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TechnoratiWalking in a demographic winter wonderland
Why are people averting their eyes from the coming collapse of population growth?
Demographic Winter is an independently produced film describing the consequences of the population collapse of industrialized countries. I have been amazed at the response, or I should say, lack of response to this film. Many of the reviewers either dismissed the thesis of the film, or changed the subject. The lack of serious American attention is surprising, considering that Demographic Winter has been translated in several languages, most recently, Romanian. (Full disclosure: I was interviewed as one of the experts for Part II, as yet to be released.) Commentators Left and Right are wandering through a Demographic Winter Wonderland with their eyes glazed over.
The film argues that falling population will mean a diminished quality of life for the aging generation and for future generations. For instance, pensions, both private and public, have to be paid for. When the retired population is too high relative to the working population, paying the promised pensions becomes an enormous burden. Either the young pay crushing taxes, or the elderly will not get what they expected, or both.
Consumer spending keeps the economy humming and the stock market climbing. When population shrinks, the demand for goods and services of all kinds shrinks. Harry Dent, one of the experts interviewed on the film, is an investment advisor. He discovered the significance of population growth by accident. He had a chart showing birth rates over a hundred year period on his desk next to a chart showing the stock market over the same period. He laid them over each other and realized that the stock market tracks birth rates with about a 40 year lag. That is because people spend the most money in their 40s. They buy the biggest house they’ll ever have; they feed, clothe and educate their children; they buy cars and vacations.
I have been thinking about Harry Dent and his charts while I drive through my San Diego neighborhood. Out of 42 homes, we have 4 foreclosures. Yes, the housing prices ballooned up and people took on mortgages they couldn’t pay. But there is more to the story than the credit crunch: there simply are not enough people at the right age, with enough income, to afford these houses. Because the Baby Boomers didn’t replace themselves, there are not enough people to buy their homes. Falling demand translates into falling home prices.
The Chattering Classes can not bring themselves to take the Demographic Winter thesis seriously. The Left dismisses it as a hysterical racist rant. Kathryn Joyce, writing in the Nation magazine, reports on her conversation with Stephen Mosher. "Mosher, president of the Catholic anticontraception lobbyist group (cue scary music) Population Research Institute (PRI), describes his grim vision of Europe's future: fields will lie fallow and economies will wither. A great depression will sink over the continent as it undergoes ‘a decline that Europe hasn't experienced since the Black Death.’"
Joyce never refutes Mosher’s argument that population decline precedes economic decline. Instead, she changes the subject to something she wants to talk about: the alleged racism of pro-natalists. "The white Christian West, in this telling, is in danger of forfeiting itself through sheer lack of numbers to an onslaught of Muslim immigrants and their purportedly numerous offspring."
Oddly enough, the Demographic Winter film makes no mention of race or nationality. In fact, the film emphasizes that the problem of population decline is a worldwide problem. Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker notes that 70 countries now have fertility rates below replacement. The left-wing commentariat would like the film to be about race, so they can dismiss it as unworthy of attention.
Representing the Libertarian Right, we have Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine. He likewise makes no pretense of engaging the actual argument of the film: "I doubt that the "demographic winter" portends economic collapse or social deterioration, but let us set that aside for this column, and instead ask why people are choosing to have fewer children?" He wants to talk about how the modern world has given men and women more choices, which is a good thing.
His libertarian instincts blind him to the fact that the Invisible Hand does not always promote the social good. Having children may be optional for individuals, but it is not optional for society as a whole. The principles of individual liberty and personal choice that he holds dear are not self-sustaining. Those ideals will collapse, if the people who hold them do not transmit them to the next generation. In this case, we are not even creating a next generation.
As I mentioned, the producers of Demographic Winter interviewed me to appear in Part II. The producers happen to be Mormons. They told me that they had anticipated more interest in the film from church groups of all kinds. But in fact, only Catholics and their fellow Mormons seem receptive.
This is not entirely surprising, in that these two groups have theological reasons for supporting larger families. But still, churches and all of civil society, ought to take the argument of Demographic Winter seriously.
Jennifer Roback Morse, PhD is an economist and the Founder and President of the Ruth Institute, a nonprofit educational organization devoted to bringing hope and encouragement for lifelong married love.
This article is published by Jennifer Roback Morse, and MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons licence. You may republish it or translate it free of charge with attribution for non-commercial purposes following these guidelines. If you teach at a university we ask that your department make a donation. Commercial media must contact us for permission and fees. Some articles on this site are published under different terms.
I’ve put this movie on my “to watch” list. Society is very hostile to those who are trying to buck this trend, I know from first hand experience. I have 7 children (aged 15 to 21 mos) and anytime my husband and I go in public the response is over overwhelmingly negative. It’s gotten so bad that my older children now respond to strangers the say something insulting (just because they’re children doesn’t mean they’re deaf or have no understanding of what is being said). However, I am extremely proud of my family and if anything feel sorrow for those men & women who will never get to experience the love, laughter and pride of a large family because of their selfish ways.
The pro-population argument appears to assume that no number is too large. It’s not numbers alone that matter - it’s the need to create stable population numbers according to availability of resources to keep it alive & healthy. And in both industrialized, ultracivilized, liberal, excessively materialist, hedonist countries; and in village cultures in 3rd world countries - this is not something that we know how to plan in advance. We all do it wrong, then one way or another, Nature comes in to clean up the mess.
“His libertarian instincts blind him to the fact that the Invisible Hand does not always promote the social good.”
The historical record is quite clear that the Invisible Hand is always prefereable to the iron fist (with or without velvet glove) of statism. I trust free people; I don’t trust social engineers with an agenda.
Too many people see children as only as a “neutral value”...good to have if they “enhance” one’s life, bad to have if they “cost” too much. Few see children as what they truly are: gifts. Always a good...not dependent upon either circumstances of health or wealth nor upon whether someone valued them...simply, always, a good. So they make decisions, or rather, caluculations, about whether a child will add to the good of their lives or subtract from it, and never understand why they are always wrong. Children are not valued for themselves but only for what they can “give” to the parents, who are Takers.
And the adults are Takers in all aspects of life. Why should they care what happens to their society as long as their individual lives are pleasant? Contraception prepares men and women to be Takers, not Givers.
Will Western Europe cease to exist? In 100 years will it simply be the western frontier of the Islamic Empire? If life is only worth living when circumstances are comfortable and of our choosing, what will we fight for? A profound pointlessness seems to grip so many people’s lives.
I think Demographic Winter can play a part in opening the eyes of thinking people. I also think those of us who either have children or welcome the children of our friends should ask ourselves if we show the joy, the love, the cooperation, the goodness, the blessedness of what human life is...that even in difficult circumstances, it is a good.
You have to be in awe of the power the media plays in promoting some ideas over others and thus affecting legislation so quickly. I’m thinking of the bogus claims to global warming and how fast and furious the policy changes have come under the intense media propaganda. But when something like underpopulation comes up, the media ignores it and the policy makers do the same. Media has the incredible ability to attract or deflect action. Efforts must therefore be made towards manipulating media attention or this will go nowhere.
This story and the demographic winter it portrays keeps coming up in my professional life. I work as a civil servant for the US military, and we are facing a similar problem. The baby boomers who make up the bulk of federal civilian employees are starting to retire, and the proverbial question “If 60% of the federal workforce has a bad day and decides to retire, what do we do?” looms larger and larger for the younger civilians like me who are behind them. From unfunded pension liabilities on corporate balance sheets to marketing decisions, it also came up in my MBA classes. There simply were too many abortions and too many contraceptions from the 1960s onward, and now we are reaping what we sow.
The “overpopulation” myth still has a strong hold on the minds of many people. In the Philippines, where a draconian “reproductive health” bill is being debated, the bill’s proponents always resort to “overpopulation” scare tactics. This film should be shown in the Philippines to counter their disinformation.
I have seen part 1 of the Demographic Winter and found it to be a wake up call for all of humanity particularly those in the West. The canary in the mine is dying. Is it too late to reverse this trend? Unfortunately what drives this trend of families not having enough children to reproduce themselves is one of the scourges of secular humanism; selfishness.
With four, usually people comment how unfortunate it was that I was unable to travel or have disposable income by my own peer group who are childless. I do though get a good share of individuals that comment positively about family size, usually telling me they wished they had more later who are older.
You have to create a lifestyle for children. For adults in their 20s and 30s, there are so many recreational options available with their income that we forget when we go on the trip or lease a nicer car. Income becomes entirely disposable for themselves, not viable for the needs for children (or no more then two), so they never can afford a larger family.
Could it be that one of the reasons this subject is so slow to be acknowledged is that for many years--50 plus--we have been inundated with the over-population spin from media and the liberal element in general? It must be hard to accept that we could go so quickly from starvation because of too many people to starvation from too few people. The zealots from the over-population crowd can probably not change gears that rapidly after pouring their hearts and souls into lowering the population.
I think that one of the best ways to address this issue is by one on one talks with young couples who are just beginning their lives together. If we can show them reality and the goodness of having several children before they have made permanent decisions about how many children to have, they are much easier to convince.
I think one of the reasons this film is ignored is because taking it seriously and taking the demographic crisis seriously would mean that governments and people might actually have to DO something. Like maybe having babies again. And of course, having babies, even 4 or 5 babies is sooo politically incorrect and so passe re: women’s rights and so forth that, well, we just can’t go there. We women are liberated, right into extinction..
I know whenever I meet Muslim women in my line of work, I usually find they have at least 5 or more children. When they learn I have 4, I get a little more respect because these women KNOW I’m an oddball Western woman. Most of my Western peers have only 1 child or maybe 2.
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