Musk Talks Migration: “Italy is the People of Italy”

Elon Musk was in Rome recently, where he was interviewed as part of the Atreju “Italian Pride” conference.

At one point, following up on his belief that the world is not overpopulated and that low birth rates are a threat to the species, Musk was asked what he makes of the argument that immigration makes up the numbers to compensate for low birth rates in the First World.

First, Musk pointed out that this isn’t sustainable either; “there simply aren’t enough numbers in immigration.” Indeed, if we accept that economic prosperity necessarily creates demographic sinkholes to be eternally plugged by the higher fertility of poor countries, we are de facto arguing in favour of keeping some countries poor. 

If defenders of immigration as the solution to ageing populations don’t want to justify a two-tier global hierarchy of rich and infertile vs. poor and fertile peoples, then they should join the nefarious ‘populist’ Right in trying to envision a prosperous, advanced economy with replacement birth rates. 

But, crucially, Musk followed up by making a basic point that most people instinctively agree with but which has hitherto been taboo:

I think there is value to a culture. … We don’t want Japan to disappear. We don’t want Italy as a culture to disappear. We don’t want France as a culture to disappear. I think we have to maintain the reasonable cultural identity of the various countries. They simply will not be those countries [otherwise]. You know, Italy is the people of Italy. The buildings are there, but really, what is Italy? Italy is the people of Italy.

In the same vein, when told Italy is a good place to invest in, he responded, “I agree [Italy] is a good place to invest in and a wonderful country … so, please make more Italians.”

In other words, you can’t replace Italians with non-Italians and still call it Italy. 

Resistance against the demographic replacement of peoples and their ultimate elimination can be articulated in terms of two components: 

1) economic justice and the rejection of a global division of labour that keeps some nations poor while promoting an anti-natalist version of prosperity in others, and 

2) the aesthetic love of diversity and the will to retain the specificity of different peoples within the human family. 

Concerning the first, despite being obvious, it hasn’t made great headway recently. Mainstream leftist discourse has yet to be shamed into abandoning its apologia for global corporatist oligarchy and its privileging of demand for cheap labour over a natural rise in the price of labour.

But the second is being adopted more frequently, which is promising because, apart from a practical and aesthetic drive, the defence of legitimate national diversity represents a return to certain basic elements of classical philosophy.

Being that he isn’t (or has not been) a particularly political person, Musk’s journey in this regard is perhaps indicative of certain positive developments, even as it could help catalyse them.