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Not with the current political and economic structures we have. They all REQUIRE a growing population to function because we borrow from the future. Without a

Not with the current political and economic structures we have. They all REQUIRE a growing population to function because we borrow from the future. Without a growing population safety nets collapse because there aren’t enough young people to support the older people. Government debt spirals out of control as revenues can only decline in the future. Capitalism itself, at least the way it functions today, starts to fall apart at the seems. No modern western country has any system to deal with this. Stocks values, social security, government spending, staffing (military and private) all rely on more people with more productivity and more money on the bottom end.

neokantian 7y ago
It is certainly not the only contradiction in the system. The only question left is: How do you hedge against or even personally profit from the inevitable collapse?
- beat 7y ago
  Why does it have to collapse? The failure of capitalism might be just a brief blip as we transition to the Next Big Thing.
wait_a_minute 7y ago
Long before that is a problem we will have moved to a society where the marginal costs of basically any business are close to 0. Meaning that we can then simply automate the necessities of life and use a universal basic income for everything else. Capitalism is the bootloader for a Star Trek society.
JohnFen 7y ago
> Not with the current political and economic structures we have. True, but the structures we have are mathematically unsustainable. Eventually, it has to become something else. When that shift happens, it's going to hurt. I think it's better if that change is more gradual rather than a sudden collapse. A gradual reduction of population would be an excellent way to accomplish that.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  That won't happen for half a century, the total is actually increasing and only keeping steady in the "former first world". We'll have to deal with it in some way. UBI, extending production, shifting focus from competition to cooperation can all be done gradually.
  - beat 7y ago
    The boundary between "developing world" and "first world" is a lot blurrier than you think. Is Iran a "developing world" nation, or a "first world" nation? Their birth rate is lower than that of Europe. Population growth at this point is a result of extended lifespans, due to far fewer people dying of disease, infection, famine, and war. In all but a handful of nations (like Afghanistan and South Sudan), birth rates are down to replacement levels or below, or will be there within a generation. And declines in birth rates are a consequence of poverty reduction. In the late 1990s, the global extreme poverty rate (less than $1.80/day in today's dollars) was 29%. Twenty years later, it's less than 9%. Astounding! Get people out of poverty, and the birth rate problem fixes itself in a generation. Which is exactly what happened to the "first world" nations, if you think about it. In the 19th century, Sweden had a 90% illiteracy rate, and was so poor and hungry that fully 20% of the population emigrated to North America. Today, they're... Sweden. The gold standard of modern civilization. Why can't, say, Yemen accomplish the same thing?
Scarblac 7y ago
That's just money. Problems with e.g. too much borrowing can be solved by inflation. By itself that isn't a greater problem than all the others we're facing.
beat 7y ago
So what if capitalism (and socialism) falls apart? Feudalism fell apart two centuries ago, and we're fine. It'll just be replaced by something that more accurately reflects available technology.

neokantian 7y ago

It is certainly not the only contradiction in the system. The only question left is: How do you hedge against or even personally profit from the inevitable collapse?

beat 7y ago
Why does it have to collapse? The failure of capitalism might be just a brief blip as we transition to the Next Big Thing.

wait_a_minute 7y ago

Long before that is a problem we will have moved to a society where the marginal costs of basically any business are close to 0. Meaning that we can then simply automate the necessities of life and use a universal basic income for everything else. Capitalism is the bootloader for a Star Trek society.

JohnFen 7y ago

> Not with the current political and economic structures we have. True, but the structures we have are mathematically unsustainable. Eventually, it has to become something else. When that shift happens, it's going to hurt. I think it's better if that change is more gradual rather than a sudden collapse. A gradual reduction of population would be an excellent way to accomplish that.

AstralStorm 7y ago
That won't happen for half a century, the total is actually increasing and only keeping steady in the "former first world". We'll have to deal with it in some way. UBI, extending production, shifting focus from competition to cooperation can all be done gradually.
- beat 7y ago
  The boundary between "developing world" and "first world" is a lot blurrier than you think. Is Iran a "developing world" nation, or a "first world" nation? Their birth rate is lower than that of Europe. Population growth at this point is a result of extended lifespans, due to far fewer people dying of disease, infection, famine, and war. In all but a handful of nations (like Afghanistan and South Sudan), birth rates are down to replacement levels or below, or will be there within a generation. And declines in birth rates are a consequence of poverty reduction. In the late 1990s, the global extreme poverty rate (less than $1.80/day in today's dollars) was 29%. Twenty years later, it's less than 9%. Astounding! Get people out of poverty, and the birth rate problem fixes itself in a generation. Which is exactly what happened to the "first world" nations, if you think about it. In the 19th century, Sweden had a 90% illiteracy rate, and was so poor and hungry that fully 20% of the population emigrated to North America. Today, they're... Sweden. The gold standard of modern civilization. Why can't, say, Yemen accomplish the same thing?

Scarblac 7y ago

That's just money. Problems with e.g. too much borrowing can be solved by inflation. By itself that isn't a greater problem than all the others we're facing.

beat 7y ago

So what if capitalism (and socialism) falls apart? Feudalism fell apart two centuries ago, and we're fine. It'll just be replaced by something that more accurately reflects available technology.