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Economically speaking it is not necessarily a fact that more people will drive the living standard lower. That is basically a disproved 19th century theory. In

Economically speaking it is not necessarily a fact that more people will drive the living standard lower. That is basically a disproved 19th century theory. In fact, more people makes a healthy economy richer overall. Because in a healthy economy, each added person contributes more than their economic cost. This creates net wealth for the society. Some of the problem we're seeing with costs is coming from the opposite of a decrease in footprint but from an increase. A small apartment seems cheaper and compared to a modern house it is. But a modern small apartment has many more requirements than even a mansion from 1890. The safety, environmental and equipment demands of a modern home of any kind are much greater. On the other hand there has been a concerted effort to hold wages flat for the people at the bottom half of the income ladder. These two things taken together largely account for the perceived decline in quality of life for most people.

SadCanadian 5y ago
The key thing about the theory was that it was disproven when the industrial revolution took off. Incredible amounts of innovation and production in 2 centuries that did more for humanity's living standards than the previous millennium. The key question is: what will power this sort of growth in the future? What sort of innovation will there be? Malthus underrated the prospects of new technologies. The risk today is that we are overrating how impactful new technologies will be. This is the crux of the issue.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  We don't explicitly need growth though. Average productivity is still what it is (very high) even without growth. The thing growth gives you is the ability to increase the average person's standard of living without increasing their portion of the pie. In other words, growth is how you can make people's lives better without redistribution. I think it's no coincidence that we've seen this period of slower growth in developed economies (aside from the 90s) at the same time we've seen stagnation in the standard of living. And also we see an increased interest in redistribution as an answer.

SadCanadian 5y ago

The key thing about the theory was that it was disproven when the industrial revolution took off. Incredible amounts of innovation and production in 2 centuries that did more for humanity's living standards than the previous millennium. The key question is: what will power this sort of growth in the future? What sort of innovation will there be? Malthus underrated the prospects of new technologies. The risk today is that we are overrating how impactful new technologies will be. This is the crux of the issue.

DubiousPusher 5y ago
We don't explicitly need growth though. Average productivity is still what it is (very high) even without growth. The thing growth gives you is the ability to increase the average person's standard of living without increasing their portion of the pie. In other words, growth is how you can make people's lives better without redistribution. I think it's no coincidence that we've seen this period of slower growth in developed economies (aside from the 90s) at the same time we've seen stagnation in the standard of living. And also we see an increased interest in redistribution as an answer.