The more optimistic corollary of this is that in a world where every child - no matter their parents - is guaranteed health, safety, opportunity to develop their abilities and the rest… then choosing to become a parent remains a sacrifice of flexibility/convenient, but no longer is a sacrifice of your independence vis-a-vis other adults and their institutions.
You don't have to have kids if you don't want to, and you can justify that choice to yourself as you see fit. But the assertion that people with kids can't be radical is unfounded. Most labor militants and many if not most guerrillas have had kids, for instance.
Inequality grows as consumption wanes due to markets maturing for labor and inputs. Capitalism eats itself starting with its home market first. As capitalism forms a parasitic symbiotic relationship with the state, wages are suppressed. This lowers the cost of inputs but it also lowers consumption. Capitalism must expand to new markets for new consumers and even lower cost of labor. This takes many decades but at some point, capitalism begins to run out of new markets for labor and consumption.
The most mature markets at this point have the greatest income inequality. Wages have been suppressed for many years and the gap between wages and the cost of living has grown so large, that it begins to destroy all consumption because most things have priced themselves out of the market for consumers. Consumer debt expands greatly, in the USA consumer debt is predicted to be 180% of the consumer economy in 15 years. The hat trick in the USA is that private corps have worked to make this cost avoidance a public sector, not a private sector problem through govt transfers (welfare).
Consumers cannot have children in this socioeconomic environment for a plethora of reasons that have arisen out of extreme inequality.
Because the USA is the largest consumer market in the world when consumption falters this has a direct relationship to the largest producers of consumer goods such as China. Banking issues in the USA create debt service and payment system shocks that ripple across the globe creating the same in other markets. The instability of the dollar begins to erode it's hold on various markets as the exchange medium.
Falling birth rates, collapsing real estate markets, falling consumption, spikes in excess production capacity, the shrinking of asset classes that are immune to inflation and increasing debt service, all begin to work together to make the global markets unstable.
The wage stagnation that firms have enjoyed for decades has created an explosion of growth in banking and finance. This excess is the value add that labor provides in turning raw materials into goods which a portion ideally is transferred back to labor. This has not happened and since economic power IS political power, states are the proxy of private interests to the detriment of public interests. All of this has created a power shift away from labor or the bottom of 80% of the economy.
The only thing that will reverse this is labor must begin to drain the excess capital that the largest firms have been able to corner which will impede their ability to corrupt government and take away some of their economic power which will strengthen the economic power and thus political power of the working class. It all boils down to wages and equality. People resist this notion because it seems to simplistic against the back drop of the deafening noise of strife that mass media blasts in the eyes and ears 24x7.
It is utterly ridiculous and somewhat astounding that the quality, cost and availability healthcare, education, childcare, lifestyle, quality of life, cultural norms, crime and punishment, immigration, trade, consumption, debt, wealth and more all go back to the illness of inequality.
People underestimate the havoc caused by the concentration of around 80% of the worlds wealth in less than 1% of the worlds population. It is invisible, it is not broadcast on the news, it is the natural order of things. It is in the water so to speak.
I guess the same can be said of buying property and having a mortgage. Owning a property gives people a stake in society and the inclination to build community around that investment.
It’s certainly true that I’d be a lot freer if I’d not had children but I’d also be significantly poorer from a richness of life point of view. I can see your argument that I’m more inclined to care for a world that has my genes living on in to the future.
It’s certainly possible that the ruling classes are encouraging children. It was certainly the case hundreds of years ago as these people would be labour and soldiers most often. A young population is very much a healthy one that is more able to defend itself.
But the natural urge to reproduce must still be a bigger driving force. After all this what’s got us through millions of years of evolution?
Y'know, most people just want a home they can call their own, and don't care all that much about "investing in a property" or any of the other things. That whole mentality has ruined housing for the everyone else.
It's high time that we recognised housing as a human right and not an investment.
The more optimistic corollary of this is that in a world where every child - no matter their parents - is guaranteed health, safety, opportunity to develop their abilities and the rest… then choosing to become a parent remains a sacrifice of flexibility/convenient, but no longer is a sacrifice of your independence vis-a-vis other adults and their institutions.
They will only be "guaranteed" these goodies if they comply with every diktat of the state.
Entitlements ensure conservatism.
That's exactly what the author is saying. It's not "optimistic." It's fatalistic.
For as often as this article is shared in Reddit, I expected more comments here.
You show very clear insight cutting through the collective natalist pipedream.
You don't have to have kids if you don't want to, and you can justify that choice to yourself as you see fit. But the assertion that people with kids can't be radical is unfounded. Most labor militants and many if not most guerrillas have had kids, for instance.
Hence the distress of the CP of China at its declining birth rates. There is, after all, an overwhelming surplus of available housing.
Inequality grows as consumption wanes due to markets maturing for labor and inputs. Capitalism eats itself starting with its home market first. As capitalism forms a parasitic symbiotic relationship with the state, wages are suppressed. This lowers the cost of inputs but it also lowers consumption. Capitalism must expand to new markets for new consumers and even lower cost of labor. This takes many decades but at some point, capitalism begins to run out of new markets for labor and consumption.
The most mature markets at this point have the greatest income inequality. Wages have been suppressed for many years and the gap between wages and the cost of living has grown so large, that it begins to destroy all consumption because most things have priced themselves out of the market for consumers. Consumer debt expands greatly, in the USA consumer debt is predicted to be 180% of the consumer economy in 15 years. The hat trick in the USA is that private corps have worked to make this cost avoidance a public sector, not a private sector problem through govt transfers (welfare).
Consumers cannot have children in this socioeconomic environment for a plethora of reasons that have arisen out of extreme inequality.
Because the USA is the largest consumer market in the world when consumption falters this has a direct relationship to the largest producers of consumer goods such as China. Banking issues in the USA create debt service and payment system shocks that ripple across the globe creating the same in other markets. The instability of the dollar begins to erode it's hold on various markets as the exchange medium.
Falling birth rates, collapsing real estate markets, falling consumption, spikes in excess production capacity, the shrinking of asset classes that are immune to inflation and increasing debt service, all begin to work together to make the global markets unstable.
The wage stagnation that firms have enjoyed for decades has created an explosion of growth in banking and finance. This excess is the value add that labor provides in turning raw materials into goods which a portion ideally is transferred back to labor. This has not happened and since economic power IS political power, states are the proxy of private interests to the detriment of public interests. All of this has created a power shift away from labor or the bottom of 80% of the economy.
The only thing that will reverse this is labor must begin to drain the excess capital that the largest firms have been able to corner which will impede their ability to corrupt government and take away some of their economic power which will strengthen the economic power and thus political power of the working class. It all boils down to wages and equality. People resist this notion because it seems to simplistic against the back drop of the deafening noise of strife that mass media blasts in the eyes and ears 24x7.
It is utterly ridiculous and somewhat astounding that the quality, cost and availability healthcare, education, childcare, lifestyle, quality of life, cultural norms, crime and punishment, immigration, trade, consumption, debt, wealth and more all go back to the illness of inequality.
People underestimate the havoc caused by the concentration of around 80% of the worlds wealth in less than 1% of the worlds population. It is invisible, it is not broadcast on the news, it is the natural order of things. It is in the water so to speak.
There's a lot to unpack here. I think it deserves a thread (or more) of its own, so I've opened https://the-oracle-of-technocrat.ghost.io/a-disourse-on-economic-inequalities/
I guess the same can be said of buying property and having a mortgage. Owning a property gives people a stake in society and the inclination to build community around that investment.
It’s certainly true that I’d be a lot freer if I’d not had children but I’d also be significantly poorer from a richness of life point of view. I can see your argument that I’m more inclined to care for a world that has my genes living on in to the future.
It’s certainly possible that the ruling classes are encouraging children. It was certainly the case hundreds of years ago as these people would be labour and soldiers most often. A young population is very much a healthy one that is more able to defend itself.
But the natural urge to reproduce must still be a bigger driving force. After all this what’s got us through millions of years of evolution?
Y'know, most people just want a home they can call their own, and don't care all that much about "investing in a property" or any of the other things. That whole mentality has ruined housing for the everyone else.
It's high time that we recognised housing as a human right and not an investment.
Housing commons, bring it. Hell, baby commons, if the parents can’t deal any longer.
No.
No on the housing? Or the babies? Both?
Why not free those up from the state?
It's like @Martin Prior mentioned: we don't really need cannon fodder for war between governments.
Or for people to invest in property, as @Miraan pointed out.
The last thing societies need is unwanted babies dumped on the “commons”.