Demographic changes are not destiny

There are 8 billion people roaming the planet, up from 1 billion a century ago and 4 billion since 1980. They are more mobile than ever before with technology bringing information – and disinformation – to their palms within seconds.

People have not only become more mobile, with an estimated 114 million refugees among them, but have seen their negotiating powers changing as various tribes, nations, ethnic and religious groups have grown at different rates.

Although fertility has been declining in developing, poorer, failing countries, they are still far above the 2.1 replacement rate, whereas in most Western countries, the rate is below 1.5, meaning that their populations will decline by some 50% within a few decades.

Migration and differential fertility rates changed the balance of power within Western societies, as some groups did not melt into Western civilization’s pots. Their members’ voting and importing ethnic conflicts weakened institutions that made the West click and deepened divisions.

The demographic changes brought the territorial definitions of “states” under pressure both in practice – as attested by both the massive illegal migration to the US and the march of a million to Europe in 2015, followed yearly since by hundreds of thousands – and in principle by rationalizing porous borders.

Western welfare states, already under pressure because of their aging demographics, accommodate migration and justify it by a variety of academic, idealistic ideas now getting legal recognition – the notion of “sanctuary cities” among them.

Policy debates avoided discussing the fact that welfare policies have drastically changed migratory patterns. Before the “welfare age”, migrants either made it in their new