I’m not convinced that the decline in birth rates is just because more children survive; that’s an assumption that as far as I know, nobody has ever rigorously

I’m not convinced that the decline in birth rates is just because more children survive; that’s an assumption that as far as I know, nobody has ever rigorously checked. It smells fishy. There are other possible explanations: birth control becoming available, women having to work full time, children are no longer exploitable cheap labor. The big picture is that capitalism will only invest in something if the investor is able to also claim the gains. But the profits of having children go to society in general, not to a specific investor, therefore our children are under supported. The solution is probably going to either be socialism, or some sort of investment scheme where capitalists will pay people to have children but then they’ll be indentured servants or something. Go ahead and call me crazy then come back and look at this post in 50 years. Edit: actually it would probably work something like: we, babycorp, will pay you 250,000 dollars to pop out a baby, she will go to the finest schools, she will want for nothing, but at the age of 30 she will have to pay back the debt, with interest. (Which she can do by having kids of her own). This is basically how capitalism thinks, admit it, it’s not that far fetched.