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Consumerist capitalism is "realistic"? That's laughable. It's popular, but the cargo cult of capitalism has humanity blindly sprinting towards ecological collap
by losteric 9y ago
Consumerist capitalism is "realistic"? That's laughable. It's popular, but the cargo cult of capitalism has humanity blindly sprinting towards ecological collapse.
Socially-strong European nations are the most likely to survive the next 100 years of turmoil. Modern China is a house of cards held together by capitalism, Xi and his successors will grab for power but they can't hold it together by sheer force of will.
- rayiner 9y agoEurope is in the midst of population collapse. Societies built on having higher levels of social cohesion aren’t going to survive in their contemporary forms over the next century as the European population dwindles.
- losteric 9y agoWhy do you think Europe will collapse because their native reproductive rate is going down? What do you think about Japan?
- rayiner 9y agoYou need a stable population to keep the economy stable, because a lot of your expenses are not per capita (infrastructure spending, debt repayment, etc.). To keep Europe's population stable, you need massive annual immigration (more than you have now). I don't think it's possible to maintain a high-trust, cohesive society with that level of immigration.
- JDiculous 9y agoThe suggestion that these countries are doomed due to population decline is complete nonsense, as Japan has shown. Automation is enabling less people to have to work to maintain the same standard of living. As you said worst case scenario immigrants could fill in the gap (certainly no shortage of people trying to immigrate to western Europe). Social cohesion could go down, but that doesn't mean the only option is American style "every man for themselves" hypercapitalism.