Busting on One: The Dark Side of Population Control

market forces? ummmm welcome to china.

The particular "market" force being one that the government neither wants to nor is in a particularly good position to oppose, I don't think that is a problem.
In reality, the "market force" must manifest itself in the enhancement of the status of women.

Limited to one child in “a country where daughters are unwanted,” many Chinese families, especially in rural areas, made sure—even by infanticide—that the one child born was a boy.

One possible approach would be an institution of polyandry . . . another would be for the government to relax their one-child policy to a "one boy" policy, which would transform the preferences for the first child; couples could have two or even three children if the first one, and the second, were both girls . . . any inversion in the ratio of girls would lead to the girls marrying older men. In fact, that is baked in the cake right now as a short-term band aid. Girls have not only their same age cohort but the previous one from which to find a husband, and can marry someone with more status, however they define it.
Obviously the "one child" policy, if continued indefinitely, would cause a geometric decline in population.

China “suffers from the world’s most severe brain drain.” Approximately two-thirds of the Chinese who have studied abroad in the past two decades did not return home. The BBC offered many possible explanations for this drain: the lack of opportunities at home; a lack of freedom, especially after Tiananmen Square, and a preference for the Western “lifestyle.”

One factor that was not mentioned but should have been was a concern about spending the rest of your life alone.

. . . and as the above indicates, sex selection only exacerbates that inexorable logic. The "one child" policy must change at some point. It is only a question of when.
Thing is, via the "brain drain" China is exporting good prospective husbands. Maybe it's not so bad that my four grandchildren are all girls . . .
The Constitution was designed to make the US a great place to be. "Malignant Narcissist" governments such as Communist ones make their countries great places to be as far as possible from.

Part of the problem is that this has not made girls “very desirable” in the sense one would wish: by raising girls’ and womens’ status in society. Instead, it hs made women very desirable as property. I read on another website of the phenomenon of two brothers in rural China kidnapping one woman in order to take turns sleeping with and keeping house for them both.

If they have a population “bust” for a few decades, as you say, they end up with less people, sure: less young workers and taxpayers, less young risk-taking investors and entrepreneurs, less innovation and creativity in technology (these qualitieis are most amply represented in the disappearing young sector) and proportionately more pervasive stagnation, sick aging workers and retirees.

In a one-child society, in a few decades each and every worker has 4 grandparents to support, directly or through taxes.

Then what? Is that one worker going to want to start his own family and support them, too? Hardly.

Thus the whole thing comes crashing down.

the whole point of the one child policy was to reduce population growth and so there is no way they will allow more than one child with that mentality.

There are two faulty premises: 1) that pop growth is bad even for china
2) it should be controlled by fiat

Premise 1 could perhaps be challenged by pointing out the real problem is misallocation of resources by the government. There is no reason why most of the population should be concentrated in a few big cities.

Premise 2 could be challenged by pointing out that as people get wealthier through capitalism they tend to have fewer children

A communist government would reject the challenges because they want control over people and the chinese are paying the price.

“Where will all those “extra” men find women open to marriage via forced rape and pillage, nowadays?”

Why do you think these women get a choice?

I’m sure that the women Genghis Kahn kidnapped/raped/enslaved had been pretty happy with their men.

Somehow I don’t think ol’ Genghis asked them their opinions.

We seem to have a communication problem.
Back in the dark ages, and still today, in many third world countries, women were not thought worthy or equal of the same human and legal rights as men.
Men didn’t have very many individual human/legal rights themselves.
Theology or “government” by might, emslaved everyone to the desires of a few elitists.
Laws were written excluding women from full citizenship/human rights.
Women being viewed as something other than “property” is a relatively new concept, considering human history.
My own maternal ancestors found their way to their own freedom, after watching/supporting/and learning from their men how it must be done.
(Except for small tribal pockets of matriarchal societies)
China will not be looking towards the western nations to fill the “mating drives” of their excess male population via war.
BTW western men do not routinely “rape and pillage” during war nowadays, as was once customary throughout the world. (and remains so for third world and Islamic nations)

Can you hear me now? LOL!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.