The number of newborns in Japan fell below 700,000 for the first time since records began in 1899. The government data released Wednesday showed a 16th straight year of decline and it's faster than had been expected.
You’re 100% correct. And capitalism is going to fight tooth and nail to come up with capitalist explanations and capitalist solutions, whatever those may be.
At the end of the day, the masses go to jobs for long hours that they hate, even if they “followed their passion”. Capitalist hustle adds overwork, and takes from the joy of some work you may have potentially enjoyed. Not to mention jobs that are very necessary, yet very unenjoyable like construction or factory work or whatever. The pay is only enough to cover costs, so you have to keep working and can never escape.
All of this to prop up the billionaire class so they can enjoy giant mansions, Lamborghinis, yachts, and whatever.
Have a kid? I don’t have the money, nor do I want an innocent child living this life.
It’s an issue in any economic system. No economy built with any current or near future technology functions without human labor, which people can no longer supply once they get old enough for their health to decline, regardless of who owns what.
If they don’t want their population to collapse they can accept immigration and change their culture to be more welcoming to outsiders. Or don’t and keep on the same path.
Noone is putting a gun to politicians heads and making them do any of this. Nothing they can do will naturally increase the birthrate.
I think there is something they can do, or more to the point, there’s a reason the birthrate is so low there. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the most overworked countries on the planet have such low birthrates. Taking care of children is labor, unpaid labor at that, that has a lot of other expenses associated with it. What I think they could do, is compensate people for it, not some pittance that doesn’t cover a fraction of the costs of raising a child, but an amount that would actually be sufficient to make having a kid or not, with a parent (either parent) home at any given point for them, a financially neutral decision for a family (to include the opportunity costs of not working) rather than a very expensive one.
Evolution being what it is, it would seem implausible for the average number of kids people actually would want to have, if it wasn’t a burden on them, to be lower than replacement, else the human species wouldn’t have come to exist in the first place. For individual people, sure, everyone has their own feelings on the matter, but averaged across society, one would expect most people to desire kids enough if they could manage it to keep the population at least stable.
It would be incredibly expensive, yes, and so the tax burden it would create would probably be unpopular, especially among people that didn’t personally gain from it, but continuing the status quo is nothing less than extracting the abstract resource that human labor can be thought of as, at an unsustainable rate. That situation will either end willingly or it will end in collapse.
A large elderly population that needs benefits but isn’t producing labor’s requirements are met how in alternate systems if those needs require medicines that Japan must buy from other nations?
Remember in Japan’s case there are not enough workers paying into the system to maintain benefits for the growing elderly population which is expected to increase.
I upvoted and agree with you, but how do you stop demanding infinite growth out of the economy? Do you go after the shareholders and taxing the rich a lot more would fix that? Serious questions.
Well, yes. The shareholders are the ones demanding growth and profits that don’t go anywhere beyond their pockets. Tax the rich, and remove the incentive to profit infinitely.
Explain how fewer young workers can produce enough in taxes to run the country.
Our knowledge and craftsmanship improves continuously. Fewer people are needed today to produce and administer things than were needed years ago, we just decided to produce more. That is not necessary.
Explain how a dwindling tax base will support the elderly.
What do the elderly need? Essentially medical assistance. That’s what we should focus on improving right now.
Explain how to avoid an economic collapse as fewer and fewer people require fewer and fewer goods and services.
We’ve learned that “the economy” is mostly disconnected from the well-being of the average person. It’s a matter of will and organization, really.
As always, this is only a problem for capitalism and billionaires needing more workers to exploit. I see no issues here.
You’re 100% correct. And capitalism is going to fight tooth and nail to come up with capitalist explanations and capitalist solutions, whatever those may be.
At the end of the day, the masses go to jobs for long hours that they hate, even if they “followed their passion”. Capitalist hustle adds overwork, and takes from the joy of some work you may have potentially enjoyed. Not to mention jobs that are very necessary, yet very unenjoyable like construction or factory work or whatever. The pay is only enough to cover costs, so you have to keep working and can never escape.
All of this to prop up the billionaire class so they can enjoy giant mansions, Lamborghinis, yachts, and whatever.
Have a kid? I don’t have the money, nor do I want an innocent child living this life.
It’s an issue in any economic system. No economy built with any current or near future technology functions without human labor, which people can no longer supply once they get old enough for their health to decline, regardless of who owns what.
Its not as if there’s a lack of humans.
If they don’t want their population to collapse they can accept immigration and change their culture to be more welcoming to outsiders. Or don’t and keep on the same path.
Noone is putting a gun to politicians heads and making them do any of this. Nothing they can do will naturally increase the birthrate.
I think there is something they can do, or more to the point, there’s a reason the birthrate is so low there. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the most overworked countries on the planet have such low birthrates. Taking care of children is labor, unpaid labor at that, that has a lot of other expenses associated with it. What I think they could do, is compensate people for it, not some pittance that doesn’t cover a fraction of the costs of raising a child, but an amount that would actually be sufficient to make having a kid or not, with a parent (either parent) home at any given point for them, a financially neutral decision for a family (to include the opportunity costs of not working) rather than a very expensive one.
Evolution being what it is, it would seem implausible for the average number of kids people actually would want to have, if it wasn’t a burden on them, to be lower than replacement, else the human species wouldn’t have come to exist in the first place. For individual people, sure, everyone has their own feelings on the matter, but averaged across society, one would expect most people to desire kids enough if they could manage it to keep the population at least stable.
It would be incredibly expensive, yes, and so the tax burden it would create would probably be unpopular, especially among people that didn’t personally gain from it, but continuing the status quo is nothing less than extracting the abstract resource that human labor can be thought of as, at an unsustainable rate. That situation will either end willingly or it will end in collapse.
Don’t worry, they will find a way to make it our problem
A large elderly population that needs benefits but isn’t producing labor’s requirements are met how in alternate systems if those needs require medicines that Japan must buy from other nations?
Remember in Japan’s case there are not enough workers paying into the system to maintain benefits for the growing elderly population which is expected to increase.
This is a massive problem for everyone, what are you talking about?
Some folks here are as devout believers in their system without any evidence just like those that regularly attend churches
Damn you’re smart! To let the rest of us know how smart you are, I have a few questions you can answer for us:
Explain how fewer young workers can produce enough in taxes to run the country.
Explain how a dwindling tax base will support the elderly.
Explain how to avoid an economic collapse as fewer and fewer people require fewer and fewer goods and services.
Some of y’all have the economic understanding of an angry 15-yo.
So these are resolved by:
Increase taxes for the rich people.
Stop demanding infinite growth out of economy, so that stopping that growth isn’t labeled “collapse”
I upvoted and agree with you, but how do you stop demanding infinite growth out of the economy? Do you go after the shareholders and taxing the rich a lot more would fix that? Serious questions.
Well, yes. The shareholders are the ones demanding growth and profits that don’t go anywhere beyond their pockets. Tax the rich, and remove the incentive to profit infinitely.
Our knowledge and craftsmanship improves continuously. Fewer people are needed today to produce and administer things than were needed years ago, we just decided to produce more. That is not necessary.
What do the elderly need? Essentially medical assistance. That’s what we should focus on improving right now.
We’ve learned that “the economy” is mostly disconnected from the well-being of the average person. It’s a matter of will and organization, really.
Ok so you have no solution other than hope that one comes along.
Explain