Big Australia Isn’t Rational — It’s the Triumph of Greed Over Good Sense! By James Reed

Roland Rolandsen's examination of the absurd arithmetic behind Big Australia does more than poke holes in numbers. It exposes something more fundamental: this is not a debate won or lost on spreadsheets, but one profoundly shaped by ideology — the modern greed creed of permanent growth at all costs.

This critique is telling because it highlights a contradiction at the heart of the doctrine: the people advocating for a vast immigrant-driven boom know — or ought to know — the pressures it places on infrastructure, housing, environment, social cohesion, and public services. Despite this, they press on. Why? Not because the arithmetic is sound, but because the underlying ideology refuses to acknowledge limits.

1. The Limits of Rational Argument

Defenders of Big Australia like to frame their position as "evidence-based" or "demographically necessary." But Rolandsen shows the maths doesn't add up: housing shortages, stretched infrastructure, and ecological costs are not incidental — they are predictable outcomes of growth at this scale.

Rational arguments alone won't change the minds of growth ideologues because this debate is not fundamentally about evidence. It's about aspiration married to ideology:

Endless expansion is assumed good in itself.

Bigger population equals bigger economy equals more power.

Limits are unthinkable, not to be honestly weighed.

When you remove limits from your model — whether ecological, economic, or social — what remains is an ideology that treats growth as a moral imperative, not a contingent choice.

2. The Ideology of Greed

Why does Big Australia persist when its burdens are obvious?

Because for many proponents, growth isn't about people; it's about accumulation, about metrics on a dashboard:

GDP growth,

construction starts,

consumer demand,

corporate labour supply,

big profits, with no costs to corporates.

These are the variables that matter to a growth-at-all-costs worldview. But they are not the variables that determine human well-being.

Ask not how many more people can be added to Australia, but rather:

How will more population improve quality of life?

How will it improve housing affordability?

How will it reduce environmental degradation?

How will it strengthen community bonds?

When proponents cannot answer these questions without resorting to abstract appeals to capacity or efficiency, it reveals the true driving force: greed — the assumption that more is always better, scale is always progress, and limits are failures.

3. The Myth That Growth is Inevitable and Good

The idea that Australia must grow, and grow fast, is often defended with this tautology: if we don't grow, we will stagnate. But stagnation in what sense — GDP? Population? Consumer spending? — are not the same as stagnation in human flourishing.

Economic growth divorced from quality of life is not success; it's spectacle.

Consider:

A city can grow in population but shrink in liveability.

A nation can boast rising GDP while housing becomes unaffordable.

Infrastructure can be expanded while social cohesion frays.

Growth as an end is a creed, not a conclusion of rational policy analysis.

4. The Real Future: Greed or Stability?

What is at stake isn't whether Australia will grow — every society changes over time — but how it grows, and in service of what goals.

Rolandsen's critique isn't just arithmetic — it's a warning. If the only answer to demographic questions is "more, bigger, faster," then Australia is choosing a future shaped by economic compulsion and ideological greed, not by deliberation about human flourishing, social cohesion, and ecological stewardship.

We should not be surprised that those who benefit from growth-centric policies — big developers, corporate interests, investors — advocate for them vehemently. What is more surprising is how often these positions are mistaken for neutral, rational policy rather than positions with winners and losers.

5. Reclaiming the Conversation

To rebut Big Australia isn't to reject immigrants. It's to reject the idea that limits are immoral and that prosperity is measured only in more people, more consumption, more density.

It is to insist that:

Societies have legitimate limits — ecological, social, infrastructural — and acknowledging them is realism, not defeatism.

Policy should serve people's lives, not abstract growth targets.

A nation can choose stability, well-being, and sustainability over unbounded expansion.

Rolandsen's numbers are important. But what matters more is the principle they reveal: rational policy requires acknowledging limits and setting priorities that serve human flourishing, not GDP growth alone.

If Big Australia becomes the century's defining vision, it will not be because the arithmetic was sound — it will be because an ideology of greed triumphed over any honest appraisal of consequences. That is not progress. It is a leap of faith into a future of unresolved externalities, and ultimate collapse.

https://beyondtheragemachine.substack.com/p/the-absurd-arithmetic-behind-big