Polarity reaching maximum...
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.
I was just about to mention that thread...
According to FreedomSpurge, these welfare queens have more right to vote than a priest.
The possibilities are troubling to say the least - Certainly on the medicare side we're likely to see rationing by queueing - that's seems to be the trend in most countries with "free" medical care. As far as SS goes, there will be higher age limits, more means testing, and expanded payroll taxes I fell reasonably sure. I think the primary trend towards euthanasia will be cultural - i.e. encouraging elderly to "do the right thing" and "take one for the team". I personally feel that the encouragement of illegal immigration that we are seeing is a calculated attempt (and an unwise one at that) to defuse the demographic time bomb. Science (or speculative) fiction writers should be able to come up with any number of future dystopias.
Mostly agree with what you have said.
LOL, that is good too!
One of them embraced the notion that "selfish" personal autonomy should be rejected in favor of "Fraternité". The other rejected that concept.
The latter worked out rather more successfully.
That one was from PJ-Comix (created to represent DUmmie consternation at the Alito nomination, IIRC).
LOL, it is cute!
I can't stand kids. I can put up and occasionally enjoy other peoples kids, but to put up with the whining, clinging incessant demands of a miserable, puling child? I'll throw it against a wall.
Would you prefer that?
Knowing that, I'm not STUPID enough to have children.
And with your frame of mind, there is this myopic 'go forth and have babies babies babies, even if you cannot support them.
One reason why they have 'throw aways' on the streets of some south american cities. The parents do just that within the dictates of the church. Reproduce reproduce, reproduce...and when they cannot afford or feed them? Throw them out on the street. Average life span: 18 years at most.
I do NOT think God is going to be impressed with fecundity without personal responsibility. You wanna build a tower? Make sure you have enough funds to do it. Wanna kid? Either a) make sure you have enough money to do so and have a 'nest' for it
b) be willing to do WITHOUT for yourself so the kid can be raised decently.
I do NOT see funding stupid little girls who dispense with all the traditional prerequisites and decide to play house with real live dollies at the taxpayers expense. Their progeny live in poverty, are more likely to be molested, abused, killed by the mothers successive shack up studs. The progeny may live to provide the fodder for gangs, prisons, and are nothing but cattle for industries that make their living off of self-same stupid little girls.
phooey.
My duty to sprogg? I THINK NOT
A-bloody men. Woo-eee!!! Let it all hang out. I'm beginning to detect that a lotta people (me included) are beginning to say "FTS" to the insane BS shoved down our throats for the last 40 years, now that the largesse is running out - and the calamity of idiot sentimentalist PC thinking is about to become manifest. Too bad it's too late to fix anything. We're screwed because of these idiots - but I, for one, am not going to allow these sacks of parasitical shyte to horn in on my survival - in the apocalyptic world they were instrumental in creating.
Really, if you're going to redefine terms in a manner that makes Bill Clinton look like Noah Webster, there's no point in pretending to communicate.
Many, if not most parents feel that way, until they have children of their own. Parents have a natural affinity for their children. As a parent, I can attest to this. I wouldn't have understood it as well if I hadn't experienced it.
And with your frame of mind, there is this myopic 'go forth and have babies babies babies, even if you cannot support them.
If a couple is enduring economic hardship, they can refrain from intercourse, or use natural family planning.
One reason why they have 'throw aways' on the streets of some south american cities. The parents do just that within the dictates of the church. Reproduce reproduce, reproduce...and when they cannot afford or feed them? Throw them out on the street. Average life span: 18 years at most.
So would it be better for them not to have life at all?
If yes, then you would logically have to recommend death for these children.
I do NOT think God is going to be impressed with fecundity without personal responsibility.
You're precluding natural methods of birth control. But this is where the rubber hits the road, because even natural methods of birth control can be immoral if they're undertaken with a "contraceptive mentality," that is, children are rejected for selfish reasons.
For someone who thinks that the birth of modern totalitarianism arose from "a denunciation of government", this barely counts as one of the six impossible things one is expected to believe before breakfast.
In fact, Locke's notion of rights, in logical order, life, liberty and property, was based on the natural law writings of Jesuit Francisco Suarez ("Tractatus de legibus").
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