The family used to tax the grown or mostly-grown children in the form of farm labor. The government in many prior centuries taxed like 2-5% total and the rest was intrafamilial support.
Now it is flipped on its head. Everyone else's families tax your child for their social security, socializing the benefits while still you retain most the costs privately.
Thus tragedy of the commons situation. Why make that investment when you can just tax everyone else's kids and rest assured of your own social security, if they don't pay it you can just have them tossed in a cage or their assets seized, no need to have children yourself.
What you write is the mathematical fact of societies with flattened and upside down population pyramids and wealth transfers from young to old, not sure why you are downvoted.
I don’t know about that. My great grandmas and grandmas didn’t have lots of kids for the labor, they had them because they didn’t have a way to not have them. The grandpas might have though.
Coincidentally, my aunts did not have to have more than 2, and almost every single one had 2 kids.
It feels more like people [used to] have kids because they fucked and hadn't made the connection between that and having children. Them working at whatever you worked at was just necessary so you can help them grow, keep an eye on them, and pay for their upbringing.
mothballed|3 months ago
The family used to tax the grown or mostly-grown children in the form of farm labor. The government in many prior centuries taxed like 2-5% total and the rest was intrafamilial support.
Now it is flipped on its head. Everyone else's families tax your child for their social security, socializing the benefits while still you retain most the costs privately.
Thus tragedy of the commons situation. Why make that investment when you can just tax everyone else's kids and rest assured of your own social security, if they don't pay it you can just have them tossed in a cage or their assets seized, no need to have children yourself.
lotsofpulp|3 months ago
lotsofpulp|3 months ago
Coincidentally, my aunts did not have to have more than 2, and almost every single one had 2 kids.
pessimizer|3 months ago
pbhjpbhj|3 months ago
dpark|3 months ago
Why on earth would you believe that? People have bred animals for millennia. You think they didn’t understand that sex was a required step?
I imagine people have understood that sex led to pregnancy since before Homo sapiens.
AnimalMuppet|3 months ago
People didn't have options besides "not having sex" that worked very well.
dpark|3 months ago