773
Japan ‘on verge of no longer functioning’ after birth rate plummets to record new low
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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You can tell capitalism is super efficient and sustainable by how it totally collapses without fresh babies to sacrifice.
Thing is, we don't really know what's the reason for the current worldwide trend in much, much lower natality rate. We've observed in rich countries and poor countries, religious and atheist countries, capitalist and communist countries (both USSR and PRC, who have had very different economic systems), in countries with no safety nets but also in countries with large social programs, in western countries, but also in eastern countries.
The only thing I can think of these days is education level. Is it possible that education is inversely correlated with natality rates? Or maybe women in the workforce. I'm not arguing for either point, I'm just thinking about what the cause of a world-wide issue might be, because it's happening everywhere and seemingly without any clear common cause.
There's plenty of research out there that shows educating women leads to reduced rates of teenage pregnancy and total number of children. Like its pretty damn solid evidence that educating women helps them make informed family planning decisions.
I think a bigger problem is increasing infertility rates and how many people need to use IVF to conceive in the first place. Something worldwide is disrupting our hormones and affecting our ability to reproduce. Even if someone had everything they needed and wanted to support a child, they might not physically be able to create one or carry a pregnancy to term.
Nothing to do with the plastics and their additives building up in our bodies that act on the endocrine system, no sir.
Any system would collapse without newer generations.
True, but no other system disincentives children like capitalism.
Except only one of those systems depends on the exploitation of the working class, ya know, your breeding live stock. Only one of those system destroys a work life balance. Only one leaves the population with little free time and shrinking resources with which to have and raise a kid. Japan is past, and the US is passing, the tipping point. Society may deem it necessary but the potential parents recognize it as untenable.
What happens when the orphan crushing machine has no orphans?
Olympic level goalpost mover right here.
Which is why, in the U.S., the rich are turning back abortion rights and access to birth control, and gutting our public education. They could, instead, work to build a country where people felt safe, and supported--healthcare, jobs with decent wages, education, etc.--but the filthy rich are psychopaths who care only about themselves, and will do nothing that costs them money, power, and control. Instead, they'll GLADLY watch the people (people they depend, incidentally, for what good is power and control, if there's no one to wield it over?) suffer at great levels in attempts to achieve their goals.
It takes a lot of poor people to make one filthy rich person.
Babies are expensive and time consuming to develop into useful serfs. The US is not yet hitting most of the consequences from low birth rates because it’s balanced out by immigration. As long as they keep encouraging and welcoming immigration ….
Well-said. They don't see people as people, they see them as farm stock plotted on spreadsheets that they can manipulate by pulling levers.
And happiness just isn't a variable they would ever think of pulling a lever to increase. In fact I suspect they see a lack of it as an effective motivator, as long as it's managed properly through division and distraction, and those desperately upset little data points don't start assembling guillotines.
I don't think any social/political structure would survive without a birth rate
I mean, any system collapses if you don't have the people to actively participate in it.
I'm not saying that as a defense of capitalism, more so as pointing out how dumb your comment is.
Lets see how China handles it down the road before we mark this one a problem of one specific system, rather than just humans seemingly sucking in sustainable long term planning on large scales in general.
China is also capitalist though, and they're also starting to suffer from the same issue.
No, China is Communist, it says so right in their name.
/sarcasm
Had me in the first half lol
No lie, you a funny guy
Well, if you prioritize shareholder growth, before Support of children and make sure people have to work super hard to be able to sustain themselves and can't afford to have a family.... Then you should not be supervised that you don't have any babies in the country
The national pyramid scheme
Progressives have made kids useless. In the distant past they could help carry firewood or gay bales around the homestead.
Industrial revolution fucked it up. Sure for a while you could send them down into the mines or get them sweeping chimneys but over time that got outlawed due to the increased danger these jobs involved.
Now, why bother having kids? You can't do anything with them. Even worse, they play games like Minecraft. You are literally spending your money for them to virtually work in the mines where they don't bring in any money at all!
Wait, you you’re saying the solution is… being back child labor? We truly are living in some times when that isn’t considered a unique statement.
I would hope it is obviously not a serious suggestion. But it does show a clear difference in modern society that might go some way to explaining current trends.
The children yearn for the mines.
I'm interested in the gay bales, where do I find out more about those?
You mean you can't do anything profitable with them. Maybe people should be able to have a family for other reasons than profit
Even without capitalism you need production, and children used to be part of that. Back then you would have as many kids as you could so that they could run your farm.
I'm not defending the current system, but profit isn't the only reason the birthrate is declining in so many countries.
And the farm would largely be to feed your own family. Not profit.
Its not capitalism that causes the over leveraged ponzi scheme, its the lender of last resort they call the Bank of Japan.
In a capitalist lending system you wouldn't get bailed out for making risky loans, so there wouldn't be the moral hazard, or the heightened cantillon effect to profit off debt accumulation.