The collapse of birth rates in capitalist economies is really worrying, but the only people that talk about it are tradcath and neoliberal freaks so I always feel weird bringing it up… 1.8 is still below the 2.1 replacement rate, although I think socialist countries will be able to gracefully shrink their population. Anyway, it’s insane to think that capitalism has become such a fetter to human development that it can now no longer even reproduce the human species. Although to be honest I’m a little confused why this is occurring now but not a century earlier. Regardless, the obvious solution to me is the socialization of the domestic sphere of life. Social housing, childcare, healthcare, cooking, etc.
Oh BTW is the population crisis in Poland made worse by emigration to higher-income countries? Has that reversed due to Brexit? I haven’t been keeping up.
The collapse of birth rates in capitalist economies is really worrying, but the only people that talk about it are tradcath and neoliberal freaks so I always feel weird bringing it up…
I know what you feel, from one side civilizational progress seems correlated with number of people, from the other side I follow sometimes thoughs of Schopenhauer that live is suffering or boredom at best, and is a stupid abomination in our Universe, so it would be better with no life and thus no suffering.
Although to be honest I’m a little confused why this is occurring now but not a century earlier.
The answer may be complicated, but I think the neoliberal disaster in recent decades made incredibly high cost of home and living in general. It is much harder to build, buy or even rent a house for young couple than it was in the boomer times. No couple will decide for further child when there is no place in home and their employment situation is not stable. I have one son, but now the apartment I rent is too small for second child and money I earn are too small now (we have high inflation in Poland).
Oh BTW is the population crisis in Poland made worse by emigration to higher-income countries? Has that reversed due to Brexit? I haven’t been keeping up.
I am not sure, I do not keep either, and i think even Polish government does not 😂 from more left wing news I can read that the reasons are general, as above, i.e., high home and live costs, plus restrictional abortion laws, plus expensive private preschool. Most Polish man are highly conservative, so personally, if I were woman, I would not want to have children with them 😂
Regardless, the obvious solution to me is the socialization of the domestic sphere of life. Social housing, childcare, healthcare, cooking, etc.
This is the way comrade. But libs would die first than agree to this, so they should.
I know what you feel, from one side civilizational progress seems correlated with number of people
I’m concerned with mismanaging a shrinking population. The global population was relatively steady or only slowly increasing for millennia, but humanity still developed. And if the thinking is that we need more inventors to keep innovation rates high, global socialist development of a smaller world of only 3 billion people would still outcompete the current capitalist underdevelopment of like 7 billion.
It could be this way, this is probable. It is hard to say whether technological progress made population grow faster (at some initial point it did surely) or later the bigger population made faster technological progress. What is sure for me is that societal changes are centuries behind the technological progress. If you heard about the Polish scifi writer Stanisław Lem, I can recommend him, he very frequently was talking about it. The societal regres is because of libs and conservatives of course. Maybe we really do not need to care to much about small fertility rate in western world when the whole world population still grows. The fertility rate is a topic frequently touched by white nationalists, because they are upset that the other races reproduce more than them. I fucking hate nationalists.
The collapse of birth rates in capitalist economies is really worrying, but the only people that talk about it are tradcath and neoliberal freaks so I always feel weird bringing it up… 1.8 is still below the 2.1 replacement rate, although I think socialist countries will be able to gracefully shrink their population. Anyway, it’s insane to think that capitalism has become such a fetter to human development that it can now no longer even reproduce the human species. Although to be honest I’m a little confused why this is occurring now but not a century earlier. Regardless, the obvious solution to me is the socialization of the domestic sphere of life. Social housing, childcare, healthcare, cooking, etc.
Oh BTW is the population crisis in Poland made worse by emigration to higher-income countries? Has that reversed due to Brexit? I haven’t been keeping up.
I know what you feel, from one side civilizational progress seems correlated with number of people, from the other side I follow sometimes thoughs of Schopenhauer that live is suffering or boredom at best, and is a stupid abomination in our Universe, so it would be better with no life and thus no suffering.
The answer may be complicated, but I think the neoliberal disaster in recent decades made incredibly high cost of home and living in general. It is much harder to build, buy or even rent a house for young couple than it was in the boomer times. No couple will decide for further child when there is no place in home and their employment situation is not stable. I have one son, but now the apartment I rent is too small for second child and money I earn are too small now (we have high inflation in Poland).
I am not sure, I do not keep either, and i think even Polish government does not 😂 from more left wing news I can read that the reasons are general, as above, i.e., high home and live costs, plus restrictional abortion laws, plus expensive private preschool. Most Polish man are highly conservative, so personally, if I were woman, I would not want to have children with them 😂
This is the way comrade. But libs would die first than agree to this, so they should.
Great conversation :) Just want to clarify,
I’m concerned with mismanaging a shrinking population. The global population was relatively steady or only slowly increasing for millennia, but humanity still developed. And if the thinking is that we need more inventors to keep innovation rates high, global socialist development of a smaller world of only 3 billion people would still outcompete the current capitalist underdevelopment of like 7 billion.
It could be this way, this is probable. It is hard to say whether technological progress made population grow faster (at some initial point it did surely) or later the bigger population made faster technological progress. What is sure for me is that societal changes are centuries behind the technological progress. If you heard about the Polish scifi writer Stanisław Lem, I can recommend him, he very frequently was talking about it. The societal regres is because of libs and conservatives of course. Maybe we really do not need to care to much about small fertility rate in western world when the whole world population still grows. The fertility rate is a topic frequently touched by white nationalists, because they are upset that the other races reproduce more than them. I fucking hate nationalists.