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People understand the concept of, "no infinite growth on a finite planet," but then refuse to accept that that holds true for us as well. The world population has more than doubled in my lifetime. Obviously we can't do that forever. Especially in the context of a climate crisis that is making less land livable over time. For completely practical reasons we are going to have to set up some kind of system that can function in equilibrium rather than requiring growth.
This is true but people focus so hard on the population they miss the wider issue. Its not the number of people thats the issue right now, its the massively uneccesary amount of resources each person uses.
The world can accomodate a lot of people IF we shift the way we do things. If we all live like the world is an endless piggy bank, it wont work.
Without considering the way we live and the system we've built, people begin sliding into borderline eco-fascist ideas of population control because its an easy thing to understand and latch onto. But the situation is much more complicated than that.
So yes, there is a finite human population limit but that doesnt mean we've hit it or are even going to hit it.
I said it before and I'll say it again ....
It's not about the quantity of life
It's about the quality of life
If you make the world a capitalistic hell hole where people are constantly worked to the bone without much reward and no time to enjoy their lives, then chances are, they won't be motivated or even healthy enough to want to have children. In the premodern wild, people had many children because they had time and they knew that conditions had the possibility of improving in the future. Sure, many of their children died but they knew that the ones who did survive would have a chance to survive if they worked hard enough because they knew their work would be rewarded.
In our current world .... you can work until your hands fall off and you won't be rewarded. More and more people are realizing that they don't want that for themselves so why should they do that to their unborn children?
The conditions for humanity are falling everywhere and people are so compassionate for their children that many of them feel like they don't want to bring their children into this hell hole we've created if 99.99% of everyone has no chance at a good life.
Availability of education and basic needs is inversely proportional to birthrates.
Capitalism is all about using other people so that YOU can have an amazing quality of life. And even if you’re at the lower end of the economy in the US or Europe, your standard of living is propped up by third world labor, so really I strongly doubt that anyone here is in a position to say they’d be better off without capitalism. Most of the world, yes. Smartphone owning westerners: get real, colonizers.
Unless you expect people to work until they drop dead it's a crisis regardless of the economic system, especially coupled with the increases in life expectancy. You have fewer and fewer people of working age who have to provide for and take care of more and more old people for longer and longer. Even if you eliminate profit motives, you're placing an outsized burden on younger generations.
The notion that a decreasing population is a capitalism issue is straight childish. First-world demographics are going top heavy fast. And for all the cries that, "They just want more workers!", I say, yes, that would be the point.
expect people to work until they drop dead
that's literally the direction we're going, regardless of birthrate. yes, it is a crisis. france rioted over this. we just shrugged and said meh, cross that bridge something something
Yea but that cuts into corporate profits soooooo why not force a population of people to turn out babies like the good old days!
This is deeply myopic. The problem is not low birth rates, but uneven demographics.
How does, let's say, marxism leninism deal with the problem of uneven demographic distribution? I've never heard of any even theoretical fixes from them for that.
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/CHN/china/birth-rate -- do you think China doesn't view this as a problem?
If I understand what you said, then it is still a problem caused by capitalism. Because we have the knowledge and technology to live comfortably with a lot less manpower then 300 years ago. And yea we can go into details, but the difference between an ox and a tractor is huuuuge.
Well yes but no. Supporting this many old people is a genuine problem, no matter the economic system.
Sure, a problem in the sense that it requires a solution. Capitalisms solution is infinite population growth via forced pregnancy. A non capitalist option is to simply use the very large amount of resources available to take care of the old folks. It's not profitable, but that's not the point.
I think some in this thread do not fully realize what some of the inherent problems of capitalism are and how they relate to this issue.
In a capitalist economy resources and labour are generally allocated in a way that maximizes profit. Profit is determined based on the prices of things and prices are determined by the exchange value of those things. That often results in the price of something being way higher than what it cost to make it. One result of this is that capitalist economies allocate enormous amount of resources and labour to things that don't have any beneficial value to society. For example, some of the most skilled labour in America is tasked with figuring out how to get as many people as possible to spend as much time as possible looking at anger-inducing content on their phones. This isn't contributing in any meaningful, positive way to solving society's known, difficult long term problems, like ageing population. In fact it likely does the opposite.
In contrast, a socialist economy allocates resources and labour according to society's needs, which are determined by some mix of economic planning and limited market dynamics. Prices of things are determined through these processes and generally represent how much labour goes into them. As a result, keeping people angry wouldn't get many skilled engineers allocated to. Instead these people's labour would for example be employed in automating the shit out of the vital sectors for society's long term well-being. Like automation in agriculture, healthcare and elder care. And then since labour isn't allocated or paid on the basis of profit, the socialist economy can keep labour employed in sectors where proven automation already exists and gradually ramp up automation as they retire. Alternatively it could let people retire earlier, or have them do other work if they want to, like community service, or art, or R&D, or childcare, etc. As a result a socialist economy has a better ability to sustain itself with less labour while taking care of its elderly, without enduring crises.
Worse, a capitalist economy has to go through the real material changes, actually allocating labour and resources, producing the things it would produce with its current configuration in order for it to figure out what to change and what to do next. Thus we're faced with the horror of all these bad decisions that we currently see basically locked-in and consuming vast resources and labour until they become unprofitable or resources or labour are exhausted. Which means we're very likely to run into crises before the system adjusts to the new realities of diminished labour force. And then we'd likely (as we already are) rush into solving that by importing labour, which is going to get us into social instability due to racism, and we know how that goes. There are plenty current examples to go around. Meanwhile an economy that can do planning can model ahead of time what different future economic configurations would look like, make projections, choose a desired one and have resources and labour allocated on solutions today, thus increase the chances of avoiding acute socioeconomic crises or minimize their scale.
I hope this helps understanding the premise.
And for today's misallocation of resources in capitalism I give you - https://sh.itjust.works/comment/18820691.
Like, they are bad for societies though. Not just in terms of keeping them around but also in terms of demographic makeup, no? Children are an important part of the social fabric. There is a point at which the old outnumbering the young does bevome a bad thing.
There is enough out there for everyone to live a happy life. We just have to realize it.
We know, realizing it isn't the issue, it's (oversimplified) the greed of the ones who stand in the way of making it happen.
It usually always translates to "We really need more poor and working class labor so pump out more wage slaves." We could be a way better society if we move past enriching billionaires and the rich.
It's a crisis for who will support you in your old age. Capitalism or no capitalism, if you want to keep eating after you stop working, either you store enough literal food in your barn, or somebody else works so you eat.
Traditionally, that's family: your children. Capital/investments/savings, or socialised care, spreads that around the State a bit more (or round the local or global community). But when there are few children and many adults, later there are few working people and many retirees wanting to enjoy life - and you're one of the retirees.
It's a "problem for capitalism" because so many people have invested in capitalism for their retirement, and that could be upended. And because actually-small investments were made, on the basis that constant economic growth means lots will be returned when the time comes.
But it's a "problem for humanity" - all the people who don't have children to care for them and rely on money and financial investments - which both just represent a stake in someone else's work - for the future.
I've written myself into a corner a bit here. Few working adults to many retirees is always going to be difficult, no matter your economic/political system. But logically from my, simplified, argument, the last two paragraphs beckon a third. To recap,
Retirement funds: a stake in "Capitalism", to provide for your retirement based on broad economic growth
Money: a stake in the total economy, to provide from people's work. Then:
A stake in the community, based on being a member of the community. E.g. a citizen - then this is socialism. If there are enough working adults - or bread in the barn - to provide for all the elderly, then all the elderly (you included) are provided for, regardless of whether they have children or saved money or made investments.
But still, if there isn't enough for everyone, everyone suffers. And it's rare to find a community that really wants to care for its elders well, putting in the effort for them rather than people spending on themselves, without outsourcing to 'capitalism' and economic growth.
It's a problem that there will be fewer people in the generation below ours to support our generation in our dotage. This problem is the same regardless of your economic model. Fewer people in the working pool and more people sick and elderly is a bad time.
There's currently 5 million care workers in the US, at a total population of 332 million. Source
That means that even if the birth rates drop really low and we only have 50 million workers in the next generation, it will still be enough to care for the elderly.
However, it might not be enough to fill the last bullshit workplace some company makes up to make yet another dollar into the pockets of the rich.
They are kind of a crisis for pensions, mind. The whole idea of a state pension is that for every worker there are approximately two more paying in to cover the costs of the pensions. Every generation is paying the pensions of the previous generation. Obviously it's actually less than two because of tax brackets and the fact that people die early, but on the whole, it's roughly two people.
If population declines, well you're gonna have to re-think your pensions and social care and find the money and/or labour somehow.
Billionaires are always welcome to pay their fair share of the tax burden by paying their employees a wage they can live on. Higher wages means more taxable income. Their current policy of, "privatize the profits and socialize the risks" benefits no one but themselves.
Actually would be nice if worker pop drops so hard the value of workers goes up.
In Europe after the Black Plague the value of peasants increased significantly contributing to social and economic reforms. Lower birth rates can accomplish the same feat with less suffering.
In so many of the contrarian responses I'm seeing, I'm reminded of Fisher:
it's easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.
That is to say that so many cannot escape the capitalist framework of productive workers supporting the elderly. As though that's the only way society can possibly be organized.
Retirees are not seen as deserving of their reward, but rather a drain on productive labor. It's no wonder that there is so little sympathy for the destitute and homeless when those who've "earned" their leisure are still known as parasites.
With the introduction of automation every decade (currently AI is the big one), unemployment rates will go up so we don't even need as many working. Our capitalist brains just can't fathom "handing out" extra resources.
Capitalism is fine with it actually.
The issue is that there will be too many old people and not enough young people to support them.
But old people have most of the money. So, lots of money will still be spent. Capitalism will be fine. Sure, some old people will have no money and bankrupt their children. But capitalism does not care about that.
It would have been a bigger problem before AI and robotics. But capitalism will shrink the workforce faster than birth rates.
Birthstriking is the biggest middle finger one can possibly give to capitalism and to the corrupt establishment that enforces it through violence. It is the strongest action available to the average person, a direct vote against the future that we are headed towards.
They know this, which is why they are freaking out with tons of propaganda, attacks on education, and erosion of women's rights.
Birth rates below replacement level do present some actual challenges to society. But instead of trying to actually address these issues, they are going for the band-aid of increasing birth rates.
capitalism: fuck the world up and then panic when people give up on life
that is why countries wont even dare discuss why its occuring instead trying to low effort coerce people into having more children.
"you're not producing enough capital batteries"
Low birth rates are problematic to carcinogenic ideologies.
Positioning the increase in population as a core tenet for a system condemns it to resource exhaustion.
I’m all for providing the option to ‘procreate’ where it’s appropriate and non-coercive, but demanding it as a requirement for acceptable incorporation into society should always be disparaged and ridiculed.
Yeah depends on what scale you’re looking at. Worldwide it’s still poor, religious conservative people who still have lots of children. If the scales tip far enough I could mean humanity will regress for several generations because these religious conservative people have become the majority and will put fascists and dictators into power.
Trap people in a work - consume - die paradigm
People refuse to bring new life into the hellscape you created
Cry about it in your propaganda channels