The Coming Storm

He has an interesting take on things but seems more interested in being controversial than in getting things spot on. In the 1850s modern aspirational culture had already made a start in the country, but today's academic bureaucracy and the power of educational gatekeepers was probably less, except at the very top of the ladder. So that if you were a cowboy, you might well rise to become a ranchowner, a banker, a lawyer or what have you, possibly without attending college. Things were quite different in the Old World, where peasants were still likely to remain peasants whatever they did. But there was opportunity on the American frontier, and cities here and in Europe were more open to talented or clever aspirants from the lower reaches of society than they had been before. It wasn't a level playing field for all or a clear path for the gifted, but there was more opportunity than he lets on.

Today, the gatekeepers, schools and universities, have great power and the path to "success" moves through them much more than in the 19th or early 20th century. It's easy to conclude that one either takes that path or fails. But that would be wrong. It's often those from outside the "cognititive elite" who are most successful in the world.

Is the "culture of aspiration" still alive? Yes and no. Apparently, a lot of young people want to be at Donald Trump's right hand, and that probably counts as ambition. But so many people let the mass media determine their lives, and goals, and opinions, that they never really try to learn or achieve. Maybe a lot of them wouldn't get anywhere if they tried. But so often they don't try. They just fall into the roles assigned to them by the system.

Also, the view of society as a ladder with each person struggling or not struggling to make it to the next run or as a sand pile with each grain falling into place on the mound doesn't really explain everything. What you do with your time and your life matters too. It may be that cultural aspirations were more equally dispersed in the population in the past as well. A doorman in the 1930s might go to concerts, hear opera on the radio, even read poetry in his newspaper, enriching his life and broadening his horizons while he remained a doorman and was not discontented with his role. His grandchildren might be wealthy doctors, lawyers and bankers, but have no interest in such things. Fine for them, I suppose, they may not have the need of "high culture." But if such interests were more encouraged by the general culture, today's doormen and their children and grandchildren might benefit.

Shopkeepers in frontier towns or immigrants in early 20th century cities often kept their aspirations -- and not simply or even primarily their material or economic ambitions alive, and if doing so didn't get them anywhere, it did benefit their children and grandchildren. That's less common today. Ironically, democracy and egalitarianism may have a lot to do with it. Mass culture is "it" and we are already "there" without learning or coming to understand or appreciate more difficult things. If we did try, perhaps the effort would be rewarded. That at least is what many in previous generations believed.

Ending welfare fine, but you previously advocated keeping welfare payments but making them contingent on birth control. Which is certainly using state power, and not at all ending welfare.

And the idea that one must "afford" a family to have one, a favorite notion of the modern middle class and rich, is why first world populations are in decline. Let standards of living be what it will be, subordinate to having families - not the other way around. No, there is no virtue in putting wealth ahead of family size. And societies that do it are facing demographic suicide.

As for ending the influence of liberals over social policy, that'd be great. But why does half the middle class listen to them and make use of the "outs" they peddle? Last I checked, they weren't running around holding guns to people's heads forcing them to divorce, or have abortions, or avoid marriage altogether, or prefer sex without consequences to having children.

That's the culture, it is not restricted to an underclass, and it is a serious problem. Liberals have removed guardrails, certainly. People then freely drive off the resulting exposed cliffs. And that is the real demographic story, throughout the whole first world.

It is false that waiting for financial stability is a "modern" idea far from it. Apparently you are not familiar with Malthus who discussed this at length.

Nor is that the reason that populations are in decline. They are in decline because of the emancipation of women who have choices far beyond what they ever had and this increased level of choice means a precipitous decline in population.

It is a commonly known fact that population growth is inversely related to a societies wealth noted as long as 225+ yrs ago by Adam Smith.

Nor do I see anything wrong with providers of state funds (welfare) requiring its recipients to stop having children. Unfortunately many are too stupid to use birth control properly thus an implant would be required.

Of course I am familiar with Malthus, who is perhaps the most notoriously wrong theorist in the history of economics, perhaps of science. You apparently aren't familiar with how idiotic his analysis is, given all we know today.

You also don't seem to notice the contradiction between maintaining on the one hand that an increase in wealth reduces population and that subsidies to mothers increases population. Surely a women with more income has more choices than one with less. If more choices is supposed to by itself lead to fewer children then handing out checks on the street corner would reduce population. It doesn't.

Because the fact of the matter is, the relation between wealth and population is entirely contingent and not at all necessary. It is a matter of the free choices lots of people make. Historically, rising wealth went hand in hand with exploding population - for a while. Then with decline population growth, and now finally with overall demographic decline (which is just begining and so far nobody knows how large it will become before reversing).

Of course extra choices for emancipated women go hand in hand with increased societal wealth. First because the wealth funds the labor saving devices that reduced domestic work to a minor afterthought, and second going the other way because women added to the labor force increase societal wealth.

As for whether people are too stupid to use birth control properly, it would appear the middle class and wealthy are stupid enough to over-use it to the point of demographic suicide. So who is stupid? Is it stupid to have a large family and thus less wealth per capita? Or to have none, and leave a demographic wasteland for foreigners to inherit after all one's own offspring have disappeared from the face of the earth?

Again, this is exactly my point. There is an assumption being made that what the rich are doing with their reproductive freedom is sensible and the poor are stupid not to do the same things. When in fact what the rich are doing with their reproductive freedom is stark raving mad and unsustainable, headed right off a cliff, and forcing the poor to do it too would hardly help matters.

Pointing out that marriage formation was always a function of personal wealth while population growth is often inversely related was not an endorsement of Malthus. In your view even one so wrongheaded as Malthus understood that.

You seem to have the view that all population increase is good. A system which subsidizes the production of vicious bastards is definitely NOT good. The havoc caused by the female breeder society is rampant throughout our society because of the failure to admit that disfunctional, erzatz families fill our prisons, destroy our schools, and are essentially a drag upon the rest of society in multiferous ways. This is one of the greatest disasters human engineering has ever produced.

Prior to the sixties 80%+ of black children were born into two parent families now it is 20%. This is a problem which will condemn them to deficits in every field. If you believe the rapid increase in such offspring will be productive in the long run I would suggest I lead you on a tour of some of the parts of Chicago inhabited by this group. If the extra hands are holding knives and guns pointed at you maybe you would not have such an enthusiasm for policies that produced them.

Any national policies to increase population should be directed to actual family formation with father and mother.
Any other is ultimately destructive to social wellbeing.

No, there is no virtue in putting wealth ahead of family size. And societies that do it are facing demographic suicide.

I agree that the first world is committing demographic suicide. An older teacher friend told me once that we all (meaning white middle class) should have all the children we could, while he was only having one child. I did not take his advice and with only one child I am contributing to the decline of western civilization.

I still disagree with those on the dole seeking to increase their poverty (and their public sympathy) by having children who will be raised in poverty without a father. You cannot make people marry and work for a living, but you can make it difficult for them to exist on welfare. Our perceived differences are based on confusion over the state with welfare being provided VS. what we would like. And people will game the system whenever the system can be gamed. I believe there should be a definite benefit to being off welfare. And I would make reproductive contraceptives available (voluntarily). to those who voluntarily used them, I would be willing to improve the status of their welfare. (carrot and stick I guess). But I would just as soon see them leave the dole behind and move into a higher level of living. (I dislike the fact that welfare can for some be a higher level of living than actual work.

The correct solution is Ryandian, but like advocating the cancelation of the motorcycle helmet rule (which I do), society quickly perceives that giving free medical care to anyone injured on a motorcycle means society can also dictate terms for the rider. I would not give free medical care but society is not with me. So I'm stuck, if I can't get society to leave all welfare behind, then I sound like I advocate welfare but I really only want the welfare system to set up defined levels of benefits and let society push those on the dole in the direction of self sufficiency.

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