Part I: Population Decline and the Economy: It's Up to Us

Part I: Population Decline and the Economy

In last week’s post I wrote that the world is in danger of running out of people. The population explosion we’ve been badgered with for decades is a convincing piece of progressive hype. What we really have is a disconcerting population decline among all Americans and throughout the western world. These issues impact the integrity and well-being of the family and our culture at large.

Population decline is at the root of our economic woes.  While many reasons are offered for our stagnant economy, few address one critical factor: we aren’t producing people as fast as we used to. People consume goods and use services, even very tiny people; thus fewer people means fewer products and services are needed. The result: the economy declines.

Quoted below is an adapted excerpt from a piece I submitted to the Daily Herald for my weekly column, Get It Right, which appears every Tuesday and is posted as a blog piece weekly on this site. The Herald declined to print the column, but I’ve included part of it here.

“In addition to the problem of a vanishing populace, falling birthrates always create a falling economy. Writing about Europe, Joel Kotkin states in Forbes magazine, May 30, 2012: “Europe’s economic disaster is …largely caused by…a demographic decline”. USA Today, Feb. 13, 2013, says, “There are no cases of peace and prosperity in the face of declining populations.” The Wall Street Journal, in its article titled America’s Baby Bust, Feb. 12, 2012, agrees: human well-being—innovation, investments, conservation—all drop when the population drops. So does a nation’s political power. The article concludes: “..the only thing that will preserve America’s place in the world is if… Americans …decide to have more babies…we simply must figure out a way to have more babies…” The proposed column continues, “Our economy and our biological survival depend on the birth of children… Anything less risks a demographic desert—a population wilderness of declining numbers and declining prosperity.”

An inevitable effect of population decline, as mentioned in the above excerpt, is the loss of creativity and inventiveness, both of which energize a bustling economy. When a nation thrives, it creates new products and creative ways to solve the nation’s inevitable concerns and conflicts. With declining populations, the diminishing demand for products and services in general discourages anything new.

Some incorrectly reason that there are too many people in the world. They offer as proof the starving populations in third world countries, but fail to see their political corruption. The pockets of greedy leaders are lined with money intended for public works that would improve the peoples’ lives. One evidence of this is the foreign aid Americans send to underprivileged countries. The aid never seems to reach the common people to change their condition. Their lands grow barren from poor farming practices, undernourished soil, and little rain—circumstances that could be remedied with education, irrigation, innovation, and public works funded by sound internal politics. American generosity would be only a backup, if necessary.

It bears repeating that there are no known instances in earth’s history of a bustling, vital economy coupled with a declining birthrate. Both grow together; both stagnate together. We have as examples Italy, Greece and Spain, the European triumvirate of failed socialist policies. All three have declining populations; all three have dying economies and resultant political chaos. Prior to its fall, the Roman Empire, which had succumbed to our current breed of political corruption and cultural deception, was desperate to build its faltering birthrate. Citizenship was offered to any who would come and increase the population: slaves, foreigners, even former enemies. Attempts to boost the birthrate failed, and so did Rome.

The population issue will be huge in coming years. Our current discussion will prove wise. In the meantime, welcome every new life into our nation to enrich it and help us remain economically and culturally stable.

Next week: Part III: What is causing the population decline?