Population growth and Economic slavery

Memnoch

I'm not sure that I'm articulate enough to make the point I want to discuss here, but I'm going to try anyway and hopefully with the help of my more knowledgable peers we can come to some kind of illuminating discussion on the subject.

I would probably consider myself a socialist, to a degree. I have a huge problem with the concept of economic slavery, to me it seems fundamentally unfair and exploitative.

For example. If I am born in a middle/upper class family in India. I am born to wealthy parents. I am afforded a much better education that a vast majority of the rest of the population. My childhood is largely unthreatened and I am able to grow as an individual both intellectually and socially. I can further cement my advantage by easily availing of further education. (though this is not necessary for the next step).

I can then return to India and set-up a factory. (Or I could do this in China). Here I will employ children (though this is illegal under the law) who are born to poor families. I can pay them very little in wages, perhaps just enough to survive and force them to work long hours. If/when their health breaks down or they become injured working the factory, I can simply discard them and hire someone else.

If we take the illegal part out (though under extreme free market principles child labour would be legal), I can still hire poor workers who have not had a chance at any education. The above principles still apply. These people and their children must toil for very long hours to just survive without any real chance of advancing or improving their situation.

Meanwhile. I can take the products created by these people and sell them for a great profit, thus creating a comfortable, even luxurious life for me and my progeny who will undoubtably be able to use the advantages I confer upon them similarly.

Thus large swathes of the population are reduced to the status of little more than cattle, with their only choice to pull the yolk or die.

I suppose that is the basis of my socialist belief. This inherent unfairness of advantage by birth.

The problem occurs when I try to create a truly socialist state. Even if I could practically execute some kind of socialist utopia where everyone paid a fair share in taxes, where there was universal health care, where no one starved, where education was free to all and everyone earned a fair wage the result would simply be an improvement in life expectancy and standard of living for all.

And while this would work great in the short term, would it not also cause the population to balloon even faster that it already is, beyond the ability of the state to support it?

In a sense the problem of economic slavery is a very basic free market principle. Supply and demand. There is a huge supply of labor in countries like India, therefore people have less value.

In summary. Is it possible to create a truly equitable and fair society without some form of population control?

Since the planet's resources are finite, eventually we are going to reach some kind of tipping point?

matthew8

I don't see the connection at all between a higher standard of living and population growth. Let's assume this socialist thing works out and everyone enjoys a decent standard of living and can educate their children, which will lead to more economic growth. If all this works out eventually India would resemble a first world country and the population would stagnate, not balloon (like it currently is in developing countries), apart from people trying to get in to the country and maybe some poor existing minority (the equivalent of Mexicans and blacks in the US). The common people having a higher standard of living never leads to population growth. It always leads to stagnation.

If anything you could argue that because your system might produce a first world country it is the solution, not the cause, to population growth. I don't think it would produce a first world country however, but that's a matter for another thread.

Memnoch

Fair enough point. But the problem is whether it could be applied to a global context.

If you could have a truly level playing field everywhere for everyone.

Right now citizens in first world countries enjoy a lot of advantages that are and have been (imo) largely built on the backs of the poor in other countries.

Permabear

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matthew8

Memnoch wrote: »

Fair enough point. But the problem is whether it could be applied to a global context.

If you could have a truly level playing field everywhere for everyone.

Right now citizens in first world countries enjoy a lot of advantages that are and have been (imo) largely built on the backs of the poor in other countries.

Outsourcing has helped first world countries attain a level of wealth so high that there's no population growth, but eventually I think even the Indians and other developing nations will outsource jobs, except this time to machines.

Permabear

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Reekwind

As has been noted above, economic advancement tends to lead to a reduction in family sizes, not an increase. The massive and continued population growth in the likes of India or Africa is a product of modern medicine reducing death rates while the absence of an industrialised economy perpetuates pre-industrial family sizes

The below graph sums up relationship between increasing wealth and lower family sizes

Black Swan

Memnoch wrote: »

Even if I could practically execute some kind of socialist utopia ...where education was free to all ... And while this would work great in the short term, would it not also cause the population to balloon even faster that it already is, beyond the ability of the state to support it?

From a demographic standpoint, the higher the education of women, the lower the birth rate; e.g., college educated women generally have significantly fewer children than those without a college education.

If your hypothetical society offered, freely funded, and greatly encouraged the higher education of women, the population would more than likely shrink below replacement rate given sufficient time; i.e., below 2.1 children per couple.

Of course, there are other development factors, but this one has been suggested as a key demographic factor contributing to population decline.

Chuck Stone

Memnoch wrote: »

The problem occurs when I try to create a truly socialist state. Even if I could practically execute some kind of socialist utopia where everyone paid a fair share in taxes, where there was universal health care, where no one starved, where education was free to all and everyone earned a fair wage the result would simply be an improvement in life expectancy and standard of living for all.

What you're proposing here doesn't really sound much like a socialist state. It sounds more like a Scandinavian liberal democracy with high progressive taxes and comprehensive universal service provision - these services need not be provided by the state (the state can purchase services from the private sector).

As has been said population stagnation is strongly correlated with increased living standards, education, and welfare for seniors in the form of private pensions, state pensions and access to healthcare (less need to have children as providers and caregivers).

State socialism is both an economic system (centrally planned) and government system (centralised control of public affairs). Paradoxically the means of production and distribution isn't really controlled by the public in a socialist state, rather, it is controlled by a bureaucratic elite which makes a mockery of the idea of the purported virtues of state socialism.

Okay, I'll stop rambling now.

Memnoch

Chuck Stone wrote: »

What you're proposing here doesn't really sound much like a socialist state. It sounds more like a Scandinavian liberal democracy with high progressive taxes and comprehensive universal service provision - these services need not be provided by the state (the state can purchase services from the private sector).

As has been said population stagnation is strongly correlated with increased living standards, education, and welfare for seniors in the form of private pensions, state pensions and access to healthcare (less need to have children as providers and caregivers).

State socialism is both an economic system (centrally planned) and government system (centralised control of public affairs). Paradoxically the means of production and distribution isn't really controlled by the public in a socialist state, rather, it is controlled by a bureaucratic elite which makes a mockery of the idea of the purported virtues of state socialism.

Okay, I'll stop rambling now.

You're right about that being the case in a representative democracy.

I think for modern socialism we need a better way of implementing the ideals so as to remove corruption as much as possible from the process.

The scandinavian model doesn't sound like a bad one.

Permabear

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Memnoch

It's only unsustainable if a few elites, a TINY percentage of the world's population are allowed to continue to hoard the vast majority of the world's resources.

Fromthetrees

To me what is happening in Europe in terms of falling fertility rates would be a good thing if it was happening globally as the world cannot sustain today's western standard of living for 6 billion people.
Chinas population will start to decrease due to government policy. Likewise,if Europe wants to increase it's 'native' population without relying on immigration social policies can be put in place. I think it'd be far easier to incentivise a population to grow than force one to shrink, I'm just saying Europes problem is easier to solve.
I think advances in technology will help the economy into the future,there's enough food and money(in Europe anyway)to have a stable and sustainable future. We're not living in the 19th century, automation frees up labour but the actual productivity remains the same. When the current young generation reaches old age they will have spent their whole lives with technology, your physical ability may not be a barrier for people to work until almost any age, only brain function.

southsiderosie

There have been a lot of studies of labor markets and fertility, particularly in Europe. Adsera* argues that fertility in Europe is essentially a function of labor market constraints: in Southern Europe, where the employment prospects for under 35s have been unstable long before the economic crash - if you can get a job, it is on a temporary contract - and cultural expectations of women's role in the home have not changed, rates are low. In Northern European states where the public sector is large, and women have access to relatively stable government jobs and generous maternity benefits, fertility rates are significantly higher - not at replacement levels, but not too far off.

Ultimately, it seems that the relationship between development and fertility moves in stages. If women transition to the workplace, but the structure of the workplace and maternity policies do not change, then fertility rates plummet. However, rates can stabilize and start moving upwards again if there is a degree of labor market stability - and this stability comes from family-friendly leave policies and the availability of government jobs with regular hours that make being a working mother more manageable.

*This particular article doesn't lay out the argument in full, but it does reference the other paper, which is not available online unless you have access to JSTOR.