The family and the politics of capitalism (employment, wages, generations)

[Costaexpress]

There is often a big push for people to start a family. Governments incentivize it. Society pressures it. Religions are all over it. Economists say it's important for the economic future.

But what is the relationship between the family and capitalism? It seems that the agenda is to keep people busy, occupied by obligations, and striving for more money and working longer hours.

When you are young and single, you want an expensive urban apartment or maybe purchase a nice condo, eat out, scuba dive, travel the world. you are picky about the music and culture of a city. But when you start a family, your priorities are different. you want lower property tax, better schools, convenient parking, etc.

Now many young people do not start a family, prefer to delay it, or not have it at all. when this reaches a tipping point, we will have a critical mass of people, middle aged and young, who have time in their hands, expectations, energy, and little responsibility. they have the purchasing power, and the dare to participate and change politics.

would there be a shift from capitalism to more civic engagement due to the decline of marriages? would there be a divide between those who support a family and those who do not? urban planning has sure changed in response to boomers and young singles both of whom have time on their hands.

is the family a way to make people occupied and threaten them if they dare challenge authorities of the power structure? after all, it's often young students who protest. workers are working long hours. authorities love the latter.

[TrapperJohn]

In our system, the debt is the money supply. We issue debt against the future earnings of the populace. Between that and inflation the system can theoretically operate in perpetuity. When we quit having kids and the birth rate went negative we simply outsourced child-bearing to the Mexicans.

[TheWiseWino]

Originally Posted by Costaexpress

There is often a big push for people to start a family. Governments incentivize it. Society pressures it. Religions are all over it. Economists say it's important for the economic future.

If there is a "big push" it is one in decline and in many ways, family is inimical to modern capitalism particularly in a capitalism economy that does little to nothing to support families. Lack of daycare, family leave, long term employment stability, are not elements in this capitalist society that is too concerned about encouraging families.

[DRob4JC]

I don't know about a big push, but the most valuable resource we have is people... especially when they are brought up in a two parent functional environment.

[OICU812]

Originally Posted by Costaexpress

There is often a big push for people to start a family. Governments incentivize it. Society pressures it. Religions are all over it. Economists say it's important for the economic future.

But what is the relationship between the family and capitalism? It seems that the agenda is to keep people busy, occupied by obligations, and striving for more money and working longer hours.
{snip}.

The family has nothing to do with capitalism, or socialism, or a theocracy or anything at all. Capitalism is simply you trading and bartering your time and labor for just compensation from a second party, you can engage in this and never have any children or get married.

Socialism on the other hand requires a bazillion people, perpetually breeding to create the underclass of the masses, all working to further the ambitions of the state.

[le roi]

Originally Posted by Costaexpress

There is often a big push for people to start a family. Governments incentivize it. Society pressures it. Religions are all over it. Economists say it's important for the economic future.

But what is the relationship between the family and capitalism? It seems that the agenda is to keep people busy, occupied by obligations, and striving for more money and working longer hours.

When you are young and single, you want an expensive urban apartment or maybe purchase a nice condo, eat out, scuba dive, travel the world. you are picky about the music and culture of a city. But when you start a family, your priorities are different. you want lower property tax, better schools, convenient parking, etc.

Now many young people do not start a family, prefer to delay it, or not have it at all. when this reaches a tipping point, we will have a critical mass of people, middle aged and young, who have time in their hands, expectations, energy, and little responsibility. they have the purchasing power, and the dare to participate and change politics.

would there be a shift from capitalism to more civic engagement due to the decline of marriages? would there be a divide between those who support a family and those who do not? urban planning has sure changed in response to boomers and young singles both of whom have time on their hands.

is the family a way to make people occupied and threaten them if they dare challenge authorities of the power structure? after all, it's often young students who protest. workers are working long hours. authorities love the latter.

Assuming that "authorities" and "the power structure" care if you have children or not is being paranoid.

You sound like my friend who blames everything on "the government." Always "Them." Ask him if it's the local government, state government or federal government that's doing it --- he doesn't know. He doesn't know a damned thing. He just thinks there is some evil, nonspecific "them" that exists to keep him down. It's idiotic.

[nightlysparrow]

Highly economically successful and educated countries such as Germany, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, and even the US have birth rates below the "replacement rate," even though most give benefits, sometimes generously, to child-bearers. So although governments may support or even promote reproduction, it doesn't necessarily result in an increase in population.

And nations DO care about if their citizens are reproducing. China curtailed it. Germany hopes that refugees with stock their employment rolls. Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy worry about caring for their huge senior citizen populations.

[Patricius Maximus]

Originally Posted by Costaexpress

But what is the relationship between the family and capitalism? It seems that the agenda is to keep people busy, occupied by obligations, and striving for more money and working longer hours. [...] is the family a way to make people occupied and threaten them if they dare challenge authorities of the power structure? after all, it's often young students who protest. workers are working long hours. authorities love the latter.

Indeed there is, because that furthers the ruling class and their interest in aggrandizing state power. It doesn't have much to do with families, though; in modern societies there are myriad ways to work the population and tie them down even without any family formation.

would there be a shift from capitalism to more civic engagement due to the decline of marriages? would there be a divide between those who support a family and those who do not? urban planning has sure changed in response to boomers and young singles both of whom have time on their hands.

There's no reason to believe that would be the case; historically, civic engagement is stronger among middle-aged and elderly people and weaker among young people, despite the former having much more family and work obligations than the latter. By far the strongest factor in civic engagement levels is the civic and political culture, so those of us interested in strengthening civic engagement would all be much better off working from that angle.

Originally Posted by le roi

Assuming that "authorities" and "the power structure" care if you have children or not is being paranoid.

Actually, they do care. So much so that there's even widely-used names for it: natalist policies, and anti-natalist policies (does the one child policy ring a bell?). If they didn't then we wouldn't see incentives to have children, we wouldn't see such obsession over fertility rates and immigration levels to finance the authorities' entitlement programs, we wouldn't see governments promoting birth control, and we wouldn't see the state all but ordering teenagers not to have children. Now, our fertility rates are far from centrally planned, but it's disingenuous to say that the powers that be don't care about them.

Originally Posted by TrapperJohn

In our system, the debt is the money supply. We issue debt against the future earnings of the populace. Between that and inflation the system can theoretically operate in perpetuity. When we quit having kids and the birth rate went negative we simply outsourced child-bearing to the Mexicans.

Mexico's fertility rate is almost down to 2 per woman and dropping, so that won't be lasting much longer.

Originally Posted by OICU812

Socialism on the other hand requires a bazillion people, perpetually breeding to create the underclass of the masses, all working to further the ambitions of the state.

As my post from earlier today in another thread explains, population size and growth are only consequential for how much power a state can project on the world stage. It doesn't have much to do with a country's economic system, though; (mostly) capitalist states can easily become power-mad.

Originally Posted by TheWiseWino

If there is a "big push" it is one in decline and in many ways, family is inimical to modern capitalism particularly in a capitalism economy that does little to nothing to support families. Lack of daycare, family leave, long term employment stability, are not elements in this capitalist society that is too concerned about encouraging families.

Notice that before the 1970s, when wages became stagnant, there were few daycare centers, and to this day the rich eschew them and instead hire nannies; daycare centers are generally for those who lack other options or have been hoodwinked into believing they're necessary for socialization. Them being a necessity in the first place is an effect of the privation of families; the single most important measure of whether families are thriving is whether they can live well on a single worker's income. If they can, then they have the flexibility to care for children or sick kindred however they choose, and the "care crisis" doesn't exist. Obviously family leave as part of one's compensation is very beneficial; notice that when the rich hold jobs they ensure they can easily take leave for their families. Long-term employment stability in and of itself doesn't do much for breadwinners if pay is low and finding jobs is hard; what really helps them is if jobs pay very highly and can be found very easily. Of course in such a situation employers will be desperate for labor and will do everything they can to retain employees, thus leading to long-term employment stability as an effect of a good-for-breadwinners economy.

I'd also like to bring up some other factors for the quality of family life that are less-often discussed but are nevertheless important:

1) The lack of domestic servants for middle class families, as brought up on in this piece and this piece in The Atlantic in recent years (all the comments are fascinating too). Hiring household help at affordable rates frees up time for families and assists work-life balance. The tax system punishes you for doing so; not only does income tax itself punish you by taxing paid help but not doing it yourself, but the system is designed for large employers and not for families and thus creates expensive and laborious administration for anyone trying to hire help legally. Compounding this issue is regulation, which is likewise designed for large employers and not for families, creating even more laborious and expensive overhead. These problems need to be fixed. More liberal immigration policy would help too - historically much domestic work was done by "low-skill" immigrants for whom even a low wage was better than their earning power in the old country. Higher incomes and wages for the middle class would make hiring help still more affordable.

2) High housing costs. For many if not most families housing is their single largest expense, and the cost has been spiraling upwards for the past couple of generations, particularly in many major metropolitan areas. Lower rents and mortgage payments would help people to afford a family. Land use controls (such as zoning) restrict supply and drive up prices, in the tightest markets to immense levels; if these were relaxed housing would become much more affordable. "Good school districts" are scarce and this concentrates inordinate demand over small areas of cities; increasing the areal reach of "good schools"** will disperse demand and reduce the cost of housing suitable to family formation. In addition, increasing the supply of land within viable commuting distance of employment centers will reduce costs; this can be easily done by doubling or tripling travel speed on highways (upgrades and congestion reduction), which will open up four or nine, respectively, times the amount of land within tolerable commuting distance as exists today. You could decry this suggestion as sprawl, which would be correct, but there is nonetheless a good reason why housing is cheaper in the periphery. Doubling or tripling travel speeds will also make road trips easier and expand the range of family destinations.

3) High transportation costs. The average new car today costs $30 000 with the cheapest car around $13 000, and the higher the cost the fewer number of people who can afford to start families. Car payments are among the largest expenses for most families. Eric Peters ably points out that it need not be so; modern cars exist that are far cheaper than what we're paying, including the $4700 Renault Kwid, the $4800 Hyundai Eon, and the $3900 Suzuki Alto***. All these cars are built in India, accelerate about as fast as a Prius hybrid, and get more than 50 MPG; they just don't meet government safety and emission standards, though they emit only the 3 percent of pollutants that weren't taken care of by the late 1980s and due to their efficiency they probably pollute less in total than the average new car, and they're about as safe as the average 1990 model car. Relax or roll back regulations and mandates to more reasonable levels and those cars could be retailed in America, and the same methods could be used for other non-luxury cars, not only reducing costs directly but exerting enormous downward price pressure (via competition) on the entire non-luxury car market.

4) High education costs. This is a double-whammy, since it increases the cost of educating your children and your own education costs reduce your own ability to pay for it. This is self-explanatory and there are a variety of suggested ways to reduce education costs, particularly in higher education; I don't have any specific suggestions on this front I'd like to bring to everyone's attention.

*I'd also like to say that for one wages don't have miuch to do with it.

**How you do that is left as an exercise to the reader.

***Interestingly, the Yugo had a higher sticker price than that ($3990) thirty years ago, and the Alto is obviously a much nicer car. This suggests that new car prices, like electronics prices, naturally decrease over time, but barriers to entry and mandates have more than absorbed those savings in the case of automobiles.

[BBMW]

The attack on family isn't from capitalism, it's from feminism. At first some women wanted to work, and were somewhat stymied. They forced the issue. This had the inadvertent (or maybe not) effect of largely forcing women to work. Now with women working, they're largely economic equals to men (especially when we're talking about unmarried adults.) For a number of reasons, this disincentivizes women from staying married, and likewise disincentivizes men from getting married in the first place. So you have less families in the first place, and less stay intact.

[le roi]

Originally Posted by Patricius Maximus

Actually, they do care. So much so that there's even widely-used names for it: natalist policies, and anti-natalist policies (does the one child policy ring a bell?).

that is a chinese policy, not an american one.

If they didn't then we wouldn't see incentives to have children,

we have some incentives to have children, because Christians are allowed to vote. Not because of some inherent need by the government.

we wouldn't see such obsession over fertility rates and immigration levels to finance the authorities' entitlement programs

we don't see an obsession over fertility rates.

and our immigration levels are perfectly fine. what people are concerned about is the type of immigrants we prioritize, not the overall numbers of immigrants. (I mean some people do , but they're stupid, and don't make policy.)

we wouldn't see governments promoting birth control

Last I checked , certain regressive right-wing governments were trying to defund and shut down entities that promote birth control, due to religious reasons being pushed by their constituents.

and we wouldn't see the state all but ordering teenagers not to have children.

States promote those values because teenagers who have children do a poor job of raising them compared to older adults. It also has nothing to do with population control.