Consider this posting 2-days-in-a-row atonement for my previous irregularity in annoying you all with my political beliefs.
I've been thinking a lot about overpopulation. Clearly, Earth is not meant to hold 8 billion resource consuming humans. Long-term security demands that we begin slowing our population's explosive growth, but I'm unwilling to impose stringent child limits like those for which China is so famous. We've seen both ends of government controlling reproductive health- China forcing abortions, and Ceausceau's Romania using secret police as gynecologists to catch any women who were using birth control. Both are abhorrent, as the Right to Choice is essential to all human beings, but especially society's vulnerable and exploited, i.e. women. I am not about to support either.
So, we need a non-coercive way to control overpopulation. I rather think that this is one area where the U.S. can and should take the lead. We have about 5 percent of the world's population, but consume nearly 40% of its resources. Frankly, humanity will benefit much more noticeably from a reduction in our birth rate than it would from an equivalent drop anywhere else. Step one has to be removing the tax incentive for children, at least past the first. This is going to be painful for everyone, not least because having fewer workers will skew our balance of population towards those who have earned their retirement, and suddenly have fewer people to support them. I would remind everyone, though, that economic health is kind of contingent upon actually having resources to consume, and responsible conservation has to be the primary imperative.
Removing the basic tax incentives for large families will help, but should be paired with an expansion of reproductive health care, making sure each baby is wanted. That's the relatively easy part.
Social services are trickier- what of subsidies for child care, or food stamps? What about health insurance? I am unwilling to cover some children, but not all, or to tell a struggling mother that her younger children do not deserve support, and yet these and other tax credits do subsidize unstable population growth. I hope we'll all agree that creating a two-tiered system of "First" and "unwanted" children is every bit as evil as existing class oppressions, and is therefore off the table. I'd like to throw this open for discussion- Is there a way to discourage having large families that will not hurt the most vulnerable members of society?
Education, education, education. Statistics show that women who are better educated have fewer children, and are happy with that. Also, it's just common sense, women who have jobs don't have time for having 13 children too. Also, your logic is flawed, if we make up 5 percent of the population of the world then us cutting back on population will not make a difference. What will make a difference though is a reduction in how much those people consume. This should be easy, we have the ability to massively reduce our energy consumption to about half of what we are using now. Which means more energy for everyone else. Fight for these things, and Gay Rights (if more gay people come out when they are teens, they won't have babies by partners they don't like, and there will be someone to adopt the children who do get born to families that can't afford them). and there you have your population control right there, couldn't be easier. If you get rid of the tax incentive, that screws over mostly single mothers, and those who adopt, not the intended consequence I think. Getting rid of the tax incentive for owning a house though is an excellent plan, if families can't afford houses they aren't going to have six kids are they?
ReplyDeleteMy dream plan would always involve nationalized housing, with room assigned based on need, and kept reasonably small. Your plan makes sense though, except that again it ends up being regressive. (I'm not on a high horse here, as you may have seen, I'm somewhat flummoxed as to how to address the unfair transfer of wealth to families with unsustainably large numbers of children, but methods of this nature tend to be regressive, and impact the poorest most heavily. I definitely like the education and Gay rights parts though- both are essential. Maybe retain the housing tax credit, but only to a certain number of square footage? (Granted, that would just prompt my father to get serious with his "children should sleep in the barn" theory, but...) Could really spur sustainability, especially if extended to rents in the city.
ReplyDeleteA final clarification is that despite our relatively small population, per capita we consume so much energy and resources that a small reduction in our population would equal a much larger reduction elsewhere, although you're absolutely right about the need for conservation and renewable energy.