They never suggested we reduce the population, we can sustain what we already have easily with a rational planned economy, however we couldn’t have a significant increase, say 20 billion or something. Also, we probably won’t exceed 10 billion by much anyway since people have fewer children when their material conditions improve.
Also, we probably won’t exceed 10 billion by much anyway since people have fewer children when their material conditions improve.
Gonna have to disagree here. I know this is a generally accepted fact. Yet, ask around - people will say they are hesitant to have children because they “can’t afford them”. In socialist economy, many of the expenses and risks we’re currently having (i.e. education) will be relieved. Suddenly you have the incentive to have children
That is a good point. Could that be helped by a return to a more community based way of raising children? If people can feel the benefit of taking care of children without them all being biological to them we might have the pros of larger families without the cons of resource use.
I have always liked the idea of communal child rearing from a rational perspective, but even in the early USSR at a time when the revolutionary enthusiasm was at its strongest that was seen as kind of a radical proposal. A lot of people, even many who are otherwise solid communists and devoted to the socialist project will have a visceral resistance to the idea of replacing the traditional family with a fully communal model.
You need to think about how such a transition would be achieved and how to convince people to adopt it. I’m not saying it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done, but that it’s something that probably only a very stable communist society can achieve where the people have a great degree of trust in the communal way of doing things are are prepared to make a radical break with the traditional concept of the family.
Historically this was seen as an ultra-left idea and eventually fell out of favor entirely in all socialist states. It would have been too destabilizing politically as trying to make it happen would have provoked much resistance at a time when the situation was precarious enough already. Sometimes revolutionary enthusiasm gets ahead of what is possible given current conditions, and that is counterproductive and dangerous.
They never suggested we reduce the population, we can sustain what we already have easily with a rational planned economy, however we couldn’t have a significant increase, say 20 billion or something. Also, we probably won’t exceed 10 billion by much anyway since people have fewer children when their material conditions improve.
Gonna have to disagree here. I know this is a generally accepted fact. Yet, ask around - people will say they are hesitant to have children because they “can’t afford them”. In socialist economy, many of the expenses and risks we’re currently having (i.e. education) will be relieved. Suddenly you have the incentive to have children
That is a good point. Could that be helped by a return to a more community based way of raising children? If people can feel the benefit of taking care of children without them all being biological to them we might have the pros of larger families without the cons of resource use.
I have always liked the idea of communal child rearing from a rational perspective, but even in the early USSR at a time when the revolutionary enthusiasm was at its strongest that was seen as kind of a radical proposal. A lot of people, even many who are otherwise solid communists and devoted to the socialist project will have a visceral resistance to the idea of replacing the traditional family with a fully communal model.
You need to think about how such a transition would be achieved and how to convince people to adopt it. I’m not saying it can’t be done or that it shouldn’t be done, but that it’s something that probably only a very stable communist society can achieve where the people have a great degree of trust in the communal way of doing things are are prepared to make a radical break with the traditional concept of the family.
Historically this was seen as an ultra-left idea and eventually fell out of favor entirely in all socialist states. It would have been too destabilizing politically as trying to make it happen would have provoked much resistance at a time when the situation was precarious enough already. Sometimes revolutionary enthusiasm gets ahead of what is possible given current conditions, and that is counterproductive and dangerous.