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By: Denis
 a reply to Children of Men: The world in 2053?by Denis on Jul 23, 2008 - 04:43 PM read 61 times Source: http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/?p=1766#comment-154177 |
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There is a very good argument that can be made that Stage 4 is a WONDERFUL place for a country to be in - and things like Social Security and other support systems just need to be adapted to suit it, which requires certain sacrifices (such as delayed retirements, etc).
The problem is these changes our hard, because our entire economic system - from banking itself all the way down to social security - has been built on a leverage model that depends on continuous population growth continuing forever. If you think that sounds like a pyramid scheme, you’re not far off.
It’s a peculiar aspect of economics, and our markets in general, that we’ve been conditioned to think of a gradual decline in population as a bad thing / something to panic about - like more resources per-capita is somehow an awful outcome. I think a global birth rate below replacement levels doesn’t sound that bad at all… we just need to think about things a little differently to make it work.
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