I fail to see why this is an issue. What did we expect, for the human population to grow exponentially on a planet of finite resources? The question should not be "how to get birthrates back up" but how to ensure a decent quality of life for the aging population without also compromising the livelihood of the younger generations. Encouraging couples to have kids artificially is a band-aid solution ignoring a larger problem.
looks like population increase is gonna flatline between 10-11 billion, but we just don't have the resources to support that so I expect that by the end of the century with climate disasters and wars over limited resources we'll be back to 4-5 billion which -might- be sustainable with better technology and wiser decisions and a world government enforcing it which might be possible after the resource and climate disaster that the human population will face. Hopefully it will be patterned after western democracies and not Chinese/Russian totalitarianism.
A declining population may not be a huge problem if it is temporary and it is mostly older people who die. Getting fewer kids cause problems and if the decline just continues for centuries or millenia you may end up with a very, very small population.
Losing 0.5% every year means you lose 40% in a hundred years and 63% in two hundred years.
I don't think the way the issue is currently framed is concerned about long-term extinction. All of the low-birthrate articles I read are from the POV of "how do we artificially prop up birth-rates to continue the infinite growth economy". The current "function" is built around optimizing on the wrong parameter. Structure your economy and society around human fulfillment, not infinite growth, and people will be more inclined to reproduce. This is never a point of discussion though because it goes against corporate interests.
Young people grow, old people stop growing. To keep the economy growing, you need to keep the population young i.e. maintain a fixed young to old ratio.
If the young to old ratio drops, then the economy won't grow and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. All you need is an economic model that doesn't depend on economic growth as a bandaid for social problems.
Even more you need population that is "middle" aged. Old enough to work, not too old to be outside working age. Both children/teens and pensioners need to be supported by those working.
We can keep infinite growth by being continuously clever and developing better technologies, methadologies, and sciences. This is what Japan did and is why their GDP keeps pace with other societies.
Certainly. However it will not change, at least it will not change of its own accord. A Declining birth rate is merely a symptom of cultural anxiety and despair.
The post-war generation is enormous and they living longer than any generation ever has. In nearly every developed country they hold the power and the capital, and they are short term focused in every possible way. They plan to drive the bus into the brick wall at full speed to protect the last few minutes they have to enjoy the ride.
Articles such as are a thinly veiled demand for fealty. Why aren't you having more children? Why aren't you buying into the world order we created?
Exactly. If you actually want people to reproduce then the economy should be organized to maximize the fulfillment, comfort, and security of individuals. The real issue is they (our leaders and corporations) need an ever-increasing pool of labor to drive the infinite growth economy that they are heavily invested in.
No it's not. Capitalism is a form of universal exchange and nothing more, it has been brought under control in some reasonable countries. American capitalism is a long term guaranteed failure though, but it's a boom and bust cycle and could go on into perpetuity. Doomers always underestimate human ingenuity. Money will move around to different “growth” industries until they collapse (like tech social media is right now, only so much you can grow).
You are confusing capitalism with market economies. The primary goal in capitalism is the accumulation of capital and that obviously requires endless economic and population growth. If there are less people, the need for additional capital decreases which means there is less capital to accumulate.
Capitalism is effectively an insane economic framework where the yield on capital is not allowed to become negative as that would go against the ultimately empty goal of capital accumulation.
If you consider capitalism to be a form of universal exchange then why exactly does the division of labor collapse the moment growth stops? Oh right, because capitalism and free(=freedom) markets are mutually exclusive. The interests of those who own and want to accumulate capital override those who want to exchange goods and participate in the division of labor, that is what a depression is.
Not the person you're replying to, but I think "current" and "system" in "current capitalistic system" are key here. They weren't railing against capitalism in general, but the current system, which is quite a different thing.
For my part, I'm not opposed to "capitalism" in general, but I have quite a few gripes with the current implementation of it.
There is no implentation of capitalism that will ever be unproblematic. No amount of bandaids is going to solve the fact that capital yields can be both positive and negative. When looked at it from this perspective, capitalism is a race to an end goal, not a goal in itself but once people are at the finish line, they don't want the race to finish.
