Population Control

[GregW]

The Chinese have been practicing 1 child per family for a couple of decades. It has slowed the population growth but, because of the availability of selective abortion and a cultural desire for male offspring, the current younger generation has about 30% more males than females. Be glad you don’t have a daughter and live next to the Chinese.

Back in the 1970's the US had a population of around 270 million. I figured with birth control becoming available to everyone our birth rate would slow to the point that the population growth would level off and, as the elderly died, eventually shrink to about 240 million by 2000. Instead of continuing industrial production and having more for fewer our brilliant leaders (not necessarily government) decided a growing economy needed a growing population to keep the relative economic class differences. As a result we have imported 30+ million, mostly illegal’s, that are forced by their illegality to work at slave wages, thus driving down the bottom wages for the rest of us. This has been exacerbated by the off shoring of our consumer industries along with whatever decent paying jobs that were available.

This is class warfare at its finest. The owner classes won and everybody else is paying for it.

On a world wide basis I think the Four Horsemen are in the stable and getting ready to ride. Hopefully they will hold off until me and my friends are dead of old age.

[bluepacific]

Originally Posted by GregW

The Chinese have been practicing 1 child per family for a couple of decades. It has slowed the population growth but, because of the availability of selective abortion and a cultural desire for male offspring, the current younger generation has about 30% more males than females. Be glad you don’t have a daughter and live next to the Chinese.

I deal with numerous Chinese students here in Göteborg, Sweden. I actually asked one of the girls this last Wednesday about the Chinese government's policy of child control. She said if you go over the limit, you are heavily fined to the point of having years of heavy indebtedness and/or you can have an abortion or one is forced on you.

Although I don't agree with abortion, not being political it's certainly none of my business what any government policy is. However, I can see how from a secularist environmental viewpoint, it clearly makes perfect sense and the only possible answer until something else comes along. At the time it was implimented, they simply had too many starving people and no real alternative solutions given their Maoist dogma.

We got into talking about some of the Maoist history and I brought up how vicious Mao's wife was with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. I was surprised that she said she did'nt know much about that era or his wife as it is still very censored as far as information. In light of the progress materially they have made, it's just interesting that many of the old ways are still around.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by newhandle

How come no one talks about population control? It seems to me that as long as we have billions of people wanting more and more, the entire green movement is a farce. Even the green movement seems to have abandoned this. The population keeps growing and there are just so many resources. Has the green movement abandoned population control?

Because it's not really a problem. And in Europe, where the population is shrinking, they are seeing that a declining population brings lots of problems as well. The European countries are shrinking in population (or soon will) and they don't know how the h*ll they're going to pay for the Social Security of all the old people because there aren't enough young workers to prop up the system.

Resource depletion isn't the problem. The real problem is hoarding and mismanagement of resources by an elite for purposes of power and control.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by bluepacific

We got into talking about some of the Maoist history and I brought up how vicious Mao's wife was with the cultural revolution of the 1960s. I was surprised that she said she did'nt know much about that era or his wife as it is still very censored as far as information. In light of the progress materially they have made, it's just interesting that many of the old ways are still around.

Your post pretty much proves that China's mass starvation was caused by horrible economic policies of a dictator who stifled innovation. We still have the same problem today. Poor economic policies imposed by a power hungry elite are what drive poverty and starvation. Not population growth.

[vec101]

Originally Posted by newhandle

How come no one talks about population control? It seems to me that as long as we have billions of people wanting more and more, the entire green movement is a farce. Even the green movement seems to have abandoned this. The population keeps growing and there are just so many resources. Has the green movement abandoned population control?

Maybe it will heat up again/ maybe not...... will be interesting to see if anything comes of the past writings of our current Science Czar.....

In a previous post, I analyzed the writings of Presidential science czar John Holdren in his 1977 textbook Ecoscience. In the chapter on population control, Holdren and co-authors Paul and Anne Ehrlich endorse a range of coercive measures to decrease human population.
Evolution News & Views: The Inconvenient Truth About Population Control, Part 2; Science Czar John Holdren's Endorsement of Involuntary Sterilization

In Ecoscience, the book he [John Holdren] wrote with Paul and Anne Ehrlichs, he says: ....tax laws could be adjusted to favor (instead of penalize) single people, working wives, and small families. Other tax measures might also include high marriage fees, taxes on luxury baby goods and toys, and removal of family allowances where they exist. Other possibilities include the limitation of maternal or educational benefits to two children per family.
Obama Science Czar holds radical views on population control?

John Holdren is the Science and Technology czar, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

[GregW]

The simple truth is the concentration of wealth in this country, since Ronnie Raygun sold us to the bankers and oil barons, has made it increasingly difficult for economically responsible young couples to have children. Children have become a luxury good that is only affordable by the moderately wealthy and the rich or the very poor that have the costs of a family subsidized by the employed working and middle classes. This is the direct result of economic policies that favor the rich monopolists over the market wage driven workers.

On a world wide basis most of the poor need their own children to take care of them if they get old or the kids are a marketable source of wealth. Bride price in many Middle Eastern countries is an example. Dowries are the other side of this coin.

It seems the most effective birth and population control is an elderly support and care system and a sense of middle income security. This frees couples to not have children if they do not want to or think they can support them. Another factor is the realization that the number of children is no longer a measure of a male’s sexual potency or a woman’s fertility and desirability. As I said, children are a luxury good in the developed countries and a sheer necessity in the third world. As the latter develop their economies I think children will also become luxury goods that will be become a wealthy class indulgence. The eventual result is a lower population growth rate or, giving a major disaster, an actual decrease in the population.

Eventually the globe may have a steady state total population with local density changes due to migration and the economies will have to adapt to a low or no growth population along with a very slow growth economy. This will be the most difficult adaptation because to have economic growth (postulated necessity for capitalist economics) with a steady population will eventually raise the bottom to the same physical luxury previously the exclusive realm of the wealthy. This is completely unacceptable to the coddled elites.