Something I pretty much never see pointed out is that we don’t need billions of humans. Our governments keep encouraging us to have children, but they should be working to end the culture of pressuring people (especially women) into having children because they’re somehow incomplete without them. There should be more programs offering access to birth control and family counseling services. This endless and meaningless growth is as harmful to us as it is to the rest of our planet.
Our economic systems only work with infinite growth because otherwise what would be the point of lending money if it won’t grow interest. It’s essentially a giant pyramid scheme. And that requires new blood to provide labour and consumers. This is incredibly dumb on a finite planet with limited resources, but that’s mainstream economics for you.
Also if the population shrinks too fast, then the pyramid becomes unstable with not enough younger people to take care of all the old people (while also maintaining the economy).
The only reason that governments keep pushing for us to breed is because it feeds the capitalist engine which relies on a never-ending supply of laborers.
And, yes, all economies require laborers, capitalism is unique in how it consumes everything, even workers, as a resource rather than simply utilizing them.
Something I pretty much never see pointed out is that we don’t need billions of humans. Our governments keep encouraging us to have children, but they should be working to end the culture of pressuring people (especially women) into having children because they’re somehow incomplete without them. There should be more programs offering access to birth control and family counseling services. This endless and meaningless growth is as harmful to us as it is to the rest of our planet.
Our economic systems only work with infinite growth because otherwise what would be the point of lending money if it won’t grow interest. It’s essentially a giant pyramid scheme. And that requires new blood to provide labour and consumers. This is incredibly dumb on a finite planet with limited resources, but that’s mainstream economics for you.
Also if the population shrinks too fast, then the pyramid becomes unstable with not enough younger people to take care of all the old people (while also maintaining the economy).
The only reason that governments keep pushing for us to breed is because it feeds the capitalist engine which relies on a never-ending supply of laborers.
And, yes, all economies require laborers, capitalism is unique in how it consumes everything, even workers, as a resource rather than simply utilizing them.