Underpopulation: Are Women "Baby-Making Machines?"
“The number of women aged between 15 and 50 is fixed. Because the number of child-bearing machines and devices is fixed, all we can ask for is for them to do their best per head.”Pink Tentacle
A computer geek can get away with saying such things. Politicians from Japan and other advanced nations must watch their words, because politics and the media can easily combine to create perfectly destructive political storms. But it is certainly true that humans are biological machines. And biological machines must reproduce to maintain their populations, given their limited lifespans. Since women in Japan, Italy, Russia, Spain, and other nations are not reproducing to replacement level (2.1 children per mating pair), the population of such countries is dropping "quickly." All the reactionary feminist fury in the world cannot stand up to the biological reality.
So what are advanced nations to do, if they do not wish to let their populations dwindle to ineffectual levels? A depopulated country in the first world is an open invitation to one form of outside invasion or another. For while many nations of the first world are "underpopulating " themselves, not all are doing so. And the nations of the third world are producing enough offspring for everyone. The world population is still increasing--due to third world birth rates.
Is this what Spaniards, Italians, Japanese, etc. really want? To be replaced by third-worlders? Is the only difference between first worlders and third worlders their country of residence?
Labels: artificial womb, european decline, Japan, underpopulation
posted by al fin at 9:22 am
4 Comments:
The French solved their birthrate problem overnight by adjusting their tax system to encourage families to have a third child. Incentives matter!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1595395.stm
A few years ago, a German politician generated a lot of contoversy by coining the phrase "Kinder statt Inder" (Childrens instead of Indians). It's not necessarily easy for politicians to tweak the tax regime to favour families having more children. This is one of the few examples where the French dirigiste attitude was an advantage.
Very interesting, thanks. Incentives are very important indeed.
I am curious to watch the various experiments to see what works.
Al,
When I was growing up, overpopulation was considered a serious problem. Could it be that a diminishing population is a good thing?
It is a bit involved: It actually matters where the population is diminishing and where it is not.
The world donor nations' populations are diminishing. The world recipient nations' populations are still growing. That means:
1. Advanced social democracies like Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany etc. will not have enough working young to pay for generous social benefits. (witness the riots in France as the French government tries to come to terms with its own diminishing working population)
2. Perennially starving third world nations will have no one to bail them out as they go through inevitable "boom-bust" cycles of crop yields.
Diminishing population GROWTH in unraveling nations such as Sudan, Somalia, and Pakistan would be a very good thing. Diminishing POPULATION in developed nations that serve as the source for many vital advances for the human future is a bad thing.
There is no limit to the third world population overload wishing to move to Europe. But an uncomfortable proportion of that population appears to want to stay on generous public assistance and procreate. That solves the population problem for Europe, but not the problem of needing to maintain social benefits payments.
Post a Comment
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act” _George Orwell
<< Home