4 ms·

Does everyone here get their facts from political columnists and movie directors? Poor people have more kids because their kids are more likely to die. It's the

by aaronsw 17y ago

Does everyone here get their facts from political columnists and movie directors? Poor people have more kids because their kids are more likely to die. It's the same reason people before the industrial revolution had more kids: it's how you keep the species from dying out. Look up "the demographic transition": as the death rate in developing countries falls, birth rates also fall. I personally don't think we can help other countries develop by giving them charity and I don't think I said that. I think we can help them develop by stopping our policies of stealing from them. Right now we saddle them up with debt, have large companies steal their natural resources, force them to adopt trade policies that prevent industrialization, and domestic policies that prevent them from educating their people. Let's stop doing that.

jibiki 17y ago
> force them to adopt trade policies that prevent industrialization, and domestic policies that prevent them from educating their people. I feel rather naive, as I have no idea what you're talking about. The only thing I can think of is NAFTA, and I've heard that had the opposite effect (damaging the Mexican agricultural sector.)
- aaronsw 17y ago
  Trade policies: The traditional way developing countries industrialize is by picking something they import from other countries and learning to make it themselves. This requires a period of huge government subsidies and economic intervention to get that industry started. (Read _Bad Samaritans_ for numerous examples, including the story of how the US and Britain developed this way.) US-led global institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank push countries to not intervene in their economy and prohibit subsidizing local industries as a violation of "free trade". Domestically, the same sort of "structural adjustment" policies require countries to dismantle social safety nets and privatize government and institute "austerity" measures which have disastrous effects on human capital.
bokonist 17y ago
Clearly there is much more to birth rates than death rates. El Salvador has a higher life expectancy than Russia, yet twice as high fertility rates. That's case when you compare most Latin American countries to the Eastern European countries. Or we can go back further, to pre-industrial England. The families with the highest incomes (and much lower death rates) had higher fertility rates. Pre-industrial practiced population control to prevent complete demographic disaster (there were strict taboos on extra-marital sex, and young people were limited as to when they could marry by what the community could support). If you actually read the Kevin Myers piece, who as actually been to Ethiopia, you'll see that the Ethiopians do not practice the same kind of control, hence their birth rates are almost twice that of even pre-industrial England.

by aaronsw 17y ago

jibiki 17y ago

> force them to adopt trade policies that prevent industrialization, and domestic policies that prevent them from educating their people. I feel rather naive, as I have no idea what you're talking about. The only thing I can think of is NAFTA, and I've heard that had the opposite effect (damaging the Mexican agricultural sector.)

aaronsw 17y ago
Trade policies: The traditional way developing countries industrialize is by picking something they import from other countries and learning to make it themselves. This requires a period of huge government subsidies and economic intervention to get that industry started. (Read _Bad Samaritans_ for numerous examples, including the story of how the US and Britain developed this way.) US-led global institutions like the WTO, IMF, and World Bank push countries to not intervene in their economy and prohibit subsidizing local industries as a violation of "free trade". Domestically, the same sort of "structural adjustment" policies require countries to dismantle social safety nets and privatize government and institute "austerity" measures which have disastrous effects on human capital.

bokonist 17y ago

Clearly there is much more to birth rates than death rates. El Salvador has a higher life expectancy than Russia, yet twice as high fertility rates. That's case when you compare most Latin American countries to the Eastern European countries. Or we can go back further, to pre-industrial England. The families with the highest incomes (and much lower death rates) had higher fertility rates. Pre-industrial practiced population control to prevent complete demographic disaster (there were strict taboos on extra-marital sex, and young people were limited as to when they could marry by what the community could support). If you actually read the Kevin Myers piece, who as actually been to Ethiopia, you'll see that the Ethiopians do not practice the same kind of control, hence their birth rates are almost twice that of even pre-industrial England.