Everybody knows what needs to be done. Parenthood needs to be sustainable for the parents. There’s just no political will to implement a policy that will only start paying off in 20+ years. Every politician kicks the can down the road, or implements half-hearted policies.

Edit: Just realised I posted this to the wrong instance comm 😅

  • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    31·
    2 years ago

    Many are concerned. Capitalism requires a growing population. It is just they seem to believe force is the way to go.

        • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
          1·
          2 years ago

          Isn’t that a bit like argueing that a bathtub needs to increase in size every time you take a bath, as you add water?

          In other words, it’s ignoring a whole part of the bath: the drain.

          In the same way it’s ignoring a whole part of capitalism: bankrupcies and other forms of debt foregiveness. As some businesses become irrelevant, and as new ones are started.

            • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
              1·
              2 years ago

              Bankruptcy is a mostly a risk for small and nascent businesse

              That’s untrue? The big ones also go bankrupt. It’s a risk shared by every company, to keep adapting as the world changes.

              Even the VOC, at a point the largest company in the world with more assets than most countries, folded.

                • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
                  11·
                  2 years ago

                  And bigger companies are clearly in a better position to adapt to changes than smaller ones, so your argument is only reinforcing my point.

                  How so? The replacement rate is shorter than in recorded history (1)

                  It seems that the older corporations had a very hard time adapting to new technology, to the point that they’ve been replaced by new smaller ones that outpaced them in only 30 years?

                  And it didn’t simply go “bankrupt”, it lost a literal war against the United Kingdom (the fourth Anglo-Dutch War).

                  It also went bankrupt.

                  *Note: around 1670 the VOC had 50k workers

                  Of course you have to place it in historixal context: both in world population and in respect to other contemporary companies.

        • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          That dissertation does not explain why capitalism requires population growth.

          Rather it takes “capitalism requires positive economic growth” as an axiom, to argue that such growth can not persist.

          • Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            21·
            2 years ago

            Yes, and growth is sustained by striking a balance of quality and quantity in terms of the human population. If this balance becomes out of whack you will decline into what they refer to as “malthusian stagnation”. So the population does need to grow in order to sustain economic growth, along with the quality of the individuals that make up the population. What they refer to as “economic darwinism” beings to truly take place as a population has the extra resources to put more into children than parent, creating generational progress. Post industrial economic darwinism gets a buffer, so-to-speak, due to the increased per capita productivity introduced by technology. However this is also not infinite, and so, at some point this will plateau, and the population will need to begin rising again to spur growth. We are likely in the midst of this plateauing.

            • iii@mander.xyzEnglish
              1·
              2 years ago

              So the population does need to grow in order to sustain economic growth

              The argument is going round in circles, but never explains if nor why capitalism requires economic growth. Therefore it also does not explain if nor why it requires population growth.