Interesting to see your thoughts on this, Gunnar. It feels like one of those conversations that has been brewing for a long time – the first book that put it on my radar was Jeremy Seabrook's A World Growing Old in 2003 – but has only finally spilled over into wider debate this year. If you didn't see it already, then Louise Perry's latest essay for First Things has a rather similar title to your own:
I was struck by a comment from Mary Harrington earlier this year, when she said she suspects the underlying cause is the gap between the state of being that is required to participate in contemporary society (both as a worker and a consumer) and the state of being that is required to show up to the needs of a baby or small child. This gap has grown so wide that it is increasingly difficult to move backwards and forwards across it.
The other point which is underlined in Louise Perry's article is that it is not only capitalism that is vulnerable to the end of population growth, but also the social welfare systems which are often represented politically as if they were the opposite pole to capital. This is where Illich's critiques of those systems need to be brought back to the table, I think, along with the work of agrarian thinkers like Wendell Berry, to help us catch sight of the possibility of good ways of living in the ruins. But as I reflected on in a talk at Steneby Skolan last week, it takes a particularly long stretch of the imagination to catch sight of such possibilities when we're starting from Världens modernaste land (or, as I sometimes think of it, the world's *last* modern country...).
Thanks Dougald, I have not followed Perry's writing at al and it was really an interesting coincidence that we write this more or less simultaneously.
I am also aware of that our welfare system will not survive a population contraction, it can hardly survive even a mild economic contraction. Even if the "left" often see the public welfare system as an opposite to capitalism, I see it more as a complementary care and reproduction service to the system, which have not been possible to totally embedd in the capitalist system - even if the efforts by neo-liberals have been there.
I would suggest a world with 2 billion people would be far preferable to a world with 10 billion people, especially as we have gone from 2.4 billion to the current 8.2 billion IN MY LIFETIME! Exponential and runaway growth simply cannot continue, so it won't.
Secondly I would suggest pollution in water and food, and now microplastics, are having a serious effect. In the 1980's I worked as a consultant in London, including for Thames Water. At that time, some research calculated that the entire volume of the River Thames was abstracted, filtered, used by the consumers, 'cleaned' and disposed of back into the Thames SIX TIMES between Oxford and East London. The research pointed out that the water treatment processes did mot remove chemicals and drugs from the water, notably oestrogen from the birth control pill that was accumulated in detectable levels in drinking water. Bearing in mind that water was consumed by babies and children, boys as well as girls, one cannot be surprised it has long term effects.
Lastly, and on a completely different tack, may I recommend Dr James Lovelock's Gaia Theory as a 'big picture' context for human reproductive decline. This Theory, some 5 decades ago, was that the Earth's chemistry is created and stabilised by life on Earth, but more, is a self regulating ans self correcting mechanism that can also act to protect itself, much like an animal's immune system. On that basis, runaway human populations releasing long-trapped carbon and disrupting the environment would be a,in to a virus or cancer, and the Gaian system would respond to try the 'heal' the planet by whatever means.
Whether that is reproductive failures, wars, climate crises, economic crashes, pandemics...... who knows. But I do expect an economic and societal collapse in fragile Western economies now fossil fuels have reached peak EROEI, so perhaps a Gaian-generated collapse to 2 billion people who are not part of Western technological societies would be enough to allow the non-human fabric of nature thrive again?
We shall see (though probably not in my lifetime).
Interesting, surely there are many factors, of which you mentioned many above. One that is not mentioned so often as it should, in the Swedish context, is the rising costs of renting and owning a house or apartment. The brilliant capitalist idea of transforming our most basic need - somethere to live - into a capital asset is maybe not as brilliant as it seemed. Striking that Elon Musk has 12 children, I think you are onto something there, about the abundance of children as a sign of wealth in the future. It is a sign of having enough room.
I understand that fertility is dropping for all the reasons you mention but also declining sperm counts and reduced fertility due to pollution etc. Nate Hagens has some good podcasts on this.
Gunnar how m,any children do you have? I resolved early to not have children and concentrate on a self sufficient farm which I have. I love other peoples kids and the tremendous variation each child has. I think that a lot of this could be caused by so many chemicals used in farming and industry.
Interesting to see your thoughts on this, Gunnar. It feels like one of those conversations that has been brewing for a long time – the first book that put it on my radar was Jeremy Seabrook's A World Growing Old in 2003 – but has only finally spilled over into wider debate this year. If you didn't see it already, then Louise Perry's latest essay for First Things has a rather similar title to your own:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/12/modernitys-self-destruct-button
I was struck by a comment from Mary Harrington earlier this year, when she said she suspects the underlying cause is the gap between the state of being that is required to participate in contemporary society (both as a worker and a consumer) and the state of being that is required to show up to the needs of a baby or small child. This gap has grown so wide that it is increasingly difficult to move backwards and forwards across it.
The other point which is underlined in Louise Perry's article is that it is not only capitalism that is vulnerable to the end of population growth, but also the social welfare systems which are often represented politically as if they were the opposite pole to capital. This is where Illich's critiques of those systems need to be brought back to the table, I think, along with the work of agrarian thinkers like Wendell Berry, to help us catch sight of the possibility of good ways of living in the ruins. But as I reflected on in a talk at Steneby Skolan last week, it takes a particularly long stretch of the imagination to catch sight of such possibilities when we're starting from Världens modernaste land (or, as I sometimes think of it, the world's *last* modern country...).
Thanks Dougald, I have not followed Perry's writing at al and it was really an interesting coincidence that we write this more or less simultaneously.
I am also aware of that our welfare system will not survive a population contraction, it can hardly survive even a mild economic contraction. Even if the "left" often see the public welfare system as an opposite to capitalism, I see it more as a complementary care and reproduction service to the system, which have not been possible to totally embedd in the capitalist system - even if the efforts by neo-liberals have been there.
I would suggest a world with 2 billion people would be far preferable to a world with 10 billion people, especially as we have gone from 2.4 billion to the current 8.2 billion IN MY LIFETIME! Exponential and runaway growth simply cannot continue, so it won't.
Secondly I would suggest pollution in water and food, and now microplastics, are having a serious effect. In the 1980's I worked as a consultant in London, including for Thames Water. At that time, some research calculated that the entire volume of the River Thames was abstracted, filtered, used by the consumers, 'cleaned' and disposed of back into the Thames SIX TIMES between Oxford and East London. The research pointed out that the water treatment processes did mot remove chemicals and drugs from the water, notably oestrogen from the birth control pill that was accumulated in detectable levels in drinking water. Bearing in mind that water was consumed by babies and children, boys as well as girls, one cannot be surprised it has long term effects.
Lastly, and on a completely different tack, may I recommend Dr James Lovelock's Gaia Theory as a 'big picture' context for human reproductive decline. This Theory, some 5 decades ago, was that the Earth's chemistry is created and stabilised by life on Earth, but more, is a self regulating ans self correcting mechanism that can also act to protect itself, much like an animal's immune system. On that basis, runaway human populations releasing long-trapped carbon and disrupting the environment would be a,in to a virus or cancer, and the Gaian system would respond to try the 'heal' the planet by whatever means.
Whether that is reproductive failures, wars, climate crises, economic crashes, pandemics...... who knows. But I do expect an economic and societal collapse in fragile Western economies now fossil fuels have reached peak EROEI, so perhaps a Gaian-generated collapse to 2 billion people who are not part of Western technological societies would be enough to allow the non-human fabric of nature thrive again?
We shall see (though probably not in my lifetime).
Interesting, surely there are many factors, of which you mentioned many above. One that is not mentioned so often as it should, in the Swedish context, is the rising costs of renting and owning a house or apartment. The brilliant capitalist idea of transforming our most basic need - somethere to live - into a capital asset is maybe not as brilliant as it seemed. Striking that Elon Musk has 12 children, I think you are onto something there, about the abundance of children as a sign of wealth in the future. It is a sign of having enough room.
I understand that fertility is dropping for all the reasons you mention but also declining sperm counts and reduced fertility due to pollution etc. Nate Hagens has some good podcasts on this.
Sure that is true, even if it is unclear how important it is.
Цікавими, на мою думку були експерименти John Bumpass Calhoun з пацюками.
Дуже наочно та показово.
Gunnar how m,any children do you have? I resolved early to not have children and concentrate on a self sufficient farm which I have. I love other peoples kids and the tremendous variation each child has. I think that a lot of this could be caused by so many chemicals used in farming and industry.
I have one child, a son and he has two children.
It is true that infertility may be caused by various chemicals, it is hard to know if this is an important aspect or a minor one.