His perplexity about why the richest countries' populations are now saying they can't afford to have children is because he's COMPLETELY ignoring wealth inequality. The UK is wealthy but that doesn't mean the majority are sharing that wealth!
This is what happens when you measure a nations wealth through GDP. Even the inventor of GDP argued it was incredibly flawed and should not be used as a standard. It tells us nothing of quality of life, resource availability or wealth distribution.
That is an ignorant counterargument. Even the wealthiest people won't pass down tons of money because they live long enough so that most of their money will be gone.
@@bennjmin the wealthiest absolutely do. Perhaps you’ve not had much exposure to these types of people, but they’re out there, and their wealth is very much passing from generation to generation.
Some thoughts: freaking out about the economic impacts of declining population *proves* our economic system is a ponzi scheme. Humanity dealt with population drops before and survived, and it was even a good thing for peasants and workers. Finally, I firmly believe the Earth cannot sustain this level of population. Even if we solve climate, there's still the problem of biodiversity and ecosystem loss.
Oh we dealt with population drops before & survived? So what? The world will be a worse place with less people in it. There is enough room for people in this planet, plus we need to set about colonising Mars for the next generation because of rising sea levels. Get a grip on reality, we need our human rights, the Palestine situation shows that we don’t have them. We need the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism & international Marxist communism where everything stays the same such as trade & sharing art & science except exploitative people don’t get to sit on the infinite profits of fictitious capital.
The Earth can sustain a much larger population, and our economy isn't what is really imperiled by population decline and aging, as you said, we would get poorer overall, but in some terms a declining population _would_ be beneficial to some people. The real problem is that our welfare states can't sustain themselves without growing populations.
@@robertmartin6800yeah, & we should have better welfare states (where everyone gets all their human needs met rather than only a few & the billionaires act horrible to everyone) so we can grow more & colonise Mars.
@@robertmartin6800yes it could but not at the consumption level of the developed world (where most people desire to be). You're clearly missing a bigger picture if you think that a crumbling wealthfare system is a bigger issue than an environmental collapse.
@@FabianEllis We don't need larger welfare states, we can't afford the welfare states we currently have. Having built and maintained such massive welfare states is proving to be the chief obstacle to our continued growth and development, making them bigger won't fix the problems that our building them has created.
What was the whole point of the industrial revolution and general technological advance if it wasn't that we can produce lots more stuff with lots fewer people? Which we can, in fact way, way, more stuff. We could all work 20 hours a week and have the same living standard we had as working/middle class people in 1960. We're working 40++ hours a week because our corporate overlords have worked hard to structure the economy to maintain artificial scarcity for the working class, while dangling ever more gew-gaws in front of us so they can continue to get rich enough to control the political class. Plus, nowhere in this discussion is it mentioned that we are rapidly polluting ourselves out of a habitable planet. A falling population is not the problem. Restructuring our economy to make it fair and sustainable is.
A lot of us are working hard because our system's been re-aligned to create loads of bullshit jobs to keep people dependent and for "powerful" people to feel important. I think most of how we've done it is basically jobs programmes for socio-political reasons. Not artificial scarcity (though that applies to the internet). We've got loads of cheap useless stuff. Loads of "sales and marketing" jobs around this cheap useless stuff. Then loads of finance jobs that are effectively useless, just to manage the wealth and pretend it's doing useful things by creating fictitious commodities they "invest" in. Then we've got a labyrinthine legal and regulatory apparatus that's a jobs programme. As is much of academia. And I haven't even gotten to "consultants" yet. Strip all that away and our lives won't be that much different. But loads of middle class people will be unemployed and the bloc supporting the system will be gone.
Absolutely agree. The people relying on an economic lens are accelerating decline. My quality of life in a ‘rich’ country, is below that of a hunter gatherer, so what exactly is the point of working more to destabilize the biosphere?
@@farhadchaudhry It doesn't make them important, it makes them powerful. They literally try to control every aspect of your life. They think they're fucking gods. And we don't hang them for heresy.
"tax the childless" ie punish the poors for not creating more labour for the owning class to exploit. Perhaps we tighten wealth distribution so that the working class can procrate without less uncertainty about their future ability to support families.
Going on about how people should have more kids because our lives allegedly have never been better is ridiculous. No mention of this disastrous economic system? No mention of rising inequality? I have a kid, it's fucking hard. Addressing this topic without considering the material conditions that surround us is just pathetic. But I am happy to see, by the comments left here, that people are not deceived.
@@patrickharte4773 it’s not about tropical holidays for ordinary folk it’s about being able to meet the financial needs of raising a family. Many can’t.
I was disappointed that widening wealth inequality wasn't mentioned, given it's a clear trend on a similar timescale to these demographic issues. Yes, we want more kids, but it looks like many will be born into serfdom while the older generations enjoy their final salary pension schemes--perhaps we ought to improve our future prospects to encourage child-rearing, rather than tax those unfortunate enough to miss out on parenthood?
How did medieval serfs manage to have a healthy 6-7 children, of whom 50% died before their 15th birthday, while suffering under crushing wealth inequality?
The privilege displayed here is astounding. I lasted for 1 and half hours and no discussion about the increase in wealth inequality which has reached the level of economic terrorism, and the lack of good paying jobs. Add to that the war mongering which sends our children to die or or become permanently injured physically or mentally. Add to that the militarization of police where people can receive death or injury unnecessarily. Add to that the increase in gun violence, especially in schools. These are all just for starters. The idea that we should all be more "cheerful" is just putting our heads in the sand and frankly comes off very cruel and disconnected. Sheesh, what a joke.
Wealth inequality has virtually nothing to do with the crashing birth rates. In countries with crushing wealth inequality, they can still maintain healthy birth rates. There's just no reason to make babies, because we have nothing to live for.
Thank you for your comment. I won’t waste my time. I’m going to assume that he has no concept of anthropogenic climate change & doesn’t mind that our bosses are paid 700 times more than us.
That's because it's nothing to do with wealth inequality. Are you not aware the poor people across history from slum-dwellers to peasants have lots of children? The problem is that capitalism has destroyed communities including the primary base of communities, the extended family, which means mothers get very little support, which has made everyone in the comments here think having a child is inherently a horrible draining burden. It's a result of neoliberalism - not the antithesis.
"Is it time to tax the childless?" Presumes continuation of the current, consumerist, extractive economic system. Perhaps it's time to tax the profiteer, the divider of multigenetational communities, the urbaniser, the centraliser, the consumerist, the land holder, the meaning extractor... Integrated families and communities can surely resolve the issues of an aging society, if they are able to spend time doing so and able to live nearby, all of which are restricted by imposing systems like consumerism.
@@janewest2845 I don't know what "stigma" is to be honest. Frankly, I'm past caring about how people "feel" or dealing with their precious world views based on how they feel. The childless by choice should stay childless as they may not make great parents anyway, the childless by circumstance can always adopt as they will undoubtedly make better parents than some of the halfwits in our societies that have children.....but shouldn't have them. I don't know how we fix this.....but fix it, we must.
Of course they do, birds eat insects such as bees, that's a tax on the species' existence. The bees take pollen from the flowers created by birds transporting seeds. The trees feed off the corpses of birds absorbed into the soil, the birds occupy space on the trees for their nests, the bees and birds survive off the oxygen provided by the trees, etc. It's a perfectly balanced system of them all extracting a tax on the existence of the others.
They do. Plants and animals constantly compete with one another for limited resources. If you gave one animal an edge, like we have with fossil fuels and technology, over another, they would totally demolish their competition outside and within their own species. Exploitation is written into nature because its by definition at war with itself.
It is a bit arrogant viewpoint to claim that "the world is better than it ever has been". Speaking from my experience as a Korean, I can say that Korean society has not necessarily improved. While the national economy has grown, this improvement seems to benefit only the wealthy. Many people struggle with long working hours and a lack of work-life balance which has been going for decades. With little government support, many people I know are hesitant to have more than one child. Personally I believe that having fewer people would reduce the amount of energy we need to extract from the Earth, including oil, gas, water, and electricity. This would be beneficial for the environment.
not arrogant its objectively true. if you think your life is hard working long hours behind a desk, try being a peasant farmer without access to modern medicine
That part at 1:09:35 about how the richer we get the less we can afford to have children really needs a consideration of Henry George and Progress and Poverty. George proposed back in 1870 that, because land value rises as societies get more developed, but instead of the community owning those gains in land value they get privately extracted, we have a vicious cycle in which the harder we work to pay our rent the higher the rent goes. We thus would inevitably have a harder time paying for children the richer we grew in commodities. Maybe instead of taxing people without children, we should tax land.
If our societies are so delicate that they can't handle shifts in population over decades, how are they going to handle the sudden ebbs and flows of climate migration?
It's not a climate migration, that is the official narrative that is running cover for them deliberately recruiting replacements for our falling number of young. They won't have high skilled jobs, the rest are expected to work to keep them together with increased government borrowing. They are bought here to consume the fruits of everyone else's labour to amke the GDP look good so the government can borrow more for their pet projects, likely to be wars. I can't believe people still believe man made climate change.
How did us baby boomers do so well? It wasn’t like this in the old days. Things were a lot easier; e.g. secure, reasonably paid, full time jobs; free university education; affordable housing ...... etc .... Young people are getting the full benefits of neoliberalism. 1) Sky high housing costs have created generation rent 2) Student loans 3) Low wages and precarious part time jobs 4) A minimum wage specified at an hourly rate that won’t pay a living wage in a part time job 5) It’s all about investors, so people with money can make more money, and young people haven’t got any. All the cards have been stacked against today’s young people. They just can’t get anywhere in life. I can readily compare what things were like for me, and what they are like for my daughter. Superficially things are much better, but underneath its much worse. She has just left University with a very good degree, but loaded up with debt. This is where it starts getting difficult. Getting a home and starting a family, I just can’t see how she is going to get there. Personal experience has helped me understand the demographics problem.
I'm a tail end boomer. Only 13% went to uni, that's why it was free. Go vack to that level and we can have free uni. As for secure jobs, the day I left 6th gorm there were 3 million unemployed. By the time I was 23 I'd had 5 jobs. None of them came with a pension ( none of my jobs actually came with a pension till auto enrollment)
"things are so much better now than they were when I was born..." Nonsense, adjusted for inflation: wages are much less then 50/60/70 years ago... the rich and poor wealth divide is now greater than in the robber baron era of the 20's, cost of rent and housing is higher than back then, education is much less affordable than back then.
Yeah, that's the Hans Rosling angle. Cherry-picked, everything's-fine bollocks to desperately keep the wheels from falling off the middle class cart... at least until the Boomers are too feeble to be angry at. Sigh...
I'd argue that things are better in some ways, worse in others. Wealth inequality has never been higher, but our lives have improved in other ways because not everything revolves around the amount of wealth you have. On balance I'd prefer to have lived 40-60 years ago though. A blissfully ignorant time.
Yep. Instead of spending £20 billion per year on enriching the private landlords, spend it on providing actual housing, for free, to those with the greatest needs.
The USA already taxes the childless by offering a child tax credit to parents, effectively charging the childless a higher rate, for several decades now. Birth rates are still falling.
Religions don't spread the teaching of having children because they need "sheep". It's the other way around. The religion spreads because it has teachings that result in human survival & reproduction. Any culture that doesn't reinforce the idea of raising children, is a culture that will die out & it won't spread.
@@Stoddardian According to the "Corporate Utopia" that is Republican's Project 2025? Old people don't need to retire! You work (for men) or pump babies (for women) and are of no use to society anyways once you cannot fulfill these roles... Seriously though, if we keep the current model of infinite population growth + infinite resource exploitation + infinite production? There won't be a livable planet left for people to retire on...
@@Stoddardian- we need to have a deeper and more honest discussion about being kept alive when we age. While the concept of dignity in dying is gaining traction, it infuriates me that we won’t be allowed to have a choice if we develop dementia. I’ll be 70 in November and am very much enjoying life, but feel really strongly that I don’t want to be kept hanging on if/when dementia gets bad for me. It should by MY choice. I want the right to decide NOW when I’m still compos mentis, about what happens THEN.
I live in Japan, where population decline is the reality and already big news in large parts of the country. So its good to hear someone talk about the subject in other First World countries, even someone with a prominent blindspot about climate issues and sustainability, so I'm pleased Aaron has had this discussion. Population size and composition affect far more aspects of our lives than we realize. The middle class' favourite subject, housing and its value/cost, being just one of them.
@@vmoses1979 Yeah, cause kids just suddenly become independent at 18 with the ability to pay for their own rent and look after themselves as well. Ignoring the fact that your child could be born with disabilities and thus need life long care too.
@@sameerdodger Whether they become independent or not you have the ability to kick them out of the house and never see them again. The state doesn't require you to support adult children. 18 years is not lifelong. Not difficult to understand.
Paul seems to think he lives in a world where it's not the majority opinion that they want kids. Paul, most people are still having kids, the next generations might just be smaller - get over it. People are still going on and on about how rewarding it is to have kids - there's no stigma against it. If anything it's still a little unusual not to have kids, though much less so than it was previously. Those people having kids might actually have more kids if we didn't live in such an unequal society where the majority have so little wealth.
"The next generation might be just smaller." But that is just his point. It's the consequences of that we need to face. He's also a demographer not a sociologist. So don't criticise him for not stepping outside the particular issue he's raising. It doesn't matter why people do or do not have children, for the purposes of this statistical analysis. What he is highlighting, however, is the challenge for policy makers.
Many Western countries already have tax credits, deductions for being married, and having children. Thus, a tax cut compared to single people. So simply saying "increase" taxes for childless people is a bit redundant.
He’s ok with “tax the childless” but offended by “battle of sexes” Conservatism never changes. Never see the cause but look for solutions to the symptoms.
@@hustler3of4culture3 You can certainly criticize the market, but birth rates collapsed in the USSR and other Eastern Bloc states. Of course, after the neoliberal shock therapy it collapsed even further, but still, communism doesn't seem to be able to solve this issue.
It does support that we wouldn't need to worry so much about the demographic crisis if we shared wealth. And that those in charge would have to care more about these problems and help solve them if they weren't so wealthy they could afford to ignore them.
We have a housing crisis. We have a climate crisis. We have a healthcare crisis. Planet Earth generally cannot sustain such a huge human population. In the long-term, I really do think significantly fewer humans is a positive thing for future generations. A better quality of life for everyone surely? I'm aware that short-term there'll be challenges in terms of the ageing population. But, it'll balance out in time. For years, wonderful scientists such as David Attenborough have been warning of overpopulation. Now, other 'experts' are warning of the problems of population collapse. Which is it? They can't both be true.
It's irked me for ages that any self-respecting leftist could seriously think it is empowering that we are forced to work rather than have a family life. Capitalism is the most anti-natalist force on earth. Given our species' uniquely long childhood, we are evolved to live communally and share the burden of child-raising. It needn't be so stressful to be a parent. They should be able to rest. Infants in hunter gatherer societies get held by an average of 20 different individuals each day. In Western societies today the average is ONE. Even in the West that is super recent. Such a dramatic change in child rearing would be recognised as an extinction threat in any other species.
I don't think any leftist is arguing that it is empowering to work rather than have a family life, I think you're perhaps framing a different argument uncharitably?
@matt69nice Really? There is a lot of anti-child discourse on the left, setting up a false dichotomy between having children or having personal freedom. Maybe I'm assuming the link between personal freedom and career goals but it's often implicit if not explicit. This view is inherited from liberals but it is still v much present on the left and should be shed.
Economic insecurity and the consequent inability to afford to bring up children is a big reason for lowering fertility. That’s a direct consequence of neo- classical economics.
When my mum had us she could afford to take a couple years out of the workplace and dad's salary alone cover the bills. No way my husband and I can do that, at best one of us can go temporarily part time (after the maternity period). There's a weird gap in the UK between small baby and nursery where there is neither childcare provision, nor statutory leave. My parents aren't in a position to do childcare. So how's that all supposed to work then?
A shrinking population is mainly a problem if we are expecting more growth. If the population shrinks, we dont need more growth. We can get by with doing less if we expect fewer people in the future, and the available resources could ultimately increase per person relative to today. We could choose to shrink to align with planetary boundaries. Choosing to overshoot even more seems counterproductive as a species.
I think the issue with this is that there is demographic change associated with a shrinking population, and that if the population shrinks rapidly, the working age population gets older and wants to retire, and there are fewer younger people to support them. I don't think this is necessarily a reason not to want the population to shrink, but it is a risk and an issue we should expect and be prepared for if/when the population does shrink.
“Resources” in the sense relevant to the modern world are largely dependent on labour, there's not a bunch of free stuff just hanging around on the land. If birthrates plummet, and the ratio of working age to elderly decreases along with it, you have much fewer resources per head, not more... A society that has 5 workers for every 1 older person has significantly more resources per head than one with only 1 worker per 1 retiree. Unless you're talking about going for some kind of TNG "Half a Life" (or Logan's Run) type situation, no, below replacement birth rates will not increase resources per person at all…
Looks like you completely failed to hear Paul's basic message. Our populations are shrinking, but the shrinking is happening in the young cohorts that are economically active and productive. Older population cohorts (>65) are definitely NOT shrinking. They continue to grow as life expectancy increases. These cohorts don't work. And they consume huge amounts of resources from the productive parts of the economy in the form of pensions and very expensive healthcare to treat the diseases of old age: cancer, cardiovascular pathologies, dementia, diabetes, obesity, CKD etc etc.
@@matt69nice there would indeed be challenges thrown up by the lag effect as we adjust to a new trajectory. However, ignoring overshoot would throw up even more challenges. If we are not organising for growth, there would be other goals we could choose. None of these problems are unsolveable if we put our minds to it. We can replace soulless social care with more intergenerational living, build more community support, etc. Post growth could bring many positives if we make choices in advance, instead of having them forced upon us through failure to act. We expect there will be significant migration in the future due to the changing climate. In this context, supply of workers need not be a problem in the UK. There are no workers without energy to feed them with. Energy and labour are both primary drivers of the turning materials into useful stuff. It is not labour alone. If Aaron is correct about automation replacing workers, then a reducing workforce is likely to happen anyway. At least with an ageing population there would be fewer lay-offs due to AI and robots taking jobs. However, we'd also need more energy to power more machines...
Honestly, I couldn't finish listening to the garbage he came out with.... I'm gobsmacked at how someone obviously THIS SMART can be so oblivious to so many issues.... Carbon capture...? Give me a break.... Technology is part of the problem. Food availability? Our current diet has ALREADY started and epidemic of metabolic diseases. Which is something else he's ignored, life expectancy is starting to drop. Demographers all concentrate on birth rates and never discuss death rates.. AND he doesn't understand economics either. No wonder we're fucked.
On the flip side of the comminism bad regime, how is Capitalism a good system for maintaining birth rates if its created conditions globally which are actively making people decide to not have kids because they cant afford them, or in a more long term sense that its too dangerous because of its incessant need for growth at the expense of the health and sustainability of the planet. I think the data would show that there is a very strong correlation between the expansion of capitalist based economic models and those figures about falling birth rates. It seems to me that a system like that which will always lead to extraction type behavior will always create this kind of crisis because its fundamental premise is built on that very contradiction, it creates it own gravediggers.
Declining population is a capitalist/ economic problem not a humanity or environmental problem. If we had only a billion people in the world we could probably supply all our energy with renewable sources. We would have a vastly better quality of life. Housing prices would take a huge and necessary drop and skilled labor would calling the shots and environmental stressors would be hugely reduced!0
He keeps going on and on about the joys of having children as if people without children don't want that joy. Joy is a luxury many can't afford. THE PROBLEM IS CAPITALISM.
Intersting video but the current problems are there’s mass austerity & homelessness in the UK & US, there’s a genocide of Palestinians, there’s a famine in Sudan, there’s slavery in Congo. We need Marxism, & to work towards Marx’s idea of global peace & communism/anarchism. But to get to this we need to expropriate the billionaires & bankers & end imperialism by running our countries democratically where every human in the country has a say.
Instead of saying, "we need to work towards this specific political ideology because of x y and z", can't we say "people need to be able to afford to live to want to have children, if they see difficulties will be created from choosing to have children, such as being unable to escape from poverty, they will be reluctant to make such decisions, as they are intelligent enough to understand the difficulties that will arise from doing so". I just think saying we need to change the entire foundation of our political landscape is unrealistic (not that I disagree with the core thesis or marxism), instead, if we explain the situation and say to our leaders "this is why you should care about this, this is what the problem is, this is what will happen if we don't do something about this", it's a much more palpable way of enforcing change.
I enjoyed reading this back and forth. Toward the end of your comment you say that people just need to explain to those in power what needs to be done... But people have been talking for years and decades about all the problems... And much of it is answered with half hearted responses, scapegoats, hand waving, victim shaming, or fear mongering. By design, they won't ever look at the system that put them in power. And the incentives once in power to ignore the core issues wrong with our society and world itself are too tempting. And even if a strong willed person in power refused the temptation... They would be standing alone against the machine that wants power and wealth above all else.... But having 15 million people refuse to pay taxes and refuse to work and refuse to move and refuse to say yes sir... That could make a difference @@anicebitofbreadtomopupthel7144
We’re not going to run out of oil? We need to stop using it now, because we have already exceeded a safe amount of CO2 to put into the atmosphere. 8 billion people is way too many people for the ecological carrying capacity of the earth, never mind the predicted peak 10-11 billion. Ecological networks are already going into collapse. UK is already one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet and insect populations are crashing, forests unhealthy. Yes, a cliff edge in terms of population is not good for us and we shouldn’t be relying on high immigration to fill gaps in the labour market - although the flow of refugees is not likely to lessen in an increasingly unstable world. Relying on technology to get us out of the mess, which has largely been created by technology, is delusional - although technology will still have an important role to play.
Academic Demography clearly tortured by the same lazy predilections of classical Econ. Why bother asking people why they have stopped having children when you can make sweeping generalisations via interpolation, applied to empirical observations that you've already decided are explanatory factors.
@@riveranalyse Because by the metrics of most international organisations and internationally accepted measures the UK is a wealthy country. The topic of the video was demographics and the implications of the coming demographic implosion that is going to hit us all in the next few decades.
Me and my girlfriend are in our early 30's and both know we dont want children. One thing I'd like to see talked about more is taking some responsibility for looking after your health to ensure we dont need as much care when we're old. Granted, some diseases are unavoidable. But we have an ever increasing overweight /obese population, none of the aged 50+ people i know do ANY form of physical activety aside from walking. We know that a lot of diseases and cancers are brought on through bad diet (too much saturated fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar) and lack of exercise. But nobody does anything to prevent them! If we were in much better health as we aged, we'd be able to support ourselves better, both financially and physically, and this aging population issue would be lessened..
Noone asks young women why they don't want to be mothers. It's mostly men that have this Diskussion. I Just don't want to ruin my body with pregnancy and I want my life for myself.
They'll do anything but be real fathers and do half of childcare to alleviate women's burden. Not that population decline is even a problem in the first place.
i don't have kids and feel super happy about my situation. why provide free labor units to a country characterized by severe income inequality, rising poverty, super expensive housing, and completely unaffordable healthcare?
This'll be interesting... to see if Aaron (or even Novara in general) can tear themself away from their Infinite Growth apologism. The video's title, focusing on 'collapse' rather than 'reduction' doesn't suggest so. I love your work, but this always strikes me as a serious error in thinking; the daydream concept of infinite growth is the driving force behind settler colonialism, resource exploitation, inequality and capitalism. You know, the sort of nonsense that Chicago School economists believe and that is fucking the environment.
Look at things from a larger perspective. Humanity has gone from digging up roots with sticks, to the present world-spanning techno-civilization. It is not likely that we are going to stop at the technological level of 2024. You should embrace progress, by which I mean technological progress. Read some sci-fi, and warm to the idea. It is compatible with having flourishing ecosystems.
@@browncow7113 Agreed. I think it's important we look at things such as built-in obsolescence and other tricks of the trade that lead to over-consumption to no real benefit to the consumer, (and, indeed, to his or her detriment), rather than take the brute force approach of decrying consumerism and technological advances outright. I'm waiting for someone to invent a mobile phone with plug-and-play upgrades for example.
I think you are confusing the collapse of the population with the collapse of economic growth. A population with a birth rate below 2.1 is a population that is collapsing & isn't sustainable. Industrialised countries with collapsing populations tend to be the ones with large economic growth. While industrialised countries are exploiting poorer nations, they are simultaneously experiencing a population collapse.
@@browncow7113 We will stop technological advancement because all industrialised nations inevitably result in unsustainable birth rates. This is because the technology produces addictive entertainment & the spread of individualistic ideas. The cultures that will survive are the ones that reject technology & prioritise the needs of the community above the desires of the individual. These cultures will be like the Amish. Their birth rates are extremely high because their culture rejects individualism & reinforces holistic & communal teachings.
The demographic trends in Israel and the reasons behind them are not "anyone's guess", the reasons are known. Fertility treatments are free for everyone and you are financially incentivized to have more children. When the child payments went down, the ultra orthodox birthrate went down. It's disappointing that you get into this without knowing the ABCs of Israeli demographics
What about the glaring fact that the state of Israel is a Western colonizing project in the form of an Apartheid settler state? Are high birth and fertility rates not a basis prerequisite for displacing a population and illegally seizing more and more land?
@@PaulMorland-ff8ip and the ultra orthodox in the US have lots of children without any of those incentives. Perhaps the OP shoukd give a tad more respect to someone who's done academic work on this topic and written a book.
If this was all there was to it, sure a place like Hungary would have a much higher birthrate? He has a pretty strong argument that the ethnic conflict factor is a relevant one in Israel (and in Palestine for that matter), as it was with the ROI vs NI case
@@vmoses1979 Except we still know why ultra-religious people tend to have more children. Reasons like believing birth control is a sin, not having access to birth control in religious and rural populations, believing your people are the chosen people and it is your duty to grow the religion, as well as what was mentioned above, like free fertility treatments. You can find similar patterns in ultra-religious groups in the US. It’s at least partially based in racism, sexism, and belief in ethnic superiority.
If we want to increase fertility, we need to make IVF and other fertility treatments free, and to treat parenting as a full time job, worthy of a living wage.
Nononono, you see, mothers are supposed to raise the next generation of workers/soldiers _at no expense to the state_. Otherwise how will the next generation of CEOs get positive returns on their capital?
These two policies as well as some cultural shifts towards positivity around parenting and family life, would be really effective in increasing the population. I never really understood the justification for contraception and abortion being state funded, but not IVF and other fertility treatments. If it’s about genuine choice, family planning must include financial support to grow families as well as to limit them.
Why no women to discuss an issue totally dependent on women's bodies and the issue of choice? And the enormous impact of conception-blocking medication and abortion? And patriarchy and forced childbearing? And maybe we should ask women how and why they make the decision on whether or not to choose to bear a child? And what social changes and support might convince a woman she and her child would be supported by society at large if they do make that decision? Please ask some women about these critical issues!
"They" do ask women! And no woman, anywhere (!), has come up with a solution. To turn a general demographic, population reality into only a 'feminist's' issue is utterly hypocritical. Shame on you!
@@ChrisKasper-wc7cf"nO WomAn AnYwHaErE hAs CoMe Up wITH a solUtIon" actually they have come up with many, menjust dont listen to them because they dont want to fix the problem unless its done on their own terms also it is objectively and fundamentally a feministissue. Because at the end of the day, no matter what the cause of the birth decIine and what the solution is, the entire things falls on womenand whether they decide to have kids or not.
@@baltasarnoreno5973 Disabled people and other minority groups are already paying more due to discrimination, increased cost of living for those with disabilities, treatments for infertility or assisted reproduction, etc. Having children is not ethical for some people, and they should not be penalized for making responsible choices for their situation. In other cases, having children is not possible, and those people should not be penalized for a condition that is not their fault. Last I knew discrimination based on an inherent characteristic was supposed to be illegal.
And women... Most children fatherless will be raised by women and that is expensive men just need to pay childcare and that doesn't cover 50% of cost Most of the time
He has a very smug, blinkered view of certain issues, perhaps arising from seeing every problem through a demographic lens. His ludicrous, straw man, argument about Gaza in his article for the Spectator is a prime example; railing against a view that practically no one holds whilst offering absolutely no insight into the actual causes of the conflict. His "pro natal" prescription is only justified if one believes that a continuously growing human population is a good thing, i.e. sustainable on a finite planet. There is practically no exploration of alternative models to proactively deal with a shrinking human population that would be kinder to the planet.
He thinks people are historically naive if they don't want to have children. Which makes sense if you believe we're on the up and up and infinite growth is desirable and possible. I'd put forward that the last wee while has been a blip and HE is historically naive. Life has gotten easier by some measures but it won't stay that way. And in any case we're absolutely lost.
Paul Morland seems kinda annoying. Appreciate Aaron defending prior socialist projects. We don’t live in particularly optimistic times, fertility will drop.
My grandmother once told me that things were so bad in her day that if birth control had existed, she never would have had kids. So I don't think people were choosing to bring kids into all the horrors of life... they really didn't have a choice. Things may be better in some ways than they've ever been, but there's still a lot wrong as well. If I had known we'd be facing WW3 and the prospect of my sons being killed or maimed in it just to make rich people even richer or that we'd be on the brink of nuclear annihilation, I wouldn't have had kids 25 years ago. Women have a choice today and they are deciding not to play this stupid game.
I cry pretty regularly thinking about how I will never own a home, have children or retire. If my taxes got bumped up because of my greatest regrets I would *verbs*.
This really does seem like one of the fundamental issues that will affect our entire civilisation. Regardless of your opinions on this guy i think its definitely worth taking seriously
Human life on average is far better than it was true but looks at the catastrophic impact on biodiversity, natural resources, the environment - the price of improving the lives of billions of humans on environment, flora and fauna is simply too high. Pro natalist humans seem never to care about this trade off
There is no link between population and climate disaster. We have the technology to sustain billions of people without burning fossil fuels or using land for animal agriculture - our politicians are just choosing not to.
Listening to smug stories of how having children is the most wonderful thing you can do, was almost nauseating at times. It's all very well talking from the perspective of the middle class where you can afford great childcare and you don't have to worry how you will feed and clothe your children or pay the bills. It's like he's unaware that 1.6 million people in the UK are living in poverty. Not enough pushback from Aaron in this discussion.
Back in the day, when wealth/income inequality was through the roof. When war, famine, pestilence, and grinding poverty were daily realities. You'd wonder, why any woman would wish to give birth. Then you remember how societies were arranged. How gender inequality was also rampant. How social demands reigned, and how the power of the church was all-encompassing. Add in zero contraceptives, zero education, and nothing remotely in the way of 'career opportunities'. But modern life is different. Mostly. What men like Paul and Phillip can't grasp is why people might not be wanting to start families. What roadblocks are standing in their way. As for what frustrates those two. Is the old social pressures aren't what they were.
What about how many people WANT children and have fertility issues? The lowering fertility rate is not just about choice. It's about the environment, poisoned food, etc.
When you say we are a rich country you forget most of that wealth is concentrated in a small number of hands. To make matters worse the hands with the wealth, wether intentionally or not, are increasing the cost of living for those they are impoverishing by suppressing income, reducing housing supply and decimating health care and education. It is only governments that can fix this but in order to be elected and govern effectively they depend on the patronage of the very wealthy that need a hefty tax increase. The ownership of health care provision for the elderly by large corporations, for instance, has massively increased the cost to local goverments which they have no choice but to pay and which is a major contribution to many facing bankruptcy and the general collapse of vital services. The problem is not so much the number of elderly but the fact they are seen as an income stream that can be maximised at the expense of everyone else. That, and a similar situation with health care and the NHS that is seeing huge numbers of working age people along with the elderly being denied the treatment that would keep them fit, healthy and productive rather than a drain on the public purse.
I always have two questions for pro-natalists. First, what technology is going to stop the mass extinction we are currently causing. Second, when the human population starts to get close to one trillion (about 300 years at one percent growth) how will those people deal with the inevitable population reduction.
@@XavierJAlexander What I'm asking for is a change in thinking for pro-natalists. Very often they will raise economic issues as justification for continued population growth. If the population stops growing, our current economic system might collapse. Instead of finding increasingly destructive technology based solutions so that we can stuff as many people on Earth at one time, maybe we should find a way for our economic system to deal with a declining population without cratering. The one trillion number is meant to be ridiculous to illustrate that infinite growth on a finite planet is the philosophy of lunatics or economists.
People don’t have kids because they are poor. Most couples need money to establish a household before they think of churning out kids. Taxing the childless would very possibly have the opposite effect
What a smug, condescending interview. We have an emergency climate crisis. Why don't you concentrate on the likely future of your children and grandchildren and what can be done to ensure that they have a sustainable world into which they can can live and procreate.
This was a very informative interview in many respects, but as many comments below the line indicate, the discussion on the connections between inequality and low birth rates is lacking. I am by no means convinced that Paul Morland really understands the severity of the climate change problem and related environmental problems though. When he says that there is "empirical evidence" to support the claim that "carbon emissions have fallen enormously in developed countries", I think this claim depends upon not including GHG emissions resulting from goods imported from places like China. GHG emissions fell in part because of the collapse of industrial output and over-dependence on imports. The important figure to look at is global GHG emissions, which are way off course according to IPCC reports.
The alternative of having an ever increasing population to service an ever increasing population is the height of stupidity, reminds me of the stupidity of an ever increasing fiat monetary base. We're walking a path we need to walk, a problem we need to solve to evolve.
Surely it's the cost of property in developed countries which is the biggest barrier to people having children? It wouldn't be hard to feed and clothe a child but paying for an extra bedroom in London....
Having kids is not where people should aim to convince people. It is very shortsighted. They work on the principle "once you have the kid, you're there", instead of convincing people that raising kids won't ruin them over 2 decades. If they are convinced their life will not be significantly worse due to the extra costs, stress and societal penalties (including by employers), then they will have as many kids as they would ideally want, instead of the number of kids they can marginally afford (one or less).
What? People have gone over this for a while. What we need is to tax capital to fund the welfare state, not continue to rely on payroll taxation and encourage more births. That said, if we adopt the features of the strong welfare state, including maintaining free social care, free childcare, council housing, public transport, living wages etc. the economic dis-incentive to having kids that currently exists would go away. So maybe things will even out in the end. But of course, the rich do not want that to happen.
An analysis of a decreasing human population in first world countries and the associated problems is a cause for concern. We have to address this critical issue, and the fact that is often overlooked in mainstream discourse is concerning. Declining birth rates, aging populations, and the demographic imbalances that many nations face, especially in the developed world, are beginning to face isn’t discussed. Why? A shrinking population will have severe consequences for economic growth and sustainability under the current capitalist framework. As birth rates fall and life expectancy rises, the ratio of working-age individuals to retirees diminishes, placing enormous pressure on social services, healthcare systems, and especially pension schemes. This imbalance threatens to destabilise economies that rely on continuous growth and a large, active workforce. We need to rethink our economic models to adapt to these demographic realities, rather than clinging to outdated assumptions about perpetual growth. The social and political challenges that come with a collapsing population, as populations shrink, rural depopulation, labor shortages, and the decline of community structures will likely accelerate, leading to increased isolation and inequality. Let's get thinking about solutions, such as embracing automation, improving social safety nets, and encouraging policies that support both younger and older generations. We need a more global perspective, as population decline in wealthier nations contrasts with rapid population growth in poorer regions, necessitating international cooperation and a fairer distribution of resources and Immigration. Neoliberal orthodoxy needs to evaluate itself, which often fails to address the deeper implications of demographic collapse. What we need is transformative policies that emphasise sustainability, redistribution, and technological innovation, ensuring that society can thrive even in the face of these demographic shifts. Managing decline of population is one aspect. but what about seizing the opportunity to build a more equitable and resilient world. The challenges of a collapsing human population requires not just awareness, but bold, visionary thinking. Human welfare, sustainability, and justice are crucial, I am concerned about the future of society in an age of demographic change. I'm glad Aaron is talking about this 😊
See Prince Philip comments. I struggle to picture they're this incompetent and that is not in fact a design feature rather than a flaw. The rich and powerful will be somewhat insulated for longer and will get to build the world again in their image, it'll only be us plebs that'll likely get fucked. By design.
Well said. Rarely in the history of species do they recover from declines like this. I fear humanity is headed for the same path. This could just be part of the story of the earth. Is humanity as we know it merry another entry in that story?
You're preaching to the wrong people. Most reading this have been psychologically manipulated into believing that humans are bad, that climate change is real, and that population collapse is a good thing.
Morland misses the two most important facts that brought about the enormous increase in agricultural production in the 20th century - the mechanization of farming and the synthesis of nitrogen on an industrial level. There will be a global population collapse this century due to climate change, ecosystem collapse, and the exhaustion of accessible fossil fuels.
He certainly did mention the Haber Bosch process of Nitrogen Fixation (rather than Synthesis) which I think you are referring to. I think he may have also mentioned mechanisation.
To be fair to Morland, he does explicitly mention the Haber-Bosch process of nitrogen production when explaining the boom in agricultural productivity.
I’d agree, falling fertility rates isn’t the most prescient question. Wealth inequality and violence against women is a starting point. Plus younger women are choosing not to get married and have children because they are free not to. Address the societal impact of that. I’ll give you a clue. Give us respect and equality
This is a big aspect he didn’t mention. South Korean women are saying this is huge part of it. As are many women the world over. Many women have also been saying that it’s extremely difficult to find a mature man ready for commitment at a young enough age for a woman to still biologically have children. There are many cultural issues all over the world. Economic inequality and gender inequality are huge parts of the picture.
Stopped watching at 18:56, after the statement that "anyone who's worthy[!!!] or able to take advantage of a good education" in Japan already has. Morland isn't arguing that WE need more people/labour: He's arguing that THE PERPETUATION OF EXISTING HIERARCHIES - which he obtusely sees as reflecting natural hierarchies of ability and worth - requires more people...: 1) People to work, to provide goods and services, in ways defined and apportioned by the institutions that establish and perpetuate inequalities (of reward AND of capacity - the latter engineered in modern capitalist societies as surely as in Huxley's Brave New World), and 2) People to do enough work, provide enough in the way of goods and services, to ensure that an absurd and unsustainable superfluity of rewards still goes to those in privileged positions. Neither of those conditions - the unequal apportioning of education, of social and cultural capital, etc., with the apparent bottlenecks in productivity this entails, or the need to support conspicuous over-consumption on the part of privileged minorities (the announcement of their 'ability' and 'worth') - is natural, inevitable, happy-making or sustainable. Distinguish society as a agglomeration of people from society as a set of institutionally-defined hierarchies, and Morland's work is revealed as nothing but a scaremongering strategy to shore up the latter.
At the end when it becomes two straight fathers sat there judging gay men as 'vacuous' for not having children when we've only very recently barely become able to
His perplexity about why the richest countries' populations are now saying they can't afford to have children is because he's COMPLETELY ignoring wealth inequality. The US is wealthy but that doesn't mean the majority are sharing that wealth!
These conversations always seem like they are about racism, the poor countries where people are brown are having more children than the mostly white countries are. This man is talking about white women not having enough children.
The UK could fix this with inheritance tax reform. Heavily tax larger estates, but give tax breaks for each child and grandchild. The rich would have 10 kids each, with the bonus of being able to afford them, without being a drain on the state.
conservatives like to form a theory then go out and try to find evidence that supposedly supports the truth they are trying to impress upon people. This guy really indulges in this logical fallacy.
We are overpopulated now, in 1950 there were 2 billion people on earth, now we are closing in on 9 million, and the environment is suffering; in fact, it will collapse and so will the economy.
I think this is a very strange tipping point in human history. Yes the birth rates are declining. But one thing they don't talk about...while they are pushing for more births to fill factory type jobs and making of products. A human born will live almost 100 years and work for more than 50 of those years. At the same time A.I. and robotics are poised to take millions of jobs from humans in the next decade... The fact is we will need less humans to do these jobs in the future. They want us to birth future tax payers, they don't care if those tax payers live in poverty their whole lives.
Too right. It's sick that they're asking people to reproduce when the world's in such a state. They don't care about the children and future adults they want to bring into existence.
I’m more than halfway through watching and I don’t think they’ve yet mentioned the research suggesting that many childless people say it wasn’t their choice. People with only one child, or with none at all, say it was just how circumstances turned out.
1:33:42 Best summary: "I'M NOT TRYING TO SOLVE ALL THE PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY" - Climate change: no - Massive especies extinction (60% killed in the last 50 years): no - Poverty: no - Justice: no - Ethnocentrism: yes! What he wants to solve is having many young, hard-working, efficient white conservatives instead of brown progressives (ok, and islamists too)
It takes a high bar to hold my attention for two hours. You guys did it. There didn't seem to be a mention of consumerism. Much of todays 'productivity' (in developed countries) seems to be directed at servicing consumerism. Consumerism many say is bad. What happens if we all live more frugally?
Hope that it is. We need fewer people on the planet to preserve nature and resources, and stop the destruction of natural habitat. The world is overpopulated.
No it isn’t there’s plenty of space, there’s just been a Palestinian genocide & more people would help us colonise Mars. There’s no reason we need to live in poverty so that billionaires can have infinite money.
I'd hardly think that our problems are inefficiency of distribution... Willingness to distribute perhaps... Necessity of importation perhaps... Incapacity to meet one's own needs perhaps... Efficiency is bandied about as an unalloyed, perfect solution to any problem and does not consider the oh, so human complexities. Efficiency is often the driving cause of the problems we face, enabling extraction and greed whilst disrupting our relationship between want, work and reward. Nevertheless, Capitalism is wank, obvs. Totally agreed there.
To say that this is the best ever world is very hubristic! Surely the very fact that there has never been a movement against childbirth until now is all the evidence that is needed that something has gone very wrong with western society. I am writing this comment on a Friday night, alone as usual but in a very comfortable two bedroom flat that I own in a good area near a major city. I have an income that dwarfs my monthly mortgage payment meaning that I can afford to go out every weekend. I am tall, fit, in great shape, educated and I am capable of making almost anybody laugh, yet I have had no success in forming friendships or relationships for many years. From the outside I look like one of the lucky ones so god only knows what the poor are going through.
Yeah let's all have kids to pay slightly less tax. Won't at all be offset by the spiralling costs of childcare .... Pleae stop saying we are getting richer and richer , not true. A tiny percentage of people are getting richer and richer and guess what they don't give a sh@t about demography
Positive reinforcement is much stronger than punishment. We need people to feel a sense of community, belonging, agency, optimism, freedom, opportumity
Instead of complaining about the situación, better to deal with lower birth rates and older populations... economic growth is a no go once we run out of resources and specially fossil fuels, so we better get into our minds this trend wich will also help us get out of ecological overshoot.
Higher taxes, and then a substantial universal child benefit . Tax cuts do not mean much to lower income families. A family friendly society, lower work hours. And normalise some people having more children and others none. Some people like raising children
Only recently saw Aaron tell Trigonometry pod that ageing population was an issue we weren’t paying enough attention too. This has been a great podcast so fa, Aaron knows his stuff. Great to see someone on the left give this issue the serious attention it deserves
He fails to mention that a child dies every few seconds from preventable causes. I chose not to have children, for very valid reasons. I did not want to pass trauma onto another generation. NONE of that has prevented me from having a full and productive life. He is right that the burden of caring for older people will be passed to future generations. I would personally elect to take a pill the day I can no longer wipe my own backside. His arguments make a lot of assumptions, including the fact that large numbers of kids are exposed to a great deal of dysfunction.
Climate change is the whole reason... you can't just discount that to make your point. This guy couldn't be more of a white upper middle class boomer if he tried. Lovely that his life has been so untarnished by tragedy or significant difficulty, but i can't help but feel that his whole perspective is informed by an experience of life that many many people do not have for one reason or another.
Haber-Bosch, a process that caused our population to rocket from 1.5 billion to current numbers, but has been progressively destroying global fertility for a century. Not a solution, a trap that we are only just starting to reckon with.
As solo parent to two children… paying 25% tax on 39k and renting … I would be mad to ever consider another baby … wish I could … interesting interview
@@riveranalyse the interviewee seems to be advocating encouraging an increasing birth-rate, without saying the quiet part, which is "to maintain the structures of capitalism".
very materialistic and human centric point of view. What about other beings on the planet? How many animals wil have to die to sustain one human life? How much pollution that human life will produce? And also for me the quality of life is not buying more stuff but clean river, clean air, wild nature...etc
His perplexity about why the richest countries' populations are now saying they can't afford to have children is because he's COMPLETELY ignoring wealth inequality. The UK is wealthy but that doesn't mean the majority are sharing that wealth!
This is what happens when you measure a nations wealth through GDP. Even the inventor of GDP argued it was incredibly flawed and should not be used as a standard. It tells us nothing of quality of life, resource availability or wealth distribution.
@@mcgoombs High iq comment.
That is an ignorant counterargument. Even the wealthiest people won't pass down tons of money because they live long enough so that most of their money will be gone.
Exactly,we are officially in French Revolution levels of wealth inequality now in much of Western World.
@@bennjmin the wealthiest absolutely do. Perhaps you’ve not had much exposure to these types of people, but they’re out there, and their wealth is very much passing from generation to generation.
Some thoughts: freaking out about the economic impacts of declining population *proves* our economic system is a ponzi scheme. Humanity dealt with population drops before and survived, and it was even a good thing for peasants and workers. Finally, I firmly believe the Earth cannot sustain this level of population. Even if we solve climate, there's still the problem of biodiversity and ecosystem loss.
Oh we dealt with population drops before & survived? So what? The world will be a worse place with less people in it. There is enough room for people in this planet, plus we need to set about colonising Mars for the next generation because of rising sea levels. Get a grip on reality, we need our human rights, the Palestine situation shows that we don’t have them. We need the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism & international Marxist communism where everything stays the same such as trade & sharing art & science except exploitative people don’t get to sit on the infinite profits of fictitious capital.
The Earth can sustain a much larger population, and our economy isn't what is really imperiled by population decline and aging, as you said, we would get poorer overall, but in some terms a declining population _would_ be beneficial to some people. The real problem is that our welfare states can't sustain themselves without growing populations.
@@robertmartin6800yeah, & we should have better welfare states (where everyone gets all their human needs met rather than only a few & the billionaires act horrible to everyone) so we can grow more & colonise Mars.
@@robertmartin6800yes it could but not at the consumption level of the developed world (where most people desire to be). You're clearly missing a bigger picture if you think that a crumbling wealthfare system is a bigger issue than an environmental collapse.
@@FabianEllis We don't need larger welfare states, we can't afford the welfare states we currently have. Having built and maintained such massive welfare states is proving to be the chief obstacle to our continued growth and development, making them bigger won't fix the problems that our building them has created.
What was the whole point of the industrial revolution and general technological advance if it wasn't that we can produce lots more stuff with lots fewer people? Which we can, in fact way, way, more stuff. We could all work 20 hours a week and have the same living standard we had as working/middle class people in 1960. We're working 40++ hours a week because our corporate overlords have worked hard to structure the economy to maintain artificial scarcity for the working class, while dangling ever more gew-gaws in front of us so they can continue to get rich enough to control the political class. Plus, nowhere in this discussion is it mentioned that we are rapidly polluting ourselves out of a habitable planet. A falling population is not the problem. Restructuring our economy to make it fair and sustainable is.
Yes, precisely this.
A lot of us are working hard because our system's been re-aligned to create loads of bullshit jobs to keep people dependent and for "powerful" people to feel important.
I think most of how we've done it is basically jobs programmes for socio-political reasons. Not artificial scarcity (though that applies to the internet). We've got loads of cheap useless stuff. Loads of "sales and marketing" jobs around this cheap useless stuff. Then loads of finance jobs that are effectively useless, just to manage the wealth and pretend it's doing useful things by creating fictitious commodities they "invest" in. Then we've got a labyrinthine legal and regulatory apparatus that's a jobs programme. As is much of academia. And I haven't even gotten to "consultants" yet.
Strip all that away and our lives won't be that much different. But loads of middle class people will be unemployed and the bloc supporting the system will be gone.
Absolutely agree. The people relying on an economic lens are accelerating decline. My quality of life in a ‘rich’ country, is below that of a hunter gatherer, so what exactly is the point of working more to destabilize the biosphere?
What was the point of the appendix?
@@farhadchaudhry It doesn't make them important, it makes them powerful. They literally try to control every aspect of your life. They think they're fucking gods. And we don't hang them for heresy.
"tax the childless" ie punish the poors for not creating more labour for the owning class to exploit. Perhaps we tighten wealth distribution so that the working class can procrate without less uncertainty about their future ability to support families.
Bingo! That's the huge elephant in the room. I think they are paid to ignore the elephant.
Going on about how people should have more kids because our lives allegedly have never been better is ridiculous. No mention of this disastrous economic system? No mention of rising inequality?
I have a kid, it's fucking hard.
Addressing this topic without considering the material conditions that surround us is just pathetic.
But I am happy to see, by the comments left here, that people are not deceived.
Nothing is in a state of equality ... And always will be.
@@Kitiwakeohhh so we should keep on breeding and be poor is ur logic?
waaaa... i have to change nappies and can't go on a tropical cruise every six months.... waaaaa
@@patrickharte4773 it’s not about tropical holidays for ordinary folk it’s about being able to meet the financial needs of raising a family. Many can’t.
It's so easy to preach the benefits of having children when you're affluent intellectual like Paul Morland.
I was disappointed that widening wealth inequality wasn't mentioned, given it's a clear trend on a similar timescale to these demographic issues. Yes, we want more kids, but it looks like many will be born into serfdom while the older generations enjoy their final salary pension schemes--perhaps we ought to improve our future prospects to encourage child-rearing, rather than tax those unfortunate enough to miss out on parenthood?
Religion is a far greater determinant of family size than wealth inequality. Why not start talking about family size inequality?
How did medieval serfs manage to have a healthy 6-7 children, of whom 50% died before their 15th birthday, while suffering under crushing wealth inequality?
@@polybian_bicycle irrelevant
@@TorstigHjalmr naive empiricism
@@allTheRobs
Please explain.
The privilege displayed here is astounding. I lasted for 1 and half hours and no discussion about the increase in wealth inequality which has reached the level of economic terrorism, and the lack of good paying jobs. Add to that the war mongering which sends our children to die or or become permanently injured physically or mentally. Add to that the militarization of police where people can receive death or injury unnecessarily. Add to that the increase in gun violence, especially in schools. These are all just for starters. The idea that we should all be more "cheerful" is just putting our heads in the sand and frankly comes off very cruel and disconnected. Sheesh, what a joke.
Wealth inequality has virtually nothing to do with the crashing birth rates. In countries with crushing wealth inequality, they can still maintain healthy birth rates. There's just no reason to make babies, because we have nothing to live for.
Thank you for your comment. I won’t waste my time. I’m going to assume that he has no concept of anthropogenic climate change & doesn’t mind that our bosses are paid 700 times more than us.
@@ollie2052000
By no means, the wealth inequality and capitalism is a problem. It's just that this issue is not caused by it.
💯% this guy is insane
That's because it's nothing to do with wealth inequality. Are you not aware the poor people across history from slum-dwellers to peasants have lots of children? The problem is that capitalism has destroyed communities including the primary base of communities, the extended family, which means mothers get very little support, which has made everyone in the comments here think having a child is inherently a horrible draining burden. It's a result of neoliberalism - not the antithesis.
When we call our country rich we should be focusing on median wealth rather than mean wealth. Ordinary people are not getting richer.
No ur still wrong
U should focus on modal wealth
Mean median mode
Mode is the most accurate parameter to describe individual wealth
"Is it time to tax the childless?"
Presumes continuation of the current, consumerist, extractive economic system.
Perhaps it's time to tax the profiteer, the divider of multigenetational communities, the urbaniser, the centraliser, the consumerist, the land holder, the meaning extractor...
Integrated families and communities can surely resolve the issues of an aging society, if they are able to spend time doing so and able to live nearby, all of which are restricted by imposing systems like consumerism.
Precisely.
Hear, hear.
He wants parenthood to be prioritized, no mention of the stigma that puts on childfree and childless people.
@@janewest2845 I don't know what "stigma" is to be honest.
Frankly, I'm past caring about how people "feel" or dealing with their precious world views based on how they feel.
The childless by choice should stay childless as they may not make great parents anyway, the childless by circumstance can always adopt as they will undoubtedly make better parents than some of the halfwits in our societies that have children.....but shouldn't have them.
I don't know how we fix this.....but fix it, we must.
We used to have things like that, you people made us get rid of them so we could build our modern welfare states.
I just love how the birds and the bees and the trees don't charge each other to exist.
Now there's an idea! Fancy working as a tax advisor for bees and trees? I see some business potential there...
Of course they do, birds eat insects such as bees, that's a tax on the species' existence. The bees take pollen from the flowers created by birds transporting seeds. The trees feed off the corpses of birds absorbed into the soil, the birds occupy space on the trees for their nests, the bees and birds survive off the oxygen provided by the trees, etc. It's a perfectly balanced system of them all extracting a tax on the existence of the others.
Bees are organized in internal hierarchies, and they do pay for their existence by doing a specific job
@@damarcuscolfer1485 There is no tax. It's a free trade. Nobody involved in the trade is robbing any of the others of their value.
They do. Plants and animals constantly compete with one another for limited resources. If you gave one animal an edge, like we have with fossil fuels and technology, over another, they would totally demolish their competition outside and within their own species. Exploitation is written into nature because its by definition at war with itself.
It is a bit arrogant viewpoint to claim that "the world is better than it ever has been". Speaking from my experience as a Korean, I can say that Korean society has not necessarily improved. While the national economy has grown, this improvement seems to benefit only the wealthy. Many people struggle with long working hours and a lack of work-life balance which has been going for decades. With little government support, many people I know are hesitant to have more than one child.
Personally I believe that having fewer people would reduce the amount of energy we need to extract from the Earth, including oil, gas, water, and electricity. This would be beneficial for the environment.
not arrogant its objectively true. if you think your life is hard working long hours behind a desk, try being a peasant farmer without access to modern medicine
I absolutely agree.
That part at 1:09:35 about how the richer we get the less we can afford to have children really needs a consideration of Henry George and Progress and Poverty. George proposed back in 1870 that, because land value rises as societies get more developed, but instead of the community owning those gains in land value they get privately extracted, we have a vicious cycle in which the harder we work to pay our rent the higher the rent goes. We thus would inevitably have a harder time paying for children the richer we grew in commodities. Maybe instead of taxing people without children, we should tax land.
Absolutely! Progressively as well... the bigger the land holding, the more aggressive the tax rate.
Small is beautiful!
If our societies are so delicate that they can't handle shifts in population over decades, how are they going to handle the sudden ebbs and flows of climate migration?
They won't. They are already faulting.
Just let them in
It's not a climate migration, that is the official narrative that is running cover for them deliberately recruiting replacements for our falling number of young. They won't have high skilled jobs, the rest are expected to work to keep them together with increased government borrowing. They are bought here to consume the fruits of everyone else's labour to amke the GDP look good so the government can borrow more for their pet projects, likely to be wars.
I can't believe people still believe man made climate change.
Why would you want ‘climate migrants’?
@@InfinitePlain they're arriving no matter what
How did us baby boomers do so well?
It wasn’t like this in the old days.
Things were a lot easier; e.g. secure, reasonably paid, full time jobs; free university education; affordable housing ...... etc ....
Young people are getting the full benefits of neoliberalism.
1) Sky high housing costs have created generation rent
2) Student loans
3) Low wages and precarious part time jobs
4) A minimum wage specified at an hourly rate that won’t pay a living wage in a part time job
5) It’s all about investors, so people with money can make more money, and young people haven’t got any.
All the cards have been stacked against today’s young people.
They just can’t get anywhere in life.
I can readily compare what things were like for me, and what they are like for my daughter.
Superficially things are much better, but underneath its much worse.
She has just left University with a very good degree, but loaded up with debt.
This is where it starts getting difficult.
Getting a home and starting a family, I just can’t see how she is going to get there.
Personal experience has helped me understand the demographics problem.
@@krcalder so well said
Superficially better captures it perfectly!
Capitalists had to share because USSR was an alternative system. Once they've collapsed, no more sharing was needed
You lived in post world war 2, no competition for anything.
I'm a tail end boomer. Only 13% went to uni, that's why it was free. Go vack to that level and we can have free uni.
As for secure jobs, the day I left 6th gorm there were 3 million unemployed. By the time I was 23 I'd had 5 jobs. None of them came with a pension ( none of my jobs actually came with a pension till auto enrollment)
"things are so much better now than they were when I was born..."
Nonsense, adjusted for inflation: wages are much less then 50/60/70 years ago... the rich and poor wealth divide is now greater than in the robber baron era of the 20's, cost of rent and housing is higher than back then, education is much less affordable than back then.
I think he is talking about his life, personally
I saw his comments in the context of 1880s Britain and Germany, childhood mortality rates, education opportunities, etc
Yeah, that's the Hans Rosling angle. Cherry-picked, everything's-fine bollocks to desperately keep the wheels from falling off the middle class cart... at least until the Boomers are too feeble to be angry at.
Sigh...
Don’t be a clown. He’s talking societal wide and he is correct
I'd argue that things are better in some ways, worse in others. Wealth inequality has never been higher, but our lives have improved in other ways because not everything revolves around the amount of wealth you have.
On balance I'd prefer to have lived 40-60 years ago though. A blissfully ignorant time.
Tax the hell out of the 1%. Distribute the money to healthcare childcare education housing for the general population.
You'll never tax the 1%. That's why they're the 1%.
no, we can't discuss this topic because the answer is ending housing commodification
Yep. Instead of spending £20 billion per year on enriching the private landlords, spend it on providing actual housing, for free, to those with the greatest needs.
@@happinesstanSame. Imagine if a 200 year old population decline leads to lose of all these landlord wealth.... Nothing better!!!?
The USA already taxes the childless by offering a child tax credit to parents, effectively charging the childless a higher rate, for several decades now. Birth rates are still falling.
Too low?
The Catholic Church used to be keen to breed as many sheep as possible, now it seems the billionaires that need more consumers.
Religions don't spread the teaching of having children because they need "sheep".
It's the other way around. The religion spreads because it has teachings that result in human survival & reproduction.
Any culture that doesn't reinforce the idea of raising children, is a culture that will die out & it won't spread.
When you look at how wealthy they got... its basically just a different form of Capitalistic business model!
Who's going to take care of all the old people?
@@Stoddardian According to the "Corporate Utopia" that is Republican's Project 2025? Old people don't need to retire! You work (for men) or pump babies (for women) and are of no use to society anyways once you cannot fulfill these roles...
Seriously though, if we keep the current model of infinite population growth + infinite resource exploitation + infinite production? There won't be a livable planet left for people to retire on...
@@Stoddardian- we need to have a deeper and more honest discussion about being kept alive when we age. While the concept of dignity in dying is gaining traction, it infuriates me that we won’t be allowed to have a choice if we develop dementia. I’ll be 70 in November and am very much enjoying life, but feel really strongly that I don’t want to be kept hanging on if/when dementia gets bad for me. It should by MY choice. I want the right to decide NOW when I’m still compos mentis, about what happens THEN.
I live in Japan, where population decline is the reality and already big news in large parts of the country. So its good to hear someone talk about the subject in other First World countries, even someone with a prominent blindspot about climate issues and sustainability, so I'm pleased Aaron has had this discussion. Population size and composition affect far more aspects of our lives than we realize. The middle class' favourite subject, housing and its value/cost, being just one of them.
Having a child is a massive, lifelong responsibility: some people just do not want to carry that responsibility.
Lifelong? They become adults and become independent.
It's not as bad as it's made out to be.
@@vmoses1979 Yeah, cause kids just suddenly become independent at 18 with the ability to pay for their own rent and look after themselves as well. Ignoring the fact that your child could be born with disabilities and thus need life long care too.
The result of individualism
@@sameerdodger Whether they become independent or not you have the ability to kick them out of the house and never see them again. The state doesn't require you to support adult children. 18 years is not lifelong. Not difficult to understand.
Paul seems to think he lives in a world where it's not the majority opinion that they want kids. Paul, most people are still having kids, the next generations might just be smaller - get over it. People are still going on and on about how rewarding it is to have kids - there's no stigma against it. If anything it's still a little unusual not to have kids, though much less so than it was previously. Those people having kids might actually have more kids if we didn't live in such an unequal society where the majority have so little wealth.
47% of US adults younger than 50 say they are unlikely to ever have kids.
"The next generation might be just smaller." But that is just his point. It's the consequences of that we need to face. He's also a demographer not a sociologist. So don't criticise him for not stepping outside the particular issue he's raising. It doesn't matter why people do or do not have children, for the purposes of this statistical analysis. What he is highlighting, however, is the challenge for policy makers.
Many Western countries already have tax credits, deductions for being married, and having children. Thus, a tax cut compared to single people. So simply saying "increase" taxes for childless people is a bit redundant.
Not really, because the state doesn't have the resources to care for the childless.
@@polybian_bicycle but the state is the one preventing marriages and child birth with its no fault divorce laws
@@wamnicho
Well, perhaps, but I'd rather blame industrial society itself.
He’s ok with “tax the childless” but offended by “battle of sexes” Conservatism never changes. Never see the cause but look for solutions to the symptoms.
Indeed. They never met a palliative they couldn't embrace if it continued the mythos of the market.
Yet women still want more kids than men. Is that your point? Men decide how many kids? I dont believe that.
Your society is dying. A Failed society is one that produces death
@@hustler3of4culture3 You can certainly criticize the market, but birth rates collapsed in the USSR and other Eastern Bloc states. Of course, after the neoliberal shock therapy it collapsed even further, but still, communism doesn't seem to be able to solve this issue.
@@Stoddardian we'll see how China handles it then.
Concentrating too much on religion and not enough on wealth inequality .
Because the data doesn't support your conclusion
It does support that we wouldn't need to worry so much about the demographic crisis if we shared wealth. And that those in charge would have to care more about these problems and help solve them if they weren't so wealthy they could afford to ignore them.
@@Mr91Jmay neither does data support the theory that the cause of low birth rate is due to less people having a religion.
@firstnamelastname7003 still not enough people to do all the work required to look after old people. Pure numbers game.
@@Mr91Jmayhaven't the experts been telling us AI is replacing us anyway?
We have a housing crisis. We have a climate crisis. We have a healthcare crisis.
Planet Earth generally cannot sustain such a huge human population. In the long-term, I really do think significantly fewer humans is a positive thing for future generations. A better quality of life for everyone surely? I'm aware that short-term there'll be challenges in terms of the ageing population. But, it'll balance out in time.
For years, wonderful scientists such as David Attenborough have been warning of overpopulation. Now, other 'experts' are warning of the problems of population collapse. Which is it? They can't both be true.
It's irked me for ages that any self-respecting leftist could seriously think it is empowering that we are forced to work rather than have a family life. Capitalism is the most anti-natalist force on earth. Given our species' uniquely long childhood, we are evolved to live communally and share the burden of child-raising. It needn't be so stressful to be a parent. They should be able to rest. Infants in hunter gatherer societies get held by an average of 20 different individuals each day. In Western societies today the average is ONE. Even in the West that is super recent. Such a dramatic change in child rearing would be recognised as an extinction threat in any other species.
I don't think any leftist is arguing that it is empowering to work rather than have a family life, I think you're perhaps framing a different argument uncharitably?
@matt69nice Really? There is a lot of anti-child discourse on the left, setting up a false dichotomy between having children or having personal freedom. Maybe I'm assuming the link between personal freedom and career goals but it's often implicit if not explicit. This view is inherited from liberals but it is still v much present on the left and should be shed.
@matt69nice Honestly look at the comment section for exhibit A.
Hear hear!
@@matt69nice
You haven't talked to many "leftist" women, it seems to me.
Economic insecurity and the consequent inability to afford to bring up children is a big reason for lowering fertility. That’s a direct consequence of neo- classical economics.
When my mum had us she could afford to take a couple years out of the workplace and dad's salary alone cover the bills. No way my husband and I can do that, at best one of us can go temporarily part time (after the maternity period).
There's a weird gap in the UK between small baby and nursery where there is neither childcare provision, nor statutory leave. My parents aren't in a position to do childcare. So how's that all supposed to work then?
A shrinking population is mainly a problem if we are expecting more growth. If the population shrinks, we dont need more growth. We can get by with doing less if we expect fewer people in the future, and the available resources could ultimately increase per person relative to today.
We could choose to shrink to align with planetary boundaries. Choosing to overshoot even more seems counterproductive as a species.
I think the issue with this is that there is demographic change associated with a shrinking population, and that if the population shrinks rapidly, the working age population gets older and wants to retire, and there are fewer younger people to support them. I don't think this is necessarily a reason not to want the population to shrink, but it is a risk and an issue we should expect and be prepared for if/when the population does shrink.
“Resources” in the sense relevant to the modern world are largely dependent on labour, there's not a bunch of free stuff just hanging around on the land. If birthrates plummet, and the ratio of working age to elderly decreases along with it, you have much fewer resources per head, not more... A society that has 5 workers for every 1 older person has significantly more resources per head than one with only 1 worker per 1 retiree. Unless you're talking about going for some kind of TNG "Half a Life" (or Logan's Run) type situation, no, below replacement birth rates will not increase resources per person at all…
Looks like you completely failed to hear Paul's basic message. Our populations are shrinking, but the shrinking is happening in the young cohorts that are economically active and productive. Older population cohorts (>65) are definitely NOT shrinking. They continue to grow as life expectancy increases. These cohorts don't work. And they consume huge amounts of resources from the productive parts of the economy in the form of pensions and very expensive healthcare to treat the diseases of old age: cancer, cardiovascular pathologies, dementia, diabetes, obesity, CKD etc etc.
@@matt69nice there would indeed be challenges thrown up by the lag effect as we adjust to a new trajectory. However, ignoring overshoot would throw up even more challenges.
If we are not organising for growth, there would be other goals we could choose. None of these problems are unsolveable if we put our minds to it.
We can replace soulless social care with more intergenerational living, build more community support, etc. Post growth could bring many positives if we make choices in advance, instead of having them forced upon us through failure to act.
We expect there will be significant migration in the future due to the changing climate. In this context, supply of workers need not be a problem in the UK.
There are no workers without energy to feed them with. Energy and labour are both primary drivers of the turning materials into useful stuff. It is not labour alone.
If Aaron is correct about automation replacing workers, then a reducing workforce is likely to happen anyway. At least with an ageing population there would be fewer lay-offs due to AI and robots taking jobs. However, we'd also need more energy to power more machines...
Short term proble...thimgs will eventually even out.@@baltasarnoreno5973
Maybe write a book that will convince your posh mates to evenly distribute the wealth, and then people will be able to AFFORD to breed. 😉
Honestly, I couldn't finish listening to the garbage he came out with.... I'm gobsmacked at how someone obviously THIS SMART can be so oblivious to so many issues....
Carbon capture...? Give me a break.... Technology is part of the problem. Food availability? Our current diet has ALREADY started and epidemic of metabolic diseases. Which is something else he's ignored, life expectancy is starting to drop.
Demographers all concentrate on birth rates and never discuss death rates..
AND he doesn't understand economics either.
No wonder we're fucked.
Spot on.
no, you are totally wrong and not up to date with the state of the art of scientific study
On the flip side of the comminism bad regime, how is Capitalism a good system for maintaining birth rates if its created conditions globally which are actively making people decide to not have kids because they cant afford them, or in a more long term sense that its too dangerous because of its incessant need for growth at the expense of the health and sustainability of the planet. I think the data would show that there is a very strong correlation between the expansion of capitalist based economic models and those figures about falling birth rates. It seems to me that a system like that which will always lead to extraction type behavior will always create this kind of crisis because its fundamental premise is built on that very contradiction, it creates it own gravediggers.
Natalism is a capitalist support, that protects capital, not people. We would, ironically, become wealthier if more people were gay and marxist.
Income has little to do with the birth rates. It's more the narcissistic and nihilistic culture that modernity and capitalism have given birth to.
@@polybian_bicycle lol, right
Declining population is a capitalist/ economic problem not a humanity or environmental problem. If we had only a billion people in the world we could probably supply all our energy with renewable sources. We would have a vastly better quality of life. Housing prices would take a huge and necessary drop and skilled labor would calling the shots and environmental stressors would be hugely reduced!0
He keeps going on and on about the joys of having children as if people without children don't want that joy. Joy is a luxury many can't afford. THE PROBLEM IS CAPITALISM.
Then why low birth rates in China, Cuba and in pre-1989 Eastern Europe?
As the ancient Chinese proverb says, knowledge that our species has never had it so good butters no parsnips.
explain?
@@baddreams4368 Have you not read your Sun Tzu? I keep a copy within 1m of my eyes at all times.
@@RandallSlick lend it
😂
@@Funsizeskatezgir123 It's my gift to you with love xXx
Intersting video but the current problems are there’s mass austerity & homelessness in the UK & US, there’s a genocide of Palestinians, there’s a famine in Sudan, there’s slavery in Congo. We need Marxism, & to work towards Marx’s idea of global peace & communism/anarchism. But to get to this we need to expropriate the billionaires & bankers & end imperialism by running our countries democratically where every human in the country has a say.
Instead of saying, "we need to work towards this specific political ideology because of x y and z", can't we say "people need to be able to afford to live to want to have children, if they see difficulties will be created from choosing to have children, such as being unable to escape from poverty, they will be reluctant to make such decisions, as they are intelligent enough to understand the difficulties that will arise from doing so". I just think saying we need to change the entire foundation of our political landscape is unrealistic (not that I disagree with the core thesis or marxism), instead, if we explain the situation and say to our leaders "this is why you should care about this, this is what the problem is, this is what will happen if we don't do something about this", it's a much more palpable way of enforcing change.
I enjoyed reading this back and forth. Toward the end of your comment you say that people just need to explain to those in power what needs to be done... But people have been talking for years and decades about all the problems... And much of it is answered with half hearted responses, scapegoats, hand waving, victim shaming, or fear mongering.
By design, they won't ever look at the system that put them in power. And the incentives once in power to ignore the core issues wrong with our society and world itself are too tempting. And even if a strong willed person in power refused the temptation... They would be standing alone against the machine that wants power and wealth above all else....
But having 15 million people refuse to pay taxes and refuse to work and refuse to move and refuse to say yes sir... That could make a difference @@anicebitofbreadtomopupthel7144
@@anicebitofbreadtomopupthel7144 hmm thank you, very constructive feedback
@@roscojenkins7451 brilliant comment, I 100% agree
We’re not going to run out of oil? We need to stop using it now, because we have already exceeded a safe amount of CO2 to put into the atmosphere. 8 billion people is way too many people for the ecological carrying capacity of the earth, never mind the predicted peak 10-11 billion. Ecological networks are already going into collapse. UK is already one of the most nature depleted countries on the planet and insect populations are crashing, forests unhealthy. Yes, a cliff edge in terms of population is not good for us and we shouldn’t be relying on high immigration to fill gaps in the labour market - although the flow of refugees is not likely to lessen in an increasingly unstable world. Relying on technology to get us out of the mess, which has largely been created by technology, is delusional - although technology will still have an important role to play.
Academic Demography clearly tortured by the same lazy predilections of classical Econ. Why bother asking people why they have stopped having children when you can make sweeping generalisations via interpolation, applied to empirical observations that you've already decided are explanatory factors.
Isn’t the poverty rate for children in the UK 30%? How is that not part of this conversation?
Because the video was about GLOBAL demographics.
@@baltasarnoreno5973worse poverty is sky high everywhere
Because by his metrics the UK is wealthy. No thought to distribution.
@@riveranalyse Because by the metrics of most international organisations and internationally accepted measures the UK is a wealthy country. The topic of the video was demographics and the implications of the coming demographic implosion that is going to hit us all in the next few decades.
Me and my girlfriend are in our early 30's and both know we dont want children.
One thing I'd like to see talked about more is taking some responsibility for looking after your health to ensure we dont need as much care when we're old.
Granted, some diseases are unavoidable. But we have an ever increasing overweight /obese population, none of the aged 50+ people i know do ANY form of physical activety aside from walking. We know that a lot of diseases and cancers are brought on through bad diet (too much saturated fat, cholesterol, salt and sugar) and lack of exercise. But nobody does anything to prevent them!
If we were in much better health as we aged, we'd be able to support ourselves better, both financially and physically, and this aging population issue would be lessened..
Noone asks young women why they don't want to be mothers.
It's mostly men that have this Diskussion.
I Just don't want to ruin my body with pregnancy and I want my life for myself.
Great, as long as you don't reach out for a pension paid by my children's taxes.
They'll do anything but be real fathers and do half of childcare to alleviate women's burden. Not that population decline is even a problem in the first place.
@@ten_tego_teges Your children don't like you and they'll go socialist
so don't ask for government help when you get older.
@@SimplonKast don't get mad at migrants
i don't have kids and feel super happy about my situation. why provide free labor units to a country characterized by severe income inequality, rising poverty, super expensive housing, and completely unaffordable healthcare?
This'll be interesting... to see if Aaron (or even Novara in general) can tear themself away from their Infinite Growth apologism. The video's title, focusing on 'collapse' rather than 'reduction' doesn't suggest so. I love your work, but this always strikes me as a serious error in thinking; the daydream concept of infinite growth is the driving force behind settler colonialism, resource exploitation, inequality and capitalism. You know, the sort of nonsense that Chicago School economists believe and that is fucking the environment.
Look at things from a larger perspective. Humanity has gone from digging up roots with sticks, to the present world-spanning techno-civilization. It is not likely that we are going to stop at the technological level of 2024. You should embrace progress, by which I mean technological progress. Read some sci-fi, and warm to the idea. It is compatible with having flourishing ecosystems.
Please tell me how you embed links
Thanks
@@browncow7113 Agreed. I think it's important we look at things such as built-in obsolescence and other tricks of the trade that lead to over-consumption to no real benefit to the consumer, (and, indeed, to his or her detriment), rather than take the brute force approach of decrying consumerism and technological advances outright. I'm waiting for someone to invent a mobile phone with plug-and-play upgrades for example.
I think you are confusing the collapse of the population with the collapse of economic growth.
A population with a birth rate below 2.1 is a population that is collapsing & isn't sustainable.
Industrialised countries with collapsing populations tend to be the ones with large economic growth.
While industrialised countries are exploiting poorer nations, they are simultaneously experiencing a population collapse.
@@browncow7113 We will stop technological advancement because all industrialised nations inevitably result in unsustainable birth rates.
This is because the technology produces addictive entertainment & the spread of individualistic ideas.
The cultures that will survive are the ones that reject technology & prioritise the needs of the community above the desires of the individual.
These cultures will be like the Amish. Their birth rates are extremely high because their culture rejects individualism & reinforces holistic & communal teachings.
His argument about emissions going down in the UK etc is not correct per capita, it's just been outsourced to China etc.
He’s fine with that
The demographic trends in Israel and the reasons behind them are not "anyone's guess", the reasons are known. Fertility treatments are free for everyone and you are financially incentivized to have more children. When the child payments went down, the ultra orthodox birthrate went down. It's disappointing that you get into this without knowing the ABCs of Israeli demographics
But similar policies in other countries have not delivered anything like a fertility rate of 3
What about the glaring fact that the state of Israel is a Western colonizing project in the form of an Apartheid settler state? Are high birth and fertility rates not a basis prerequisite for displacing a population and illegally seizing more and more land?
@@PaulMorland-ff8ip and the ultra orthodox in the US have lots of children without any of those incentives. Perhaps the OP shoukd give a tad more respect to someone who's done academic work on this topic and written a book.
If this was all there was to it, sure a place like Hungary would have a much higher birthrate? He has a pretty strong argument that the ethnic conflict factor is a relevant one in Israel (and in Palestine for that matter), as it was with the ROI vs NI case
@@vmoses1979 Except we still know why ultra-religious people tend to have more children. Reasons like believing birth control is a sin, not having access to birth control in religious and rural populations, believing your people are the chosen people and it is your duty to grow the religion, as well as what was mentioned above, like free fertility treatments. You can find similar patterns in ultra-religious groups in the US. It’s at least partially based in racism, sexism, and belief in ethnic superiority.
If we want to increase fertility, we need to make IVF and other fertility treatments free, and to treat parenting as a full time job, worthy of a living wage.
Nononono, you see, mothers are supposed to raise the next generation of workers/soldiers _at no expense to the state_. Otherwise how will the next generation of CEOs get positive returns on their capital?
How dare you suggest an actual solution 🤬
If we want more children we need to enable people to be parents? Hm, novel idea this.
@@Starrypaws64 Literally the only thing that could tempt me into becoming a parent.
These two policies as well as some cultural shifts towards positivity around parenting and family life, would be really effective in increasing the population. I never really understood the justification for contraception and abortion being state funded, but not IVF and other fertility treatments. If it’s about genuine choice, family planning must include financial support to grow families as well as to limit them.
Why no women to discuss an issue totally dependent on women's bodies and the issue of choice? And the enormous impact of conception-blocking medication and abortion? And patriarchy and forced childbearing? And maybe we should ask women how and why they make the decision on whether or not to choose to bear a child? And what social changes and support might convince a woman she and her child would be supported by society at large if they do make that decision? Please ask some women about these critical issues!
It's not a panel discussion. Can't a man even express their opinion without someone hounding him for not being a woman?
"They" do ask women! And no woman, anywhere (!), has come up with a solution. To turn a general demographic, population reality into only a 'feminist's' issue is utterly hypocritical. Shame on you!
@@ChrisKasper-wc7cf"nO WomAn AnYwHaErE hAs CoMe Up wITH a solUtIon"
actually they have come up with many, menjust dont listen to them because they dont want to fix the problem unless its done on their own terms
also it is objectively and fundamentally a feministissue. Because at the end of the day, no matter what the cause of the birth decIine and what the solution is, the entire things falls on womenand whether they decide to have kids or not.
probably cos when you ask women they tell you they need more financial security, so you throw money at them and they still dont want kids
Taxing the childless would be disproportionally hard on queer and disabled people
So?
I dunno about the disabled. They don’t tend to be taxable due to low income. But as for gay people - don’t you think that’s probably what he wants?
Only if it excludes people with adopted or fostered kids. Ofc it is harder for lgbt ppl to adopt/foster tho.
@@baltasarnoreno5973 Disabled people and other minority groups are already paying more due to discrimination, increased cost of living for those with disabilities, treatments for infertility or assisted reproduction, etc. Having children is not ethical for some people, and they should not be penalized for making responsible choices for their situation. In other cases, having children is not possible, and those people should not be penalized for a condition that is not their fault. Last I knew discrimination based on an inherent characteristic was supposed to be illegal.
And women... Most children fatherless will be raised by women and that is expensive men just need to pay childcare and that doesn't cover 50% of cost Most of the time
He has a very smug, blinkered view of certain issues, perhaps arising from seeing every problem through a demographic lens. His ludicrous, straw man, argument about Gaza in his article for the Spectator is a prime example; railing against a view that practically no one holds whilst offering absolutely no insight into the actual causes of the conflict. His "pro natal" prescription is only justified if one believes that a continuously growing human population is a good thing, i.e. sustainable on a finite planet. There is practically no exploration of alternative models to proactively deal with a shrinking human population that would be kinder to the planet.
He thinks people are historically naive if they don't want to have children. Which makes sense if you believe we're on the up and up and infinite growth is desirable and possible. I'd put forward that the last wee while has been a blip and HE is historically naive. Life has gotten easier by some measures but it won't stay that way. And in any case we're absolutely lost.
Paul Morland seems kinda annoying. Appreciate Aaron defending prior socialist projects. We don’t live in particularly optimistic times, fertility will drop.
Fertility HAS dropped, sharply, globally. Those numbers started skyrocketing downward in 2021.
Guess why.
@@sculpy2758skyrocketing downwards eh?
submarining perhaps? 🙃
@@Muzikman127 I mean, if your rocket is deorbiting...
My grandmother once told me that things were so bad in her day that if birth control had existed, she never would have had kids. So I don't think people were choosing to bring kids into all the horrors of life... they really didn't have a choice. Things may be better in some ways than they've ever been, but there's still a lot wrong as well. If I had known we'd be facing WW3 and the prospect of my sons being killed or maimed in it just to make rich people even richer or that we'd be on the brink of nuclear annihilation, I wouldn't have had kids 25 years ago. Women have a choice today and they are deciding not to play this stupid game.
You don’t adapt material circumstances to fit economic policy, you adapt economic policy to fit material circumstances.
Nope
You adjust fiscal policy
I cry pretty regularly thinking about how I will never own a home, have children or retire. If my taxes got bumped up because of my greatest regrets I would *verbs*.
This really does seem like one of the fundamental issues that will affect our entire civilisation. Regardless of your opinions on this guy i think its definitely worth taking seriously
Human life on average is far better than it was true but looks at the catastrophic impact on biodiversity, natural resources, the environment - the price of improving the lives of billions of humans on environment, flora and fauna is simply too high. Pro natalist humans seem never to care about this trade off
And the decline in mental well being due to isolation and decreased community in our capitalist model.
There is no link between population and climate disaster. We have the technology to sustain billions of people without burning fossil fuels or using land for animal agriculture - our politicians are just choosing not to.
Listening to smug stories of how having children is the most wonderful thing you can do, was almost nauseating at times. It's all very well talking from the perspective of the middle class where you can afford great childcare and you don't have to worry how you will feed and clothe your children or pay the bills. It's like he's unaware that 1.6 million people in the UK are living in poverty. Not enough pushback from Aaron in this discussion.
Right, cause it's the middle class that is known for high fertility.
Back in the day, when wealth/income inequality was through the roof. When war, famine, pestilence, and grinding poverty were daily realities. You'd wonder, why any woman would wish to give birth. Then you remember how societies were arranged. How gender inequality was also rampant. How social demands reigned, and how the power of the church was all-encompassing. Add in zero contraceptives, zero education, and nothing remotely in the way of 'career opportunities'.
But modern life is different. Mostly. What men like Paul and Phillip can't grasp is why people might not be wanting to start families. What roadblocks are standing in their way. As for what frustrates those two. Is the old social pressures aren't what they were.
What about how many people WANT children and have fertility issues? The lowering fertility rate is not just about choice. It's about the environment, poisoned food, etc.
When you say we are a rich country you forget most of that wealth is concentrated in a small number of hands. To make matters worse the hands with the wealth, wether intentionally or not, are increasing the cost of living for those they are impoverishing by suppressing income, reducing housing supply and decimating health care and education. It is only governments that can fix this but in order to be elected and govern effectively they depend on the patronage of the very wealthy that need a hefty tax increase. The ownership of health care provision for the elderly by large corporations, for instance, has massively increased the cost to local goverments which they have no choice but to pay and which is a major contribution to many facing bankruptcy and the general collapse of vital services. The problem is not so much the number of elderly but the fact they are seen as an income stream that can be maximised at the expense of everyone else. That, and a similar situation with health care and the NHS that is seeing huge numbers of working age people along with the elderly being denied the treatment that would keep them fit, healthy and productive rather than a drain on the public purse.
I always have two questions for pro-natalists. First, what technology is going to stop the mass extinction we are currently causing. Second, when the human population starts to get close to one trillion (about 300 years at one percent growth) how will those people deal with the inevitable population reduction.
All growth forecasts show population numbers will fall in the next hundred years so what are you on about. 1 trillion 😂😂😂
@@XavierJAlexander What I'm asking for is a change in thinking for pro-natalists. Very often they will raise economic issues as justification for continued population growth. If the population stops growing, our current economic system might collapse. Instead of finding increasingly destructive technology based solutions so that we can stuff as many people on Earth at one time, maybe we should find a way for our economic system to deal with a declining population without cratering. The one trillion number is meant to be ridiculous to illustrate that infinite growth on a finite planet is the philosophy of lunatics or economists.
People don’t have kids because they are poor. Most couples need money to establish a household before they think of churning out kids. Taxing the childless would very possibly have the opposite effect
What a smug, condescending interview. We have an emergency climate crisis. Why don't you concentrate on the likely future of your children and grandchildren and what can be done to ensure that they have a sustainable world into which they can can live and procreate.
You didn’t watch this and don’t really understand much if you did eh?
"climate change" is a natural occurence.
Smug is right!
This was a very informative interview in many respects, but as many comments below the line indicate, the discussion on the connections between inequality and low birth rates is lacking. I am by no means convinced that Paul Morland really understands the severity of the climate change problem and related environmental problems though. When he says that there is "empirical evidence" to support the claim that "carbon emissions have fallen enormously in developed countries", I think this claim depends upon not including GHG emissions resulting from goods imported from places like China. GHG emissions fell in part because of the collapse of industrial output and over-dependence on imports. The important figure to look at is global GHG emissions, which are way off course according to IPCC reports.
The alternative of having an ever increasing population to service an ever increasing population is the height of stupidity, reminds me of the stupidity of an ever increasing fiat monetary base. We're walking a path we need to walk, a problem we need to solve to evolve.
Not even close to the same thing. So I don’t know if you completely misunderstand economy theory or evolutionary theory
Surely it's the cost of property in developed countries which is the biggest barrier to people having children? It wouldn't be hard to feed and clothe a child but paying for an extra bedroom in London....
well there's your first mistake, don't live in london
Good luck solving all the problems that humanity have right now without a resource based economy.
Having kids is not where people should aim to convince people. It is very shortsighted. They work on the principle "once you have the kid, you're there", instead of convincing people that raising kids won't ruin them over 2 decades. If they are convinced their life will not be significantly worse due to the extra costs, stress and societal penalties (including by employers), then they will have as many kids as they would ideally want, instead of the number of kids they can marginally afford (one or less).
I’m going to assume that he has no concept of anthropogenic climate change & doesn’t mind that our bosses are paid 700 times more than us.
He does, he simply recognises that that doesn't devalue life nor the pursuit of its precious continuation.
@@damarcuscolfer1485are you a god botherer?
@@deanmcinerney2324 Nope
What?
People have gone over this for a while. What we need is to tax capital to fund the welfare state, not continue to rely on payroll taxation and encourage more births.
That said, if we adopt the features of the strong welfare state, including maintaining free social care, free childcare, council housing, public transport, living wages etc. the economic dis-incentive to having kids that currently exists would go away.
So maybe things will even out in the end. But of course, the rich do not want that to happen.
An analysis of a decreasing human population in first world countries and the associated problems is a cause for concern. We have to address this critical issue, and the fact that is often overlooked in mainstream discourse is concerning. Declining birth rates, aging populations, and the demographic imbalances that many nations face, especially in the developed world, are beginning to face isn’t discussed. Why?
A shrinking population will have severe consequences for economic growth and sustainability under the current capitalist framework. As birth rates fall and life expectancy rises, the ratio of working-age individuals to retirees diminishes, placing enormous pressure on social services, healthcare systems, and especially pension schemes. This imbalance threatens to destabilise economies that rely on continuous growth and a large, active workforce. We need to rethink our economic models to adapt to these demographic realities, rather than clinging to outdated assumptions about perpetual growth.
The social and political challenges that come with a collapsing population, as populations shrink, rural depopulation, labor shortages, and the decline of community structures will likely accelerate, leading to increased isolation and inequality. Let's get thinking about solutions, such as embracing automation, improving social safety nets, and encouraging policies that support both younger and older generations. We need a more global perspective, as population decline in wealthier nations contrasts with rapid population growth in poorer regions, necessitating international cooperation and a fairer distribution of resources and Immigration.
Neoliberal orthodoxy needs to evaluate itself, which often fails to address the deeper implications of demographic collapse. What we need is transformative policies that emphasise sustainability, redistribution, and technological innovation, ensuring that society can thrive even in the face of these demographic shifts. Managing decline of population is one aspect. but what about seizing the opportunity to build a more equitable and resilient world.
The challenges of a collapsing human population requires not just awareness, but bold, visionary thinking. Human welfare, sustainability, and justice are crucial, I am concerned about the future of society in an age of demographic change.
I'm glad Aaron is talking about this 😊
I cant se declining birth rates as a problem. One have to adjust society acordingly. You think life will be easier with increasing climate change?
See Prince Philip comments. I struggle to picture they're this incompetent and that is not in fact a design feature rather than a flaw. The rich and powerful will be somewhat insulated for longer and will get to build the world again in their image, it'll only be us plebs that'll likely get fucked. By design.
Well said. Rarely in the history of species do they recover from declines like this. I fear humanity is headed for the same path. This could just be part of the story of the earth. Is humanity as we know it merry another entry in that story?
You're preaching to the wrong people.
Most reading this have been psychologically manipulated into believing that humans are bad, that climate change is real, and that population collapse is a good thing.
@@robertpedersen6831it’s like you’ve not even understood the argument being made
did the guest imply it is entirely ethical to pump chemical waste however they wish unless someone can prove it is the leading cause in their death?
Basic legal theory
WEALTH INEQUALITY IS THE BIG FUCKING ISSUE
Morland misses the two most important facts that brought about the enormous increase in agricultural production in the 20th century - the mechanization of farming and the synthesis of nitrogen on an industrial level. There will be a global population collapse this century due to climate change, ecosystem collapse, and the exhaustion of accessible fossil fuels.
He certainly did mention the Haber Bosch process of Nitrogen Fixation (rather than Synthesis) which I think you are referring to. I think he may have also mentioned mechanisation.
To be fair to Morland, he does explicitly mention the Haber-Bosch process of nitrogen production when explaining the boom in agricultural productivity.
1:30:40
Thanks. My bad.
Thanks. My mistake.
I’d agree, falling fertility rates isn’t the most prescient question. Wealth inequality and violence against women is a starting point. Plus younger women are choosing not to get married and have children because they are free not to. Address the societal impact of that. I’ll give you a clue. Give us respect and equality
This is a big aspect he didn’t mention. South Korean women are saying this is huge part of it. As are many women the world over. Many women have also been saying that it’s extremely difficult to find a mature man ready for commitment at a young enough age for a woman to still biologically have children. There are many cultural issues all over the world. Economic inequality and gender inequality are huge parts of the picture.
Give us another clue.
Stopped watching at 18:56, after the statement that "anyone who's worthy[!!!] or able to take advantage of a good education" in Japan already has.
Morland isn't arguing that WE need more people/labour: He's arguing that THE PERPETUATION OF EXISTING HIERARCHIES - which he obtusely sees as reflecting natural hierarchies of ability and worth - requires more people...:
1) People to work, to provide goods and services, in ways defined and apportioned by the institutions that establish and perpetuate inequalities (of reward AND of capacity - the latter engineered in modern capitalist societies as surely as in Huxley's Brave New World), and
2) People to do enough work, provide enough in the way of goods and services, to ensure that an absurd and unsustainable superfluity of rewards still goes to those in privileged positions.
Neither of those conditions - the unequal apportioning of education, of social and cultural capital, etc., with the apparent bottlenecks in productivity this entails, or the need to support conspicuous over-consumption on the part of privileged minorities (the announcement of their 'ability' and 'worth') - is natural, inevitable, happy-making or sustainable.
Distinguish society as a agglomeration of people from society as a set of institutionally-defined hierarchies, and Morland's work is revealed as nothing but a scaremongering strategy to shore up the latter.
yes, I think he'd enjoy speaking to Jordan Peterson, they'd have a lot to agree on.
At the end when it becomes two straight fathers sat there judging gay men as 'vacuous' for not having children when we've only very recently barely become able to
His perplexity about why the richest countries' populations are now saying they can't afford to have children is because he's COMPLETELY ignoring wealth inequality. The US is wealthy but that doesn't mean the majority are sharing that wealth!
There has always been wealth inequality- read Marx
These conversations always seem like they are about racism, the poor countries where people are brown are having more children than the mostly white countries are. This man is talking about white women not having enough children.
Jamaica, Thailand and large parts of India with lower fertility than the UK. You’re obviously not paying attention to the discussion or the data.
The UK could fix this with inheritance tax reform. Heavily tax larger estates, but give tax breaks for each child and grandchild. The rich would have 10 kids each, with the bonus of being able to afford them, without being a drain on the state.
Tax assets and not work, sooner we realise this the quicker we can address wealth inequality.
conservatives like to form a theory then go out and try to find evidence that supposedly supports the truth they are trying to impress upon people. This guy really indulges in this logical fallacy.
We are overpopulated now, in 1950 there were 2 billion people on earth, now we are closing in on 9 million, and the environment is suffering; in fact, it will collapse and so will the economy.
population is not the problem there
I think this is a very strange tipping point in human history. Yes the birth rates are declining.
But one thing they don't talk about...while they are pushing for more births to fill factory type jobs and making of products. A human born will live almost 100 years and work for more than 50 of those years. At the same time A.I. and robotics are poised to take millions of jobs from humans in the next decade...
The fact is we will need less humans to do these jobs in the future.
They want us to birth future tax payers, they don't care if those tax payers live in poverty their whole lives.
Too right. It's sick that they're asking people to reproduce when the world's in such a state. They don't care about the children and future adults they want to bring into existence.
I’m more than halfway through watching and I don’t think they’ve yet mentioned the research suggesting that many childless people say it wasn’t their choice. People with only one child, or with none at all, say it was just how circumstances turned out.
1:33:42
Best summary: "I'M NOT TRYING TO SOLVE ALL THE PROBLEMS OF HUMANITY"
- Climate change: no
- Massive especies extinction (60% killed in the last 50 years): no
- Poverty: no
- Justice: no
- Ethnocentrism: yes!
What he wants to solve is having many young, hard-working, efficient white conservatives instead of brown progressives (ok, and islamists too)
An interesting idea that a child is just a biological mechanism to fulfil the biological goal of getting grandkids.
It takes a high bar to hold my attention for two hours. You guys did it. There didn't seem to be a mention of consumerism. Much of todays 'productivity' (in developed countries) seems to be directed at servicing consumerism. Consumerism many say is bad. What happens if we all live more frugally?
Hope that it is. We need fewer people on the planet to preserve nature and resources, and stop the destruction of natural habitat. The world is overpopulated.
No it isn’t there’s plenty of space, there’s just been a Palestinian genocide & more people would help us colonise Mars. There’s no reason we need to live in poverty so that billionaires can have infinite money.
The problem is resource distribution under Capitalism. Continuous economic growth with finite resources. Capitalism will kill us all.
No the world is not over populated. 🤦♂️ Resource distribution is INEFFICIENT under capitalism.
@@hustler3of4culture3 THANK YOU! 🫂
I'd hardly think that our problems are inefficiency of distribution...
Willingness to distribute perhaps...
Necessity of importation perhaps...
Incapacity to meet one's own needs perhaps...
Efficiency is bandied about as an unalloyed, perfect solution to any problem and does not consider the oh, so human complexities. Efficiency is often the driving cause of the problems we face, enabling extraction and greed whilst disrupting our relationship between want, work and reward.
Nevertheless, Capitalism is wank, obvs. Totally agreed there.
To say that this is the best ever world is very hubristic! Surely the very fact that there has never been a movement against childbirth until now is all the evidence that is needed that something has gone very wrong with western society. I am writing this comment on a Friday night, alone as usual but in a very comfortable two bedroom flat that I own in a good area near a major city. I have an income that dwarfs my monthly mortgage payment meaning that I can afford to go out every weekend. I am tall, fit, in great shape, educated and I am capable of making almost anybody laugh, yet I have had no success in forming friendships or relationships for many years. From the outside I look like one of the lucky ones so god only knows what the poor are going through.
Yeah let's all have kids to pay slightly less tax. Won't at all be offset by the spiralling costs of childcare ....
Pleae stop saying we are getting richer and richer , not true.
A tiny percentage of people are getting richer and richer and guess what they don't give a sh@t about demography
Positive reinforcement is much stronger than punishment. We need people to feel a sense of community, belonging, agency, optimism, freedom, opportumity
Instead of complaining about the situación, better to deal with lower birth rates and older populations... economic growth is a no go once we run out of resources and specially fossil fuels, so we better get into our minds this trend wich will also help us get out of ecological overshoot.
Higher taxes, and then a substantial universal child benefit . Tax cuts do not mean much to lower income families. A family friendly society, lower work hours. And normalise some people having more children and others none. Some people like raising children
Only recently saw Aaron tell Trigonometry pod that ageing population was an issue we weren’t paying enough attention too.
This has been a great podcast so fa, Aaron knows his stuff. Great to see someone on the left give this issue the serious attention it deserves
He fails to mention that a child dies every few seconds from preventable causes. I chose not to have children, for very valid reasons. I did not want to pass trauma onto another generation. NONE of that has prevented me from having a full and productive life. He is right that the burden of caring for older people will be passed to future generations. I would personally elect to take a pill the day I can no longer wipe my own backside. His arguments make a lot of assumptions, including the fact that large numbers of kids are exposed to a great deal of dysfunction.
Climate change is the whole reason... you can't just discount that to make your point. This guy couldn't be more of a white upper middle class boomer if he tried. Lovely that his life has been so untarnished by tragedy or significant difficulty, but i can't help but feel that his whole perspective is informed by an experience of life that many many people do not have for one reason or another.
Haber-Bosch, a process that caused our population to rocket from 1.5 billion to current numbers, but has been progressively destroying global fertility for a century. Not a solution, a trap that we are only just starting to reckon with.
As solo parent to two children… paying 25% tax on 39k and renting … I would be mad to ever consider another baby … wish I could … interesting interview
I got 2 kids and 3rd one coming,,,barely floating but still enjoying life 😌
nobody saying that you'd have a lot more people for essential labour if we got rid of non-essential labour?
Simple solution! And I imagine our mental health would improve as people like to have a meaningful purpose.
@@riveranalyse the interviewee seems to be advocating encouraging an increasing birth-rate, without saying the quiet part, which is "to maintain the structures of capitalism".
@@mattdavies8153 Totally. I said elsewhere in these comments that there was a total lack of imagination in this interview.
very materialistic and human centric point of view. What about other beings on the planet? How many animals wil have to die to sustain one human life? How much pollution that human life will produce? And also for me the quality of life is not buying more stuff but clean river, clean air, wild nature...etc