The Swiss would be foolish to cap their population at 10m
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Leaders | A Brexit moment?<br>The Swiss would be foolish to cap their population at 10m<br>Immigration sometimes needs brakes, but the proposal would be like driving into a wall<br>Share
Photograph: Getty Images
Jun 12th 2026|4 min read
IT IS ODD what people think a law can achieve. In 1930 the Soviet Union legally abolished unemployment. Everyone knows how well, under Stalin, that country then thrived. Another European dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, decreed that every Romanian woman must produce five children. That worked just as well. Lawmakers in the American state of Indiana once tried to impose their own definition of the number pi, without troubling to ask any mathematicians for advice. All the way back to King Canute, simple-sounding decrees have often disappointed.
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