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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.
Agree, when I hear billionaires complain about low birth rates I don't relate. Your problem, not mine. Maybe make it more affordable and less impactful on the planet, then it's more tolerable, but otherwise not really.
Well yes but no. Supporting this many old people is a genuine problem, no matter the economic system.
It's really not a problem though. Half of the work done in society is completely pointless.
Anyone who has worked in a corporate office job can tell you just how much pointless overhead there is in big companies. Improvements in technology haven't resulted in a decrease in working hours, the standard of work has just been pointlessly increased to consume the same amount of labor hours. Look at computers and their introduction to the office. Things that would have been handled by a single page memo in 1970 are now handled by a 50 page report with glossy images and endless charts and graphics.
The key thing to realize is that companies are not rational. Their behavior is not driven by hard-edged perfectly rational profit and loss decisions. They're run by people, and people are social animals. And the people running the major companies are a fairly tight knit social group. They all talk with each other, they're all friends and intermarry with each other's families. They chase the same fads. Why do you think useless AI models have taken off so much? Historical aristocracies regularly became obsessed with fads. Our aristocracy is currently obsessed with LLMs.
This matters because this aristocratic group-think guides the actions of companies. Companies could have used computer technology to dramatically slash their labor costs. But that was unfashionable among the ownership class. Instead, it became fashionable to simply have the workers use those tools to create more elaborate reports and documentation. It's the modern office equivalent of a medieval lord pouring resources into a gilded palace and an elaborate retinue of performers. Executives get prestige from having highly paid people create pointless busy work, so that's what they do.
This pattern can be seen across many fields. Labor-saving devices haven't been used to reduce total human hours worked, they instead are used to expand the quantity of work done, usually pointlessly. Companies are not rational, and they do not make rational labor decisions.
This is why I am not in the slightest worried about an aging population. You state that too many old people is a genuine problem, no matter the economic system. But that is demonstrably FALSE! Too many old people is not a problem for a society that already employs the majority of its workforce in pointless bullshit jobs. The majority of our labor is pure performative waste; it exists primarily to stroke the egos of the aristocracy. We could cut the total hours worked in half without any decrease in the actual quality of goods and services available for people to enjoy.
Over the last several decades, companies have been able to get by while being incredibly lazy and inefficient. They've had the luxury of keeping excess headcount. Yes, it costs money, but prestige is more important than profit once you reach a certain level of wealth. As long as labor has been cheap, the owner class can afford to employ people in largely performative roles.
But with an aging population? The value of labor will skyrocket. Companies will find that they can't employ scores of people to fill pointless bullshit jobs. Companies that refuse to adapt will simply go bankrupt and be replaced by rationally-run operations.
How are we going to take care of a rapidly greying population? Simple. We'll just stop wasting most of our labor.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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: fuck the world up and then panic when people give up on life
"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.
You mean... Like the ones the US put into power last year?
And even more specifically, hyper consumerism-driven, wasteful capitalism more than just capitalism itself.
Well regulated and not utterly greed-driven capitalism that gets fairly taxed to support the societies infrastructure that it feeds off is not so bad. If that would ever happen.
If that would ever happen.
Well, you see, the thing about capitalism is it empowers exactly the people who don't want that to happen. Consumerism-driven, wasteful capitalism is the in-built trend of capitalism itself, not an unfortunate variant - even government regulation doesn't solve these problems.
OK - hear me out.
https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Hurling_Day
Yeah, capitalism sucks - but the greying population is an issue all the younger gens have to deal with. Once again the problem is boomers (not their fault for being born though). Thankfully, Jim Henson gave us a solution.