The mysterious phenomenon of depopulation is starting to worry European governments. Even Richard Hoste writes about it. Vladimir Simkhovich explains the decay of Greece and Rome by agricultural decay, the soil lost its fertility for lack of rotation. I am not so sure that the problem was lack of technical knowledge. Spengler explains the decay by loss of the will to live, the obscure elan vital. Hedonism or return to paganism cannot be the cause, as the childless people I know work not less than the religious ones. It is probable that I will not find the answer to this problem.
7 comments:
Simkhovich is definitely wrong. Haiti's agricultural situation is even worse. The soils are totally depleted. And yet the Haitians reproduce like rabbits - their population has gone from less than >4M in 1960 (already too many for their arable area) to almost 10M today (less maybe 100K in the earthquake -barely a rounding error). They live like animals in a zoo, supported by international aid, and go on breeding and breeding. Now more ample food will be sent after the attention from the earthquake and even more babies will be born.
I think what is going on in Greece and Italy is that the women have become liberated but the men have not - they still expect their wives to take care of them and their children like their mothers did (many Greek and Italian men live at home until their late 30s). The women have careers and are not interested in taking on this burden. In places where the men are more "modern" and willing to share in family duties, such as France, the birth rate has not dropped as much.
K
PS, see Gaza for another place where low soil fertility does not match the high human fertility - again with international aid to bridge the gap.
K
I havn't read the works of Vladimir Simkhovich but I also think he is wrong. Most civilizations collapse due to dysgenics. The upper classes in the Roman empire were being outbred by the less genetically endowed lower classes. Combine that with the lower IQ of the invading barbarians. Agricultural decay mainly occurs when productivty and competence of the population start to decline. I once read somewhere that Japanese POWs in the US were able to grow crops in captivity in arid conditions.
Europe is not only facing depopulation crisis but also a dysgenics crisis. EU gender equality rules mean the most educated high IQ women aren't encouraged to have kids. Furthermore those with lower IQ (native and non-native europeans) must contribute disproportionately to these small fertility rates.
Hitler gave eugenics such a bad name that no one dares touch the subject anymore in public. Another way Hitler has cursed the world unto the 7th generation, may his name be blotted out. The flip side of Japanese growing crops out of nothing is that if you gave Switzerland to the Arabs then Geneva would look like Jenin in no time. But not being "racist" means that we are required to ignore all these differences and assume that all races are the same.
Dygenics does not help, but depopulation is an even graver crisis - the only thing worse than having your population replaced by a less intelligent group is not having it replaced at all. The death rate exceeds the birth rate in Greece and Italy. All modern social security systems are based on an increasing population. Who will physically care for the millions of aging Italian baby boomers when they can no longer work?
K
More than half of the problem of depopulation will be solved if men and women marry young as the Muslims and Hindus do. By some means or other the couple will end up with two or more children. The problems with late marriages are manifold; when the couple finally decides to have children, they are faced with dysfunctional organs, thorny financial calculations and the discouragement of maturity.
The solution is fiscal coercion.
The early Quebecois govt did it, by imposing a tax on the unmarried, and it worked. Today, of course, you have to arrange the rules a bit differently but it's not rocket science. It just takes courage; which most in the West do not have any more, with their endless childhoods and delusional belief-systems.
Anon.
Ivan says "by some means or other the couple will end up with two or more children."
Poor Ivan - no one ever explained to him where babies come from. :-)
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