The growing population of economically non-productive people requires a growing population of economically productive people to support them. At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.
At the limit, not growing the productive population puts younger generations in a position of existing solely for the purpose of serving the non-productive population. At some point, they will simply choose to opt out and the whole thing collapses.
But infinite population growth is unsustainable so it had to come to an equilibrium eventually. Maybe we overshot the maximum comfortable population by a bit and we are going to rebound for awhile.
Also an economy that requires an infinitely growing population feels like a pyramid scheme which is also an unsustainable system.
I think it's inevitable, the model is unsustainable and going to fail. In a finite world we can't have social models that rely on infinite growth. I'm sure the changing demographic is going to cause pain (probably right when I'm getting ready to retire), but historically pain is the real catalyst for change so maybe some good will come out of it.
> The growing population of economically non-productive people requires a growing population of economically productive people to support them. At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.
Economic growth is the result of productivity, which is the product of the number of people working, times their per-capita productivity. If each successive generation is more productive per capita than the last, then each generation can support successively more non-productive people.
But future generations won’t need to support as many non-productive people as we do now, because the Baby Boom will die off. In the U.S., the peak of non-productive populace is only the next decade or so.
> At some point, you could take 100% of the output of the productive people and it would still not be enough to support retirees et al.
But productivity for productive people is increasing. Is there an assumption that retiree spending is also going to increase to match?
Realistic solutions look something like:
- we increase productivity of the working population
- we lock or decrease the per-year, per-person spending on retirees
- we decrease the % of their lives that people spend retired
I am not remotely worried about birth rates. Every tech executive hyperventilating about it is extrapolating social trends decades ahead, which is the same mistake Erlich made when he published the "The Population Bomb". The total fertility rate has limitations as a metric too (it assumes constant birth timing).
The fact that they do this coercive paternalism on the very platforms that substitute for real life social interaction is very rich to me. I'll listen to them when they divest from the social corrosion machines.
Predicting population decline is safer than overgrowth. Since with low birth rates we know we need substantially higher than replacement rates to make up for the deficit. Which seems unlikely
If they were only eating there would be no problem. But they want fancy vacations. They want houses. They need drugs. They need MRI machines. And they need these things for decades for minimal cost irrespective of ability to pay. And, when they do die, they expect to pass estates tax-free to thier children. Supporting the retired population is one thing, but the day may soon come when we revisit what it means to be retired.
Basically it makes people feel good. Growth is exciting and motivates people to do stuff. Shrinkage makes people sad, depressed and more likely to try to protect what they have. It's often irrational, but that's just the way it is.
Growth isn't sustainable, of course. If you're a gardener you get to experience the joy of growth every year, but you have to "pay it back" in autumn and winter as everything dies back and resets. The seasons force it on you in the garden, but we can't force it on ourselves. We'll just keep having summer after summer until it all goes boom.
This might be a really good analogy - we're in an endless summer and we have people who are now dying having lived in it their entire life - we don't even know what fall is like, let alone winter.
On a personal level it might be possible to "bring winter back" - I'll have think on what that might mean.
That's the way the system is set up but basically it's not sustainable. You can have more young people now to fix the problem of funding older people. But what happens when these young people get old? Now you need even more young people.
Look at the problems South Korea is having, where there are not enough young people to support and care for the elderly. Elders face economic hardship and the healthcare system is buckling under load.
The Social Security system relies on creating a debt of unborn children to older people based on those older people having already paid now dead people, so keeping it solvent requires more meat for the tax machine.
A pyramid inversion means the old keep voting for OPM from the young, using their numbers to crush them, meanwhile there are fewer and fewer young to actually pay it. Eventually creating instability, couple this with entitlement "I paid that dead guy, so that kid owes me!" (of course, abstracted, as "the government owes me" to hide the kinetics) and you are in a bad spot.
---------- edit: reply to below since I am throttled -----
yes under any system youth are needed. But SS creates a tragedy of the commons. Because retired get benefit obligation of children whether they have/adopt/foster the children or not. In most other systems, the link is more direct, so there is greater incentive to have or adopt child and provide investment in the child, as their success is directly linked to yours. In SS system you can reneg on most of the responsibility of creating the engines of the next generation but still simply scalp that investment off someone else, and indeed still get roughly the same share without making the investment. Obviously there is great moral hazard to simply scalp the benefit of children without having to make the investment yourself, and SS is all to happy to provide that.
Mentioning Social Security and government implies there is some other form of retirement that doesn't inherently depend on younger people still working, doesn't it? I mean, who else going to grow the food and sweep the streets?
GDP is correlated only while good things are increasing - forcing every married family to divorce at gunpoint and become two family households would greatly increase GDP - but I don't think we'd agree that's good.
This. The prospect of a brighter future at least means capital and labor are fighting for slices of a bigger pie. If the pie per capita stays constant or shrinks there will be a lot more anti-social behavior to response to the zero-sum environment.
I think people really fail to understand the gravity of an inverted demographic pyramid, going from 2 young people supporting 1 old, to 1 young person supporting 2 old. That's .5 -> 2x, a 4x increase in burden (taxes / extra work).
If you planted an apple tree and it never produced apples, you might start to wonder what's wrong with the tree. Maybe there's something wrong with the soil?
How do you know if an organism is thriving in its environment? You count the offspring over generations.
American capitalists and economic planners fret about "Japan Syndrome". To have more productivity and more consumption i.e. GDP growth, you need more people as a core driver. We don't actually need this, we could do fine with a stable population, but capitalism needs to grow or perish.
Declining populations are trickier for most economic concepts though. Less labor, less consumption. That said, a slight decline can leave more houses unoccupied which can be good. A major decline would mean so many unoccupied houses that you would have broken and abandoned houses though because it would be too costly to deal with the abandoned units.
If you or anyone you care about is or will be elderly and is not financially independent, you should care.
This has nothing to do with capitalism; it's a resource allocation problem. We spend inordinate amounts of money on end of life care, and any changes are currently unacceptable to voters.
The line has to go up every year forever, even if it causes cyclical market instability and consolidation into mega conglomerates. Creating sustainable wealth across all sectors of society just isn't profitable enough in the short term.
jandrewrogers|19 days ago
At the limit, not growing the productive population puts younger generations in a position of existing solely for the purpose of serving the non-productive population. At some point, they will simply choose to opt out and the whole thing collapses.
izzydata|19 days ago
Also an economy that requires an infinitely growing population feels like a pyramid scheme which is also an unsustainable system.
yoyohello13|19 days ago
snowwrestler|19 days ago
Economic growth is the result of productivity, which is the product of the number of people working, times their per-capita productivity. If each successive generation is more productive per capita than the last, then each generation can support successively more non-productive people.
But future generations won’t need to support as many non-productive people as we do now, because the Baby Boom will die off. In the U.S., the peak of non-productive populace is only the next decade or so.
Windchaser|19 days ago
But productivity for productive people is increasing. Is there an assumption that retiree spending is also going to increase to match?
Realistic solutions look something like: - we increase productivity of the working population - we lock or decrease the per-year, per-person spending on retirees - we decrease the % of their lives that people spend retired
danny_codes|19 days ago
hackable_sand|19 days ago
unknown|19 days ago
[deleted]
biophysboy|19 days ago
The fact that they do this coercive paternalism on the very platforms that substitute for real life social interaction is very rich to me. I'll listen to them when they divest from the social corrosion machines.
oklahomasports|19 days ago
seanmcdirmid|19 days ago
mmastrac|19 days ago
torlok|19 days ago
sandworm101|19 days ago
triceratops|19 days ago
Am4TIfIsER0ppos|19 days ago
actionfromafar|19 days ago
globular-toast|19 days ago
Growth isn't sustainable, of course. If you're a gardener you get to experience the joy of growth every year, but you have to "pay it back" in autumn and winter as everything dies back and resets. The seasons force it on you in the garden, but we can't force it on ourselves. We'll just keep having summer after summer until it all goes boom.
bombcar|19 days ago
On a personal level it might be possible to "bring winter back" - I'll have think on what that might mean.
tonmoy|19 days ago
vjvjvjvjghv|19 days ago
arcologies1985|19 days ago
dalyons|19 days ago
mothballed|19 days ago
A pyramid inversion means the old keep voting for OPM from the young, using their numbers to crush them, meanwhile there are fewer and fewer young to actually pay it. Eventually creating instability, couple this with entitlement "I paid that dead guy, so that kid owes me!" (of course, abstracted, as "the government owes me" to hide the kinetics) and you are in a bad spot.
---------- edit: reply to below since I am throttled -----
yes under any system youth are needed. But SS creates a tragedy of the commons. Because retired get benefit obligation of children whether they have/adopt/foster the children or not. In most other systems, the link is more direct, so there is greater incentive to have or adopt child and provide investment in the child, as their success is directly linked to yours. In SS system you can reneg on most of the responsibility of creating the engines of the next generation but still simply scalp that investment off someone else, and indeed still get roughly the same share without making the investment. Obviously there is great moral hazard to simply scalp the benefit of children without having to make the investment yourself, and SS is all to happy to provide that.
anonymars|19 days ago
Sol-|19 days ago
People say "Oh, but GDP isn't everything" - but it's correlated with almost everything good, so might as well be.
bombcar|19 days ago
supertrope|19 days ago
reducesuffering|19 days ago
randycupertino|19 days ago
hackable_sand|19 days ago
Sounds lazy to me
snikeris|19 days ago
How do you know if an organism is thriving in its environment? You count the offspring over generations.
fooker|19 days ago
anthonypasq|19 days ago
we have a diseased misanthropic culture. i dont know where it came from but its existential.
tehjoker|19 days ago
Declining populations are trickier for most economic concepts though. Less labor, less consumption. That said, a slight decline can leave more houses unoccupied which can be good. A major decline would mean so many unoccupied houses that you would have broken and abandoned houses though because it would be too costly to deal with the abandoned units.
bpt3|19 days ago
This has nothing to do with capitalism; it's a resource allocation problem. We spend inordinate amounts of money on end of life care, and any changes are currently unacceptable to voters.
NeutralCrane|19 days ago
r00fus|19 days ago
queuebert|19 days ago
r14c|19 days ago