ECOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE, GROWTH, AND IMMIGRATION

In economics, the mantra of continuous growth is repeated endlessly. Growth in the economy, exports, sales, markets, demand, wages, profits, population, construction, consumption, bonuses, stock values, and equity has become the sole objective of the economy.

If there is no growth, we are in trouble.

In the building and maintaining of the "welfare state," which every political party swears by, there is a solid paradox in the doctrine of growth.

The societal goal of economic growth is to create well-being, not to diminish well-being in the name of economic growth.

To put it bluntly, the goal is no longer general well-being but the profit of the few.

People have been led to believe that if the markets don't grow naturally, they must be forced to grow by tightening belts and paying less attention to strict rules, such as environmental protection.

The liberal ecological principle means that human activity, including in the economy, must be adapted to the rules, limitations, and benefits of nature's cycles.

We are part of nature—we do not own it.

Global governance and the world economy have also become a battle over cultures, communication, and values. This is driven by the desire to control the human mind as well.

From a security perspective, climate change and the securing of energy, water, and food remain the primary challenges.

But the importance of managing global cooperative environments—space, the atmosphere, the oceans, and cyberspace—and securing the interaction flows within them is growing.

Geopolitics is once again influencing Finland in a new form, as Russia seeks a more militaristic role in our neighboring region.

The prolonged economic crisis is shifting international power dynamics. Economic power is moving toward emerging powers and Asia, while the economies of the United States and especially the European Union are growing relatively weaker.

The transformation of the global operating environment will last a long time. The technological and economic shifts are having rapid impacts on work and interaction, making it difficult to achieve a balance.

Western and developing countries will need to seek a new division of responsibility and cooperation in resolving conflicts, managing global problems, and reconciling values as international governance mechanisms continue to deteriorate.

We must accept new rules of fair play in the world. Fair share. Otherwise, we won’t survive. As humans, we must finally begin to act within the constraints of nature.

Millions of people—tribes and nations—will be forced to relocate in the near future. Our great choice is to decide which is smarter: showing newcomers a middle finger or a thumbs-up.

We cannot just sit in the stands watching the war.

The flow of refugees will not end without peace, reconstruction, and, above all, fair economic policies worldwide.

Our greatest threat after various wars is caused by the environment.

By the early 19th century, the world population had grown slowly to one billion. Then, medical advances began to reduce mortality in Europe, and soon elsewhere. Finland's population tripled in the 19th century and doubled again in the 20th century.

Europe was the first to deforest and move to cities for industrial work, leaving farming behind. Once humans had obtained their sustenance from the land, they began to alter nature, becoming chemicalized and transforming into a time machine, where the results of labor had a new content: material wealth.

The world population exploded after World War II. In one generation, it grew from two to eight billion people.

The last billion was born in a decade, while the first billion was born only in the 1800s. As medicine and care reached the so-called developing countries, population growth there has been rapid, just as it once was in Europe and the Americas.

Europeans were the first to engage in large-scale immigration, spreading across the world, conquering lands, and imposing their own ways, disregarding the customs of the local people and ignoring the principle of living as the locals do.

Let’s remember that 1.3 million Finns have also been immigrants in various parts of the world, living in Finnish communities and attending Finnish schools, trying to hold onto their traditions even in foreign conditions.

Between the 1820s and the early 1930s, more than 50 million immigrants crossed the oceans from Europe to other parts of the world, with 37 million going to the United States, 6 million to Canada, 9–10 million to Argentina and Brazil, and around 4 million to Australia. Finland's share of this migration was about 350,000 people. During World War II, Sweden took in 70,000 children and 100,000 refugees from Lapland for asylum.

Now, as people are flocking here, it would be wise to remember these earlier refugee and migration waves from the old continent in search of a better life or fleeing war. Ignoring history is not advisable, as it may soon confront us again.

As the world's population and the number of refugees increase, people are beginning to ask how long growth can continue as it is.

The excellent BBC program by Sir David Attenborough describes where the world is heading: food will begin to run out, and water resources will be the first to go. The environment's capacity to sustain life will break down as pollution and waste increase. Major cities worldwide will turn into slums, and youth unemployment has already risen to crisis levels.

President Martti Ahtisaari warned, even before the Arab Spring in 2011 and the subsequent wars, of the ticking time bomb in the form of youth unemployment in the Middle East and Africa.

Nobody noticed, even though they saw it coming—the real wave of migration was about to begin.

The world began to follow the example of the poor Europeans of the 19th and 20th centuries and the 350,000 Finns who went to Sweden in the 1960s and 70s, watching sinking refugee boats with a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) attitude.

While the world watched the war in Syria from the sidelines, 11 million people fled the conflict, with 4 million fleeing to neighboring countries. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we were all parties to the war, and now we are witnessing the consequences, as we fled from the problems we helped create and left the reconstruction unfinished—just as the Americans did.

Soon, war refugees came from Ukraine and Gaza. The next wave will come from climate change unless radical change happens.

No wonder something finally began to happen at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015. The world woke up when the instinct for self-preservation finally kicked in, though Donald Trump reversed the progress for four years on behalf of the Americans.

However, there is no door you can close, and no reality in nature where you can bury your head in the sand.

In Finland, we are merely paying back the debt because we have been helped and welcomed as seekers of a better life, child refugees, and evacuees so many times. This is a new beginning, but also something we have experienced many times before in our history. This generation in Finland must once again learn to live amidst diversity, integrate, house, and employ tens of thousands of refugees in the coming years—alongside the 400,000 Finnish internal migrants (from 2015 to 2030).

All that is needed is to help them find work and integrate into a new life with empathy—over time. That will ignite the most important thing: hope for a better tomorrow. There must be hope. The integration of new arrivals is also in our own interest. Finland will either develop into a richer society or a problematic one, depending on our choice. Ultimately, we, the people, decide in our daily lives how things will turn out, for better or worse.

Let’s take a closer look at this new global picture:

Global governance and the world economy have also become a battle over cultures, communication, and values, driven by the desire to control the human mind.

From a security perspective, climate change and securing energy, water, and food remain the primary challenges, but the importance of managing global cooperative environments—space, the atmosphere, the oceans, and cyberspace—and securing the interaction flows within them is growing.

Geopolitics is once again influencing Finland in a new form, as Russia seeks a more militaristic role in our neighboring region.

The prolonged economic crisis and warfare are also shifting international power dynamics. Economic power is moving toward emerging powers and Asia, while the economies of the United States and especially the European Union are growing relatively weaker.

The transformation of the global operating environment will last a long time. The technological and economic shifts are having rapid impacts on work and interaction, making it difficult to achieve a balance.

Western and developing countries will need to seek a new division of responsibility and cooperation in resolving conflicts, managing global problems, and reconciling values as international governance mechanisms continue to deteriorate.

NATO-member Finland is facing a new future, naturally somewhat confused amidst all the posturing.

The world must accept new rules of fair play. Fair share. Otherwise, we won’t survive. As humans, we must finally begin to act accordingly.

Our great choice is simply to decide which is smarter: showing immigrants a middle finger or a thumbs-up.

We cannot just sit in the stands watching the war.

The flow of refugees will not end without peace, reconstruction, and, above all, fair economic policies worldwide.

Our greatest threat after various wars is caused by the environment.

Colonialist Europe is not the victim but the cause—we must also remember that. We conquered Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Australia. We plundered and underpaid for raw materials for centuries.

Even today, in addition to the plundering of raw materials, EU countries export agricultural products to developing countries at prices lower than the cost of their local production. With subsidies, the price of these exported goods is lower than those produced by local farmers.

This too leads to poverty and, gradually, more migration—toward Europe.

The next threat is global population growth:

On a global scale, the average human lifespan continues to increase. Every five years, we gain an additional 12 months of life expectancy. A hundred years ago, the average age of Europeans was still 40 years. Today, girls born in Japan and the Nordic countries will live to be 100 years old on average—actually, over 100.

By 2060, one in three people in Europe will be over 65. In Japan, this level will be reached by 2030.

It also seems that nature and our living conditions cannot be saved by economic growth. Continuing growth is more likely to guarantee failure in saving the planet. Therefore, the strategic importance of natural resources will increase as demand rises and prices go up.

There is hope that when people realize the scarcity of energy and material resources, as well as the real impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, consumption habits will change—if not out of responsibility, then out of necessity.

The demand for products and solutions with limited resources will grow.

The world will become divided into the poor and the prosperous, with a shrinking but increasingly wealthy elite at the top, ruthlessly accumulating new fiefdoms and privileges for the financial aristocracy through enormous rewards. The rich will become fewer, but their wealth will grow.

As the population has exploded, so has the pace of life. The modern consumer society, where a person's value is measured by money and possessions, emerged at the same time as population growth. Advertising, brands, fashion and culture as industries, fast food, and convenience foods are products of this new era.

Liberals see societal ownership as the right solution for material resources whose exploitation directly affects all or almost all people and future generations.

These resources include finite natural resources such as fossil fuels and minerals, as well as land, water, and air.

Regardless of the extent of state or communal ownership, liberals support basing production and distribution on a regulated market economy; when used properly, it is a purposeful and efficient system.

Within its framework, it is also possible to implement the democratization of economic power because it is based on small economic units, and its decentralization is easier.

Liberalism means continually examining and challenging power structures while implementing value-based policies.

This is the demand of the times. Fight back—too much to lose.