Posted on 03/06/2006 7:12:09 AM PST by FreedomSurge
Economically, every society needs children.
Children are the producers of the future This means that children are in a sense a necessary economic good. A society that does not produce enough children, or that cannot produce enough children who grow into economically productive adults, is doomed to poverty.
Every long-term investment we make, whether in the private or public sector, is predicated on the idea that there will be a future generation which will actually produce a return. It doesn't matter what economic or political system rules the present, it will need children to secure its future. Even the most self-centered individual would eventual realize that if the next generation cannot produce, his own welfare will suffer.
So, collectively we all need children and benefit when they grow into productive adults, but the cost of raising children is increasingly being borne by fewer and fewer in the general population.
Childless adults are rapidly becoming economic free riders on the backs of parents.
In the pre-industrial era, children almost always contributed to the economic success of the family directly. Agriculture depended heavily on the labor of children, and children brought further benefits by extending support networks via marriages. In the industrial era, however, children began to contribute less and less while consuming more and more. Nowadays, children usually return very little if any economic benefit to the parents.
Being a parent costs one economically. Although we socialize some cost, such as education, parents pay most of the cost of raising a child. Parents also lose out in non-monetary ways such as in a loss of flexibility in when and where they work. If an individual sets out to maximize his lifetime income, avoiding having children would be step one.
In our atomized society, children do not provide a boost in status, networking or security that offsets their very real cost. I think this economic loss may explain why many people shy away from having children. Many people simply do not want the loss of status that will come from having their disposable income consumed by rug rats.
Like all free-rider situations, this one will eventually cause a collapse that hurts everyone. As the percentage of parents in the population shrinks, the cost of being a parent will rise. More and more people will be tempted to conserve their own resources and let someone else shoulder the burden of creating the next generation. Eventually, the society will either produce too few children or, probably more likely, will not produce enough children with the skills and habits needed to carry on the economy
There is already grousing in some blue zones by the childless that they shouldn't have to subsidize the "breeders'" children. How long before child-hostile places like San Francisco become the norm?
I'm not sure how to address this problem from a public-policy perspective, but the next time you run into someone bragging because he chose not to have children, call him a parasite and see how it works out.
Although not currently in effect the military has been enabled by conscription, so I would classify the military as government servants more than government employees. I will stipulate that the military in general, especially the lower ranks, vote their nation ahead of their paycheck consistently.
Anyone under 50 who thinks they will ever see a dime of SSI living in a fantasyland.
SSI plays NO part in my retirement planning. If I see a few sheckels from it, I'll use it to buy hats or something.
Ya darn right I am!
In fact, I am willing to donate my services to all attractive, childless women who want the 'permission' to vote.
It's a difficult job I know, but I do it ...for my country. (God Bless America starts playing in the background)
That's actually worth considering, whether you have children or not. Once you start on the government pension, you could conceivably get a more socialist mindset (suddenly, you see the socialist light), and we have enough of that already. :-)
You think it unfair for us to get a small % of the money we paid into this Ponzi scheme?
You act like kids are somehow subsidizing SSI. The opposite is true.
Even if this is true, using a statistical tendency to disenfranchise millions of people is still silly. By that reasoning, men should be taxed more because they commit more crimes.
Those raising children contribute a lot more to society than the childless. They deserve a lighter tax burden. The government, in a rare fit of clear-sightedness, realizes that families are what make a nation. Families ought to be encouraged.
Plus, from a purely partisan point of view, families tend to make more conservatives. Liberals, thanks to the Roe effect and environmental extremism, are aborting and non-reproducing themselves out of existence.
So, if you are truly conservative, you should whole-heartedly support the family institution in America. It’s abandonment of marriage and childrearing that has Europe in the Muslim-dependent mess that its in. That the future you’d like for this country?
Women should be taxed higher because they are more irritating.
**Ahh, yes - Dallas; the New York Yankees of football... except for the winning part, that is. (Go Green Bay!)**
It's one degree of insanity to advocate blocking all our childless aunts and uncles from voting...but you are really talkin' nasty to go after Dallas and Yankee fans. What, are you trying to start a civil war? :)
Society makes decisions based on statistical tendencies all of the time.
**Childless people don't get a free ride at all. Do they not pay real estate taxes that support schools they'll never send childen to?... My taxes don't go down because I didn't give birth to one of my own.**
Thats right. I think some folks mine separation between marrieds and singles by referring to parents as "breeders" and being mean about kids. This is a really stupid topic.
"Steaming Pantload Award"......that's funny.
Hey, I'm not saying that you should have kids. I'm thrilled when people are aware of their choices before it's too late.
However, those kids going to school will be the bottom contributers to the ponzi scheme we call "Social Security."
(That said, the article's ideas about "free riding" are totally silly.)
I pay property taxes (albeit indirectly) to support the government daycare centers known as schools for the breeders, to say NOTHING of the federal income taxes deducted, much of it for programs "for the children."
LOL, I bet you would enjoy every minute of it!
Yep, Shannon Love (the original author) is a classic example of that phenomenon.
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