's a recurring streak inside a generally cynical, everyone's-a-grifter style. That context won't save him with most readers, but it's the accurate picture.
You can get housing, you have to trade money for time and commute with the (frequent and reliable) public transportation.
Meanwhile the parlement and the anti+immigration far-right vote all the time to increase landlord rights and margins. Most of them are landlords, of course...
I mean, Kt. ZH also had the Wohnungsinitiative today, because not even Swiss people can find housing in ZH anymore.
Let’s be realistic and admit that landlords already prioritize someone with history of renting in the country and it’s pretty fair to say that new immigrants will struggle to get housing. Even if you come on a FAANG salary, you will not be able to buy your way in that easily.
Can you explain why you think xenophobia is low? My experience as a swed is that xenophobia and trying to avoid immigration often go hand in hand. You do not have a large Swiss right populist semi racist party like most other European countries have?
In my experience, Swiss don't like criminals, unemployed people and people showing openly their religion. They negatively associate certain nationalities with stereotypes (e.g. Albanians, Maroccans etc.). If you are a representative of these groups, yes, it will be a problem. Violence towards foreigners is, compared to other countries, does not exist. Also with other nationalities, it is very different. Some people don't like Germans (that's also historically of course). However, with Germans near the boder it is often not a problem because they are more similar (and know how Swiss behave). With people from Berlin, many Swiss have not much in common. My wife is visible not Swiss and she never encountered raciscm (quite the contrary, she gets more free products at local stores than me because people recognize her). She also likes to buy tomatoes only from Switzerland. It is all how you behave in my experience.
To the SVP, it is quite a different between the party and representative that are in the government. They are considered moderate due to the political system in Switzerland.
The SVP is not considered "moderate". They are a far-right party. The fact that they are wide spread and gather a lot of votes does not make them "moderate".
The SVP campaign in favor of the initiative was something else. Half the country is plastered with their posters, and social media is full of astroturfing. It didn't pay off this times, but the propaganda dominance of this party is concerning.
Misleading to call this "cap population", no one can cap population. The vote was about capping immigrant benefits, mostly aiming germans (reaching 9.5m) and then Swiss EU isolation/"Swexit" (at 10m). Basically the right wing SVP's long term goals packaged in a format that was more palatable to the masses.
I don't get why they would want to do this, when runaway depopulation is the biggest issue facing the world. We're at a point where (I think, controversially) we need to sanction (or more) nations that aren't increasing their population annually. This is an existential threat facing the human race.
Most people have a local view of their world through their immediate surroundings, not a panoptic or holistic perspective on the earth or their nation.
The power of collective action via votes isn’t a bayesian system, its just like the sum of many binary vectors.
More surprising it didn't pass the "majority of cantons" either (both are required for initiatives like this), I would have expected it to pass (there are a lot of smaller/rural/alpine cantons which tends to vote more conservative).
The Masseneinwanderungsinitiative passed in 2014... and fuck all happened (despite the no campaign heavily leaning on the argument that it would kill the bilaterals, e.g. https://www.emuseum.ch/internal/media/dispatcher/286887/full). When push comes to shove, there is a solid bloc in parliament and the executive for saving the EU bilaterals, even if it means ignoring constitutional initiatives.
The Swiss have votations all the time. They also can vote by mail. Those who didn't vote had no opinion, or no strong opinion, on the matter.
Also, cities who should suffer the most of overcrowding by immigrants voted against, as well as cantons situated at the border, while the backcountry who never see any immigrant voted in favor.
The issue is this means in aggregate only around 3-5% of the total population needs to flip in it's opinions for CHexit to happen - which is very doable over two election cycles.
A 55% win with 58% turnout despite how this vote was front and center of media discourse is very worrisome as this shows how disengaged the other 42% are.
> in aggregate only around 3-5% of the total population needs to flip in it's opinions for CHexit to happen
If the marketing were less xenophobic and the cap were derived from some scientific basis, I think I could be persuaded to vote for it. Particularly since it is not a vote for Chexit, but a democratic vote to confront the EU. (Britain triggered Article 50. Nothing in this referendum directs Berne to do that.)
> withdraw from the bilaterals 2 years after exceeding 10m if they couldn't be renegotiated
Sure. This is two years down the road. And it is not Article 50. It would cause a shitshow. But that shitshow could be averted and is less comprehensive than directing an EU exit.
In what way? It is a vote to adopt a policy that is in breach of your international treaty obligations. Unilaterally breaching your obligations is not a grounds for discussion or compromise, it is simply an exit from them, benefits included.
Suppose you're not getting on with your roommate. You could talk to them and try to resolve the problems, or you could default on your lease and receive an eviction notice from the landlord. You are opting for the latter. That is not "confronting" anything, it is a done deal. It is a choice you are allowed to make, to be clear, just as the Brits did, but let's not pretend it's something it isn't.
The party that proposed this vote has always opposed the treaties with the EU and yes this whole thing is just a thinly disguised way to repudiate the treaties as soon as practicable. They know what they are getting, it's not a cake-and-eat-it-too thing.
> It is a vote to adopt a policy that is in breach of your international treaty obligations
It was a vote to renegotiate them under threat of disavowing them. That’s fine.
> You could talk to them and try to resolve the problems, or you could default on your lease and receive an eviction notice from the landlord
It’s totally fair, during those talks, to make clear that if you can’t reach an agreement on the roommate not doing their dishes, you’re prepared to move out. (That doesn’t commit you to moving out if they refuse to budge.)
> That doesn’t commit you to moving out if they refuse to budge
The vote did commit you to amending your federal constitution with a population cap, period.
> If the 10-million threshold is exceeded, Switzerland would have to terminate these agreements, including the one with the EU on the free movement of persons after two years. This would also render the other agreements under Bilateral Agreements I null and void. Switzerland’s participation in the EU’s Schengen and Dublin agreements would also be called into question, thereby jeopardising close cooperation in the areas of security and asylum.
There is no room for negotiation in it. The government page itself spells out the hardline consequences.
But I suppose that's how these votes have to be marketed, isn't it? The Brits were under the delusion that they'd get to have their cake and eat it too, that they could keep any benefits of being in the EU even as they exited it. I wonder how many Swiss were aware they were voting to end their own freedom of movement, that blocking EU immigration would mean they would no longer be able to move elsewhere in the EU themselves. Which, again, is valid if that's the intention, but I suspect a lot of voters like yourself rather believed they were only voting to end freedom of movement for brown foreigners, or voting to negotiate special privileges, when in actuality it was literally a vote to exit treaties.
> no room for negotiation in it. The government page itself spells out the hardline consequences
There is always room for negotiation. Bilaterals is a treaty, not a diktat. And again, 2 years provides time for another referendum.
> wonder how many Swiss were aware they were voting to end their own freedom of movement, that blocking EU immigration would mean they would no longer be able to move elsewhere in the EU themselves
Everyone did. The question was how the Guillotine clauses would be executed. Which, truly, nobody knows.
I mean technically, it was also rejected by the Kantons-as-entities so if that 5% is unevenly spread, theoretically it could still be rejected by Kantonal majority…
> reduce global human growth for climate preservation, are opposed?
Pro-EU. The cap is within half a million of the current population and pretty much immediately set to trigger consultations.
I actually deliberated on this one and landed against because of how proximate the cap was set and the pretty horrible tone of the pro-cap side’s marketing.
In Europe the right doesn't really care about abortion that much, its not really something i hear parties discuss.
Their main focal point is immigration, anti-muslim sentiment.
The left can be for reduction of GLOBAL human growth, but still increase LOCAL growth, which is primarily caused by immigration not birthrate.
Yes, but not just “immigration”, but open borders with the EU: most immigrants in Switzerland are EU citizens, and it fits in a broader framework of Swiss-European agreement, capping population would almost certainly imply withdrawal from this framework.
Recent, related New Yorker article that goes into the background leading up to the vote
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/06/15/could-switzerl...
Yes, that’s the dilemma of the rich countries. They want their life be taken care by the people they don’t want around and if they have to have them around they want them be the kids from people from their kind but not theirs.
It’s a special kind of NIMBY, not necessarily xenophobia. More like a class thing, they want other rich people’s kids do the shitty jobs so they don’t have to have these poor people doing the jobs and hanging around.
It’s first “I don’t want illegal immigrants”, when the immigration is legal they start doing things like take back control(UK) or sustainability (Swiss).
What they should have done was unprotected heterosexual sex 20 years ago or robots now.
I find it annoying that they screw other stuff just because they don’t want to face the truth about their character.
Then do like UAE? No permanent residency or naturalization
Amnesty International report that things are fairly bad in the UAE for foreign workers.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...
That is kinda the intention, not the accident thing
When people have no hope of not making it as a permanent resident or citizen, their incentives to perform well are not as high. Also immigration is a global market, you compete with other countries that might offer better conditions so you lose on the best workforce.
I don't know the overall ratio, but my experience working with many immigrant workers is that they had no real intention of staying and instead are just arbitraging cost of living between [rich country] and [poor country] for their family back home. Emphasis on home.
Sounds like you have a really limited interaction with immigrants. I’m lifelong immigrant (4 different countries) in every single one of those countries majority of immigrants want to stay. Permanent residency is a constant conversation topic. There are definitely immigrants thinking like your explanation, but definitely a minority. .
We do. Swiss naturalization is famously difficult.
But EU citizens can basically live forever in CH even though technically they don’t have permanent residency.
There are 40k naturalisations each year (a similar number relative to population as in the US). Around 13% of the Swiss citizens have acquired the nationality via naturalisation (8% in the US).
Even more ironic is that “the indigenous people didn’t want foreign workers for the vile and parasitic foreign ruling class and no one asked them if they wanted to be forced to share their home with alien and foreign people against their will that destroy their culture; in this case one that is probably tens of thousands of years old.
It seems more the indigenous people of Europe and their cultures are being eradicated all over Europe after the vile and demonic, parasitic ruling class of the planet turns on Europeans once again after having previously destroyed and plundered the rest of the planet.
What did I just read!? Looks like an AI trained exclusively on 4chan
Maybe a personal analysis: It's a trend that is growing all over Europe. It's the equivalent of overtourism and a problem for the ruling parties (except the SVP that proposed it). Expect it to continue quite soon in Switzerland and other European countries (France, Germany etc.). Of course it doesn't make sense to curb immigration at 10 Mio and many know it. It was also for many a vote against the ruling parties. Although Switzerland is an immigration country, Swiss don't think this way. It's more farmer/alpine style: Welcome guests but expect them to leave again. Many Swiss also don't interact with foreigners a lot, including myself (besides at work). Many of my friends don't want to give up their prosperity. They are fairly advanced in their career and it's more about enjoying life. So for many of them it's more a rational decision than really a belief we should have more immigration. As long as I can benefit, it's good. For younger people it may be different. My wife, who is not native Swiss, was in favor. And compared to other countries, I think Xenophobia is low.
> And compared to other countries, I think Xenophobia is low
I would agree and also suggest that initiatives like this play a large role in doing so. While there's a lot of bullshit arguments coming from the "yes" camp they do make some reasonable points and it's important that we discuss them to show what the trade-offs are.
I cannot speak for all Swiss but knowing that it was a democratic decision to continue with some, high skilled, immigration makes it far easier to accept than if some government employee in Bern would've made that decision single handed.
> It's a trend that is growing all over Europe
The current system permitting freedom of movement across the continent while devolving immigration policy entirely to members creates a fundamental tension the EU needs to resolve. Because otherwise, Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly, which is bound to generate backlash even if they run a perfect programme.
To me it seems like EU countries are independently embarking on the Canada-policy of importing a whole bunch of South East Asians and Latin Americans. From Hungary to Ireland, you see the same trend.
Part of it is by economic necessity. For example finding nursing staff is very challenging and you have to compete with the US and Australia and other rich countries.
But part of it doesn't make much sense. We really don't need to import any kind of engineers from outside of Europe when we have about 2,500 EU universities pumping out graduates each year.
When a person relocates to a country where their labor is more productive, a large amount of new economic value is created. Much of that value is captured by the migrant through higher earnings, but a lot also accrues to the people in the community they join.
So an engineer joining a country that already has engineers still creates a ton of value in the destination country
And if they displace someone trying to join the engineering workforce say right out of school? What about housing?
Look up the "lump of labour fallacy". The jobs market is not a zero-sum thing.
> if they displace someone trying to join the engineering workforce say right out of school? What about housing?
Civilisations that learn to balance this conflict between growth and limited resources thrive. Those that cap their growth can do fine, but they obviously won’t be as rich, powerful or influential as those that manage it.
> For example finding nursing staff is very challenging
No. Finding staff that'll work for very low wages is very challenging. It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages.
> It's not really about bringing in essential skills, it's about driving down wages
Sort of. You’re simply not going to have an agricultural sector with at Canadian and American wages without significantly higher food prices and protectionism. One day we may automate that. But that will still be more expensive for the foreseeable future.
Voters seem to be picking domestic production and low prices, with low wages being a side effect. (Business interests of course love those.)
> We really don't need to import any kind of engineers from outside of Europe when we have about 2,500 EU universities pumping out graduates each year
False economy. More engineers, particularly diversely trained ones, are more likely to create self-reinforcing clusters. Nobody complains Silicon Valley has too many engineers (other than during a hiring off cycle) because in general, more engineers means more wealth and opportunities for each engineer.
> The current system permitting freedom of movement across the continent while devolving immigration policy entirely to members creates a fundamental tension the EU needs to resolve. Because otherwise, Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly, which is bound to generate backlash even if they run a perfect programme.
You do realize German nationals (followed by French) are the top contingent in term of immigration to Swizerland.
(Only EU citizens benefit from freedom of movement to settle in Switzerland)
> You do realize German nationals (followed by French) are the top contingent in term of immigration to Swizerland
Yes. I’m also conceding to the SVP the observation that a good fraction of said nationals are recently naturalized.
If the SVP says it, it must be true :) What's their sources? I'm sure they could find a couple of anecdotes, doesn't make it significant.
> What's their sources?
Don’t know, don’t care. Mine are conversations in Zürich.
I think this somewhat federation causes problems similar (by design!) to those that the Federal System within the United States encourages. The "finger pointing" allows for status quo to carry on as usual, while the overlapping & glacial judicial systems legislate glacially from their antiquated benches...
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Hopefully we can all take inspiration from the living memories of balkanization – smaller groups, hopefully with shared interests and common backgrounds, ought to be in charge of themselves; and themselves, only.
> we can all take inspiration from the living memories of balkanization
Massive internal trade barriers and security so fragmented you’re at the whim of your larger neighbors?
It's a give/take. Even Israel & Spain have fenced borders (the latter on African continent)[i.e. it's not just USA "being racist"].
Every jurisdiction needs to limit immigration more (which EU's dispersed jurisdictions make impossible, by statute) before any one country can tackle any of their other lacks/disputes. The current EU setup is the inverse of USA's, where the feds technically regulate most immigration issues (instead of EU's individual memberstates having most power), but not all.
> Even Israel & Spain have fenced borders
Balkanisation refers to fences within one’s borders. It’s fragmentation that leads to less wealth, less security and eventually a loss of sovereignty to a powerful neighbor who notices.
I understand and encourage the "breaking up" aspect. Smaller, more home-rule societies.
Looking at it from the Slovene POV (which ultimately benefited from the dissolution of Yogoslavia, occurring within my/most lifetime), local industries/GDP benefitted greatly.
Is this Berlin that decides anything and rolls it out contintent-wide with us in the room right now?
I believe the point was more that Germany can accept lots of immigrants being a large country, and freedom of movement will allow them inside all countries, which can lead to backlash.
And that point is wrong. An immigrant with a legal residence in Germany but no permanent residence permit can't just pack up and go live elsewhere.
Yep, someone points it to GP down below. One needs to apply for immigration again in the next country if they want to travel for more than a vacation.
Berlin is basically forcing the EU's hand regarding the Gaza war, so, yes?
Only in the same sense that Hungary was dictating Russia and Ukraine policy.
How is that related to immigration?
> Berlin can basically dictate EU immigration single handedly
That's what I was responding to.
Note the UK left the EU and accepted more immigrants than before. We didn't force them. Hungary and Poland never accepted Syrian immigrants either and they weren't forced to accept them iirc.
Berlin single-handedly banned Yanks Varoufakis from entering the Schengen area. More specifically, because he said something about Gaza.
Varoufakis is Greek and so EU citizen. He literally cannot be banned from Schengen.
He is banned from public speaking in Germany and only Germany. Which the Germans can do to anyone on their own territory, including German citizens.
Switzerland getting Indians with German passports, maybe not something that was thought back in those days when there were signed? Western Europe will be a massive powder keg in 20 years
German passport == German.
While they're at it, they should kick out the French, the Germans, the Italians, and any other immigrants refusing to speak Swiss.
> While they're at it, they should kick out the French, the Germans, the Italians, and any other immigrants refusing to speak Swiss.
What's this Swiss language you speak of? I never heard of it. You must mean Romansh but that's only 0.5% of the population or so. You'd have to kick out 95.5% of the Swiss population too then?
That’s their point. Switzerland is a nation of immigrants. We don’t tend to be portrayed as such outside. And the SVP tends to forget this. (As does the GOP.)
> refusing to speak Swiss
I know this is tongue in cheek. But one of the hallmarks of a nation of immigrants is the enforced tolerance of speaking multiple national languages. Lots of people who only speak on throws off that balance.
So what?
I despise such openly xenophobic posts.
And Indian immigration tends to be the most educated and wealthy. It's also the wealthiest ethnic group in the US. By far.
In any case, leaving Schengen for Switzerland would be de facto equivalent to Brexit, an economic disaster.
Switzerland thrives by attracting highly qualified professionals for it's service and manufacturing industries and yes, also at the lower end where Swiss nationals aren't lining up to be plumbers, couriers or cleaning staff.
The plumbers I had were all Swiss. There is not an overproportional amount of foreigners working in this profession.
Maybe they prefer living amongst themselves than make number go to the moon. If these guys are such GDP rocket fuel and a solution, they can make their own country the best in the world.
I visited few times and I like the country but I don't expect them to accept or cater to me.
Who's they?
> If these guys are such GDP rocket fuel and a solution, they can make their own country the best in the world.
Not every country in the world gives the same opportunities, it's only natural many motivated individuals may try their chances elsewhere, I see nothing wrong with it.
I'm an European and I have many grandparents and their relatives who emigrated to Argentina, US, Canada a century or so ago.
My parents left communist Poland for Italy in the 70s.
Many of my friends left Italy and now reside in the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia and some in the US too.
Overly xenophobic anti immigration stances don't resonate with me at all.
Immigration is a net benefit for humanity, it has had a huge impact on distributing human capital where it could best express it's talents.
Like everything it has its cons and regulations are needed. But none of those should be rooted on open racism.
IDK about Argentina, but the US, Australia and Canada went through the whole cycle post WWII. At first they opened up their borders because they were in need of workers. However, at some point, due to various factors, including rising anti-immigration sentiments, they retightened their immigration policies again. This all happened pre-1990s. And all of those are immigration countries, unlike countries in Europe.
Mate, none of those governments were led by natives but immigrants and their descendants.
Unless you live under a rock it's not Crazy Horse or Geronimo sitting in the white house, but a descendant of immigrants.
> Western Europe will be a massive powder keg in 20 years
Western Europe has been a powder keg for at least three millennia. The only thing keeping a cap on it recently was American hegemony. (EDIT: to be clear, American hegemony is waning. The powder keg is uncapped, and we’re one of the parties throwing in matches.)
America is who's propping up all the far right parties now. America wants a destable, fractured Europe. Russia too, but America has more funds.
> America is who's propping up all the far right parties now
Oh, to be clear, yes.
Immigration is not devolved. The whole point of Schengen is the opposite of devolution of immigration.
You are confusing immigration with naturalization. Only if Berlin starts handing out German passports do they dictate EU immigration single-handedly.
> Only if Berlin starts handing out German passports do they dictate EU immigration single-handedly
Fair enough and great point.
It’s incredibly hard to naturalize in Switzerland. Less so in Germany. (Though still much harder than in America, at least based on my American friends who naturalized there and this Swiss of Indian and Germanic origin who naturalized in America.) It’s fair for those countries to want to maintain those differences.
> It’s incredibly hard to naturalize in Switzerland. Less so in Germany
Is it? Asking out of curiosity, from a cursory look both countries require self-sufficiency, language (in fact Switzerland looks a little easier on this), no criminal background, an integration test to be taken (and both seem easy) and time in the country.
Only major difference seems to me is Germany takes 5 years in paper (more like 6-7 in reality with bureaucracy) and Switzerland takes 10 years in paper.
Some countries print them out very liberally though. Sweden did not require financial self-sufficiency or language ability until like 2 weeks ago. I raised this point back in like 2015 and was promptly called a racist. So these have been handed to people who have nothing to do with the country. Few other countries have done this too but less so. Now all their children etc. will have unfettered access to Switzerland.
Tbh I cannot see anything else but Swiss people at some point voting themselves out of this somehow.
Your comments do land on the xenophobic side though. E.g."Indians with German passports": You need to pass a naturalization and language tests before applying for citizenship. Until recently you couldn't even apply without living in the country for 6+ years - now reduced to 4+. So how do you or potential Swiss know they are Indians? The first thing that comes to mind is that you're assuming it by the way they look.
I asked Opus 4.8 to "see if viking123 comments on hacker news could sound xenophobic to some people", here's the verdict that it produced:
Short verdict Yes — a meaningful subset would read as xenophobic to a lot of people, and the heaviest cluster actually tips past "xenophobic" into recognizable antisemitic conspiracy framing. That said, the large majority of his comments are just generic snark about AI companies, model quality, and pricing, with no ethnic angle at all. The problematic material is concentrated in a handful of threads. Let me show you the specific stuff and why it lands the way it does
...provides your specific comments...
How to calibrate "could sound xenophobic to some people"
Honestly, the framing undersells it. The immigration and "youths" material is the kind of thing where some people would call it xenophobic and others would call it edgy realism — genuinely contested. But the antisemitic-trope cluster isn't really in "some people might read it that way" territory; it's material that most neutral readers, and basically any platform trust-and-safety review, would flag as bigoted. If your goal is "would this get him in trouble / read badly," that cluster is the exposure, more than the immigration takes. One caveat for fairness: his persona is a contrarian edgelord across the board — he's equally caustic about American CEOs, "boomers," "normies," "plebs," crypto, and AI hype. The bigotry-flavored stuff isn't the bulk of what he posts; it's a recurring streak inside a generally cynical, everyone's-a-grifter style. That context won't save him with most readers, but it's the accurate picture.
How are the job prospects and housing prices? Switzerland is beautiful and I would gladly move there for six or so equivalent figures..
If you are non-EU, you will not get a work permit.
If you are EU or do get a work permit, you will not get housing.
The vote was for a reason…
You can get housing, you have to trade money for time and commute with the (frequent and reliable) public transportation.
Meanwhile the parlement and the anti+immigration far-right vote all the time to increase landlord rights and margins. Most of them are landlords, of course...
I mean, Kt. ZH also had the Wohnungsinitiative today, because not even Swiss people can find housing in ZH anymore.
Let’s be realistic and admit that landlords already prioritize someone with history of renting in the country and it’s pretty fair to say that new immigrants will struggle to get housing. Even if you come on a FAANG salary, you will not be able to buy your way in that easily.
They pay incredibly well, but their work culture (vacation, protections for parents etc) is atrocious. They're on par with Japan/South Korea.
You get bonus points for commuting across the German border and utilizing our cheap prices. Don't forget to get the value-added tax refunded!
Meat trafficking over the border is one of my hobbies.
Can you explain why you think xenophobia is low? My experience as a swed is that xenophobia and trying to avoid immigration often go hand in hand. You do not have a large Swiss right populist semi racist party like most other European countries have?
In my experience, Swiss don't like criminals, unemployed people and people showing openly their religion. They negatively associate certain nationalities with stereotypes (e.g. Albanians, Maroccans etc.). If you are a representative of these groups, yes, it will be a problem. Violence towards foreigners is, compared to other countries, does not exist. Also with other nationalities, it is very different. Some people don't like Germans (that's also historically of course). However, with Germans near the boder it is often not a problem because they are more similar (and know how Swiss behave). With people from Berlin, many Swiss have not much in common. My wife is visible not Swiss and she never encountered raciscm (quite the contrary, she gets more free products at local stores than me because people recognize her). She also likes to buy tomatoes only from Switzerland. It is all how you behave in my experience. To the SVP, it is quite a different between the party and representative that are in the government. They are considered moderate due to the political system in Switzerland.
The SVP is not considered "moderate". They are a far-right party. The fact that they are wide spread and gather a lot of votes does not make them "moderate".
Source: am Swiss
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Pure bullshit. Even the Swiss tabloid don't invent "rumours" as ludicrous as your anti-indian lie.
The amount of xenophobia, generally coming from very non-native, non-Cherokee or very non-Apache American individuals is absurd.
_Immigration is only cool as long as it's my favourite ethnic groups_ state of mind.
Does Switzerland hate Indians or something?
In case people were wondering about the result of that thread which made the front page a few days ago…
This one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48450059
The SVP campaign in favor of the initiative was something else. Half the country is plastered with their posters, and social media is full of astroturfing. It didn't pay off this times, but the propaganda dominance of this party is concerning.
Never heard of a hard limit on population. What happens if you go over?
It was terrible for girls born in China when they had their one child limit.
Nothing. It was an initiative to limit immigration, by a xenophobic party.
They don't give a damn if you have 13 children, they don't want brown people in Switzerland.
Misleading to call this "cap population", no one can cap population. The vote was about capping immigrant benefits, mostly aiming germans (reaching 9.5m) and then Swiss EU isolation/"Swexit" (at 10m). Basically the right wing SVP's long term goals packaged in a format that was more palatable to the masses.
I don't get why they would want to do this, when runaway depopulation is the biggest issue facing the world. We're at a point where (I think, controversially) we need to sanction (or more) nations that aren't increasing their population annually. This is an existential threat facing the human race.
It's aimed at immigration. Babies are OK. Not all that incentivized but OK.
Most people have a local view of their world through their immediate surroundings, not a panoptic or holistic perspective on the earth or their nation.
The power of collective action via votes isn’t a bayesian system, its just like the sum of many binary vectors.
> Swiss citizens have rejected by a 55% majority...
This is still very close for comfort, and SVP will re-propose it again and again and again as it and it's predecessors have done for decades.
Swiss are too educated to fall for this.
They have among the lowest fertility rates on the planet and a huge over 50 population.
There's no way they can keep being wealthy and comfortable without younger immigrants.
More surprising it didn't pass the "majority of cantons" either (both are required for initiatives like this), I would have expected it to pass (there are a lot of smaller/rural/alpine cantons which tends to vote more conservative).
The Masseneinwanderungsinitiative passed in 2014... and fuck all happened (despite the no campaign heavily leaning on the argument that it would kill the bilaterals, e.g. https://www.emuseum.ch/internal/media/dispatcher/286887/full). When push comes to shove, there is a solid bloc in parliament and the executive for saving the EU bilaterals, even if it means ignoring constitutional initiatives.
Only 58% of the voters voted.
55% no is… ok? Typical for such votes?
But of course, the SVP have been launching the same initiative since the 70s, they are unlikely to stop now.
>55% no is… ok? Typical for such votes?
Very typical, and even higher than usual.
The Swiss have votations all the time. They also can vote by mail. Those who didn't vote had no opinion, or no strong opinion, on the matter.
Also, cities who should suffer the most of overcrowding by immigrants voted against, as well as cantons situated at the border, while the backcountry who never see any immigrant voted in favor.
maybe next time it will be 11M
The issue is this means in aggregate only around 3-5% of the total population needs to flip in it's opinions for CHexit to happen - which is very doable over two election cycles.
A 55% win with 58% turnout despite how this vote was front and center of media discourse is very worrisome as this shows how disengaged the other 42% are.
> in aggregate only around 3-5% of the total population needs to flip in it's opinions for CHexit to happen
If the marketing were less xenophobic and the cap were derived from some scientific basis, I think I could be persuaded to vote for it. Particularly since it is not a vote for Chexit, but a democratic vote to confront the EU. (Britain triggered Article 50. Nothing in this referendum directs Berne to do that.)
> Nothing in this referendum directs Berne to do that
The initiative text literally directed the Bundesrat to withdraw from the bilaterals 2 years after exceeding 10m if they couldn't be renegotiated.
> withdraw from the bilaterals 2 years after exceeding 10m if they couldn't be renegotiated
Sure. This is two years down the road. And it is not Article 50. It would cause a shitshow. But that shitshow could be averted and is less comprehensive than directing an EU exit.
> a democratic vote to confront the EU
In what way? It is a vote to adopt a policy that is in breach of your international treaty obligations. Unilaterally breaching your obligations is not a grounds for discussion or compromise, it is simply an exit from them, benefits included.
Suppose you're not getting on with your roommate. You could talk to them and try to resolve the problems, or you could default on your lease and receive an eviction notice from the landlord. You are opting for the latter. That is not "confronting" anything, it is a done deal. It is a choice you are allowed to make, to be clear, just as the Brits did, but let's not pretend it's something it isn't.
The party that proposed this vote has always opposed the treaties with the EU and yes this whole thing is just a thinly disguised way to repudiate the treaties as soon as practicable. They know what they are getting, it's not a cake-and-eat-it-too thing.
> It is a vote to adopt a policy that is in breach of your international treaty obligations
It was a vote to renegotiate them under threat of disavowing them. That’s fine.
> You could talk to them and try to resolve the problems, or you could default on your lease and receive an eviction notice from the landlord
It’s totally fair, during those talks, to make clear that if you can’t reach an agreement on the roommate not doing their dishes, you’re prepared to move out. (That doesn’t commit you to moving out if they refuse to budge.)
> That doesn’t commit you to moving out if they refuse to budge
The vote did commit you to amending your federal constitution with a population cap, period.
> If the 10-million threshold is exceeded, Switzerland would have to terminate these agreements, including the one with the EU on the free movement of persons after two years. This would also render the other agreements under Bilateral Agreements I null and void. Switzerland’s participation in the EU’s Schengen and Dublin agreements would also be called into question, thereby jeopardising close cooperation in the areas of security and asylum.
There is no room for negotiation in it. The government page itself spells out the hardline consequences.
But I suppose that's how these votes have to be marketed, isn't it? The Brits were under the delusion that they'd get to have their cake and eat it too, that they could keep any benefits of being in the EU even as they exited it. I wonder how many Swiss were aware they were voting to end their own freedom of movement, that blocking EU immigration would mean they would no longer be able to move elsewhere in the EU themselves. Which, again, is valid if that's the intention, but I suspect a lot of voters like yourself rather believed they were only voting to end freedom of movement for brown foreigners, or voting to negotiate special privileges, when in actuality it was literally a vote to exit treaties.
> no room for negotiation in it. The government page itself spells out the hardline consequences
There is always room for negotiation. Bilaterals is a treaty, not a diktat. And again, 2 years provides time for another referendum.
> wonder how many Swiss were aware they were voting to end their own freedom of movement, that blocking EU immigration would mean they would no longer be able to move elsewhere in the EU themselves
Everyone did. The question was how the Guillotine clauses would be executed. Which, truly, nobody knows.
I mean technically, it was also rejected by the Kantons-as-entities so if that 5% is unevenly spread, theoretically it could still be rejected by Kantonal majority…
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> political right, the anti-abortion people
Anti-immigrant. It’s an immigration cap.
> reduce global human growth for climate preservation, are opposed?
Pro-EU. The cap is within half a million of the current population and pretty much immediately set to trigger consultations.
I actually deliberated on this one and landed against because of how proximate the cap was set and the pretty horrible tone of the pro-cap side’s marketing.
In Europe the right doesn't really care about abortion that much, its not really something i hear parties discuss. Their main focal point is immigration, anti-muslim sentiment.
The left can be for reduction of GLOBAL human growth, but still increase LOCAL growth, which is primarily caused by immigration not birthrate.
It also looks like most of European right is explicitly anti-immigration, and all other issues are usually indistinguishable from left.
It is about immigration, not population control.
I'm assuming that this is a proxy for an immigration debate if that's how the left and right split
Yes, but not just “immigration”, but open borders with the EU: most immigrants in Switzerland are EU citizens, and it fits in a broader framework of Swiss-European agreement, capping population would almost certainly imply withdrawal from this framework.
Cities once again save rural voters from civic suicide.
It’s not tech related, and should not be part of this site.
considering how many foreigners in Switzerland work in tech, it somewhat is