The laws of economics dictate that
- what you tax, you get less of
- what you subsidize, you get more of
Experience and logics tell us that people get fewer children in urban areas than in the countryside.
Furthermore, families are the only institutions that produce children.
Do you agree with me so far?
Grok estimates that the EU's average fertility rate in 1960 was approximately 2.59 births per woman.
The EU’s average fertility rate is now 1.46
https://image.nostr.build/2ebd5d7d2cd690fd0d38618e9fda9a9dc54fb6425f2166b603bce6c7ac441315.jpg
This is a reduction of 77 per cent.
Grok estimates that the public sector's spending as a share of GDP for the five major EU economies between 1960 and 2022 likely has grown by at least 50% to 100%.
By other words, in this period we have seen a shift of economic wealth from the private sector to the public sector comparable to the average reduction in the birth rates.
My best guess is that it's here we find the main explanation.
Shifting of wealth from the private to the public sector is shifting of wealth from those who produce kids to institutions which produce bureaucracies.
What you tax (people), you get less of.
What you subsidize (public sector), you get more of.
And bureaucracies typically grow the most in urban areas, where people traditionally prefer to have fewer children than in the countryside.
In conclusion, less production of kids is a result of the growth of the public sector, which mainly consists of institutions in urban areas that produce bureaucracies instead of kids.
A socialist society is parasitic of nature, and the parasite in the end always runs out of hosts.
God morgen☕️☕️☕️🌞
Trenger kaffi før jeg leser den 😂
Ha en fin dag💪🏻
The most shocking part is that all this is a conscious, selfish political decision by the current generations. They are the ones choosing "more public services", which can only be paid by:
1. Higher taxes
2. Higher debt
3. Higher inflation
Because even implementing all of these, perpetually growing "public services" are a mathematical impossibility, they have provided the perfect excuse for the current infinite importation of immigrants ("we need them to pay for your pension!"), which further aggravates the situation.
We tend to blame the politicians, but they are only responding to the short-term demands of the electoral system. It's the citizens who are to blame. No, the state spends enormous amounts on gaslighting the people
Welfare -> fatherlessness (as seen dramatically among US Africans) -> lower fertility (since Dad isn't there to give Mom a second, third, etc)
It should also be mentioned that the dominant mode of reproduction in human history is that the mean male and mean female have approximately the same number of children (since it takes one of each and the population is roughly half each sex) but the modal man has far fewer children than the modal woman (ie a few men have lots of children while many have none). With the relaxation of Christian marriage norms (but not the post-Christian welfare ethic) we have lost stable nuclear families but not yet replaced them with polygamous or tribal arrangements.
Let's have a look at the fertility rates of Poland, Hungary and Greece, all have a subsidy on birth/children. According to your logic, subsidy = more children. Did we see an increase?
Poland: no
Hungary: yes
Greece: no
Is it therefore that simple? No. Declining fertility rates has many reasons. Affordability and cost of living is a major factor and we'll agree on the reasons why costs of living has risen. Back in the day kids were an asset, they could work on the fields. Now having more kids than necessary becomes a financial burden. Advanced medical abilities creates an option to have less kids because most of them become adults. Why would you want to have more than you need/want? There is simply no need.
Also, you don't need a family to have a kid, it's not complicated
At some point, you run out of other people's children.
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