Does the world need a single child policy?

[Drifterwood]

When I was more informed about Green politics, the UK Green party used to advocate a sustainable population for the UK at around 40 Million. This would translate to a global population reduction of neatly 7 Billion to 4 Billion.

For those who think that human consumption is destroying the Planet and those who think that Global Capitalism is killing mankind, would you agree that this is a measure that needs to be considered?

 

[deleted15807]

Anything that would reduce mankind's massive death inducing footprint on the planet would be a good thing for the planet. Could capitalism handle a shrinking marketplace? Could humanity ever reach that general consensus and then able to execute it? I have serious doubts.

"The fundamental driving force for humanity is the genital friction that produces more people," she said. "We are 'plague mammals,' and plague mammals multiply fantastically until just before the last generation."

-Lynn Margulis, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and an expert on the evolution and structure of human cells.​

 

[Jason]

Provocative!

The one child policy in China is linked with fines and enforced sterilisation and is administered in a manner which is often ruthless. From the point of view of western sensibilities, the policy is a human rights abuse by an authoritarian regime. If we are to consider a global one child policy we have to say that this policy somehow trumps human rights. Basically I'm tipping a bucket of cold water over the idea.

However there are measures that the world could take. The simplest and most effective would be for the pope to recommend the use of condoms. This is the only way to tackle the slums of central and south America, and would help in many other parts of the world. There is a moral imperative for the pope to do this.

Many nations (including the UK) need to think twice about benefits policies which encourage large families. The need is to support poor parents who have large families while not creating a system where large families are encouraged.

 

[Drifterwood]

Anything that would reduce mankind's massive death inducing footprint on the planet would be a good thing for the planet. Could capitalism handle a shrinking marketplace? Could humanity ever reach that general consensus and then able to execute it? I have serious doubts.

"The fundamental driving force for humanity is the genital friction that produces more people," she said. "We are 'plague mammals,' and plague mammals multiply fantastically until just before the last generation."

-Lynn Margulis, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and an expert on the evolution and structure of human cells.​

Exactly. If you want to halt capitalism, stop breeding.

 

[Drifterwood]

Provocative!

The one child policy in China is linked with fines and enforced sterilisation and is administered in a manner which is often ruthless. From the point of view of western sensibilities, the policy is a human rights abuse by an authoritarian regime. If we are to consider a global one child policy we have to say that this policy somehow trumps human rights. Basically I'm tipping a bucket of cold water over the idea.

However there are measures that the world could take. The simplest and most effective would be for the pope to recommend the use of condoms. This is the only way to tackle the slums of central and south America, and would help in many other parts of the world. There is a moral imperative for the pope to do this.

Many nations (including the UK) need to think twice about benefits policies which encourage large families. The need is to support poor parents who have large families while not creating a system where large families are encouraged.

The one child policy in China is often misrepresented by Western propaganda. There are human costs, this should not be denied, but when we look back at China's economic growth, will we see that this was partly possible due to controlling the population numbers?

As you say, in the UK we have the strange situation whereby a single unemployed person can face a very very hard life, whereas a breeding household is supported much more. Both officially live in poverty, but the large family poverty is less than the single poverty. Ironic that we pay for people to breed their kids into poverty. Perhaps it would be cheaper and more moral to give singles a living support payment.

 

[Jason]

The UK position is crazy. Single people who are unemployed have subsistence benefits. A single mum with three or four children has a level of income from benefits that most in work could only dream of. The clear message to any woman expecting to be on benefits long-term is to have a family. We do need to get this changed. I don't think LibDems would have supported changes, so we've only really just elected a government that has any chance of making the changes. It will lead to the media going for heart-sob stories - literally a crying mum pointing out that she and her children will be worse off, or a young woman weeping that the benefit changes mean she has to delay having a family. Politically it may be impossible to make the changes, though we should of course try.

However the real issue globally is not the UK - it is nations where very large families are still the norm. Very many of these nations are Roman Catholic. The single, biggest reduction in human poverty would come about if the pope to issue a statement that condoms are fine. The reality is that the pope has sway over one and a quarter billion people who call themselves Roman Catholics, and perhaps a billion of these do take notice of church direction on contraception.

 

[deleted15807]

Exactly. If you want to halt capitalism, stop breeding.

So what's more important saving the planet or saving capitalism? Is it either or? There's a lot of debate on the issue. However the very pillar of capitalism is greed which would have grave difficulties dealing with reduced returns and the uncertain returns of a shrinking populace. Nevertheless one day it will be tested. The planet does not have infinite resources and there's indications all around we've already gone beyond the tipping point and starting into the abyss. Is capitalism a doomsday machine?

Now the good news NASA scientists have recently identified our nearest rocky planetary neighbor, an object would could be our closest and most possible Earth 2. This is a planet is currently transiting its star known as HD 219134b. It's 4.5 times as large as Earth which wow could really super-size returns on Wall Street if we could somehow hoist 7 billion 21 light years to our next planet we can trash and turn into an immense pile of filth or a runaway greenhouse à la the planet Venus.

@Jason and The Pope has said humanity is turning the planet into an immense pile of filth. Though he doesn't go the next step and relate that to the immense problem created by the planet having to feed and dispose of the waste of 7 billion people a day and growing and the Church's position on contraception.

 

[Jason]

...he doesn't go the next step...

This is of course the problem. He is fighting an enormous bureaucracy in an institution that has recently discovered a mechanism where it's head can be "retired" (the last pope) so perhaps his hands are tied. However he only has to make a speech, or say something from the pulpit.

He's identified a problem (good) but he hasn't done anything on the crucial issue of contraception (shockingly bad).

 

[Drifterwood]

So what's more important saving the planet or saving capitalism?

Let's go with the planet. The Dutch created modern capitalism. It was not greed but a desire to find commodities that were in great demand in Europe and could turn a handsome profit that brought the new merchant class prosperity. Prior to this, markets were limited and often controlled by local monopolies. So let's not go back to feudalism?

The British of course industrialised capitalism, both for profit and to develop the modern world.

What concerns me is that overpopulation is a short term driver for extra demand. As Jason is pointing out, State intervention actually makes it worse in the UK.

 

[rbkwp]

thinking it would smack of imitating a communisim edict
something Western huimanitarianist perfectionists would decry as being the worst possible thing on earth, depriving humans of 'there righhts' duh
tpo bear children/along with arms to kill them

naah, a better solution
get rid of the PLANET
we humans dont deserve our existence on it'
again
i would personally be super happy, to be alive and see the entire Earth destruct in a natural way, in my lifetime'

 

[deleted15807]

Let's go with the planet.

What followed had very little to do with the planet. It was more of a history lesson on capitalism. As far as 'state intervention' I'm assuming you mean state intervention in keeping population under control? I didn't take it that far since without humanity buying into that idea it would never work. And I don't see any idea working widespread to such a degree to affect the course the planet is on.

I defer to the Matrix:

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.​

Humans Are A Virus
​

No "state intervention" will stop the virus and capitalism is just the turbocharging mechanism of our viral-like growth. Dumping capitalism wouldn't solve the problem though it would take some of the pressure of the pipes for awhile. I think only some natural force will work in suppressing and/or eliminating the virus.

 

[Drifterwood]

What followed had very little to do with the planet. It was more of a history lesson on capitalism. As far as 'state intervention' I'm assuming you mean state intervention in keeping population under control? I didn't take it that far since without humanity buying into that idea it would never work. And I don't see any idea working widespread to such a degree to affect the course the planet is on.

I defer to the Matrix:

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.​

Humans Are A Virus
​

No "state intervention" will stop the virus and capitalism is just the turbocharging mechanism of our viral-like growth. Dumping capitalism wouldn't solve the problem though it would take some of the pressure of the pipes for awhile. I think only some natural force will work in suppressing and/or eliminating the virus.

I am not sure that I share your wholly apocalyptic view. When we take off the turbo we will retain all the technology developed to deal with nearly double the population.

 

[jaap_stam]

Very interesting topic indeed, @Drifterwood !

Though, I actually believe that the biggest human issues of the latter half of this century will be shrinking populations/workforces, rather than excess population.

Already in China, the impact of the one-child policy has been a reduction of the fertility rate to below replacement (something like 1.7 births per woman, short of the 2.1 births per woman to maintain a net 0 growth rate)
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/...warnings-about-chinas-falling-fertility-rate/

India's fertlity rate has plummeted from just under 6 births per woman to 2.5 between 1980 and today. They too will fall below replacement within the next decade.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?

Japan and Korea's fertility issues are well documented, as are the data around the inverse relationship between fertility rates and female educational attainment. As the middle class grows within the developing world, we will start to see more and more countries with inverted population pyramids - citizens under 30 vastly outnumbered by the elderly and late-work career populations

More food for thought around shrinking populations: http://www.bloomberg.com/ss/10/08/0813_fastest_shrinking_countries/

 

[Drifterwood]

That really sounds like a capitalist mantra @jaap that we have to breed to look after the privileged baby boom generation

 

[jaap_stam]

That really sounds like a capitalist mantra @jaap that we have to breed to look after the privileged baby boom generation

Huh?

I think you may have read something that I didn't say. There was no imperative suggested by the data presented. Just that the assumption of the OP was not supported by fertility rate data around the world - populations are already shrinking all over without the need for one-child policies.

Plus, by 2050 - when the current economic system will really start to feel the strain of shrinking workforce - most baby boomers will be dead.

 

[Drifterwood]

My point, Jaap, was whether we should do anything about our aging population.

 

[jaap_stam]

My point, Jaap, was whether we should do anything about our aging population.

Just restructure public pensions and other social safety net systems such that the current liquid assets to liability ratio is greater than 1 such that you aren't relying one generation to pay out the benefits of another.

 

[Drifterwood]

Just restructure public pensions and other social safety net systems such that the current liquid assets to liability ratio is greater than 1 such that you aren't relying one generation to pay out the benefits of another.

But we are,and they wish us to crystalise bubble values in property etc..

 

[jaap_stam]

But we are,and they wish us to crystalise bubble values in property etc..

Personal opinion - we'll have to go through a crash when the strain of not enough workers to meet trade balance needs as determined by ECB starts to rear its head. As usual, we'll go through the structural adjustments after catastrophe, rather than plan ahead. Such is the nature of human government.

 

[Drifterwood]

Well, Jaap. my advice would be to prepare for what is most likely to happen.