There is no contemporary political issue that can survive rapid demographic change. Mass depopulation is the problem that no one is talking about and yet it will re-order long-term predictors of economic well-being or national identity as a matter of demographic growth or decline. Nothing else will matter.
Nations considered economic powerhouses will be reduced to empty shells. Societies of old and dying people will become permanently weak and unproductive. Neighbouring nations and peoples who do not share this position will take advantage of their neighbours’ new circumstances.
The nature of the problem of depopulation was first put to me in the documentary, Birthgap. In summary, the documentary points out that people are not having enough kids fast enough, and for most nations, they are quickly approaching the point of no return.
To illustrate the point, some nations would be analogous to an island with 64 people who within four generations have declined to four people. This is happening on a much larger scale across the board and it impairs every economic assumption that is believed to be required for a nation to even be considered viable. It is what has led to empty suburbs in South Korea, as market supply, in a nation with a relatively closed immigration system, increases relative to demand year on year.
The empty-shelling of nations may well prompt the reintroduction of family unit small business as the mainstream. The corporation model of the economy completely falls apart when services can’t be scaled as needed workers haven’t been birthed in the first place. Pressure will be put in children to continue within the family profession or business in order to secure labour that is increasingly competitive.
Enough has been said in our time about there being fewer workers for every ageing person now incapable of working. This has been discussed for many decades. The only thing that may need to change is our assumption that this is some sort of glut that will eventually be overcome by a return to normal once the post-war baby boom has run its course. Few consider the possibility that the decline may be terminal. Looking to history it might be tempting to suggest that a fall in workers leads to a rise in wages, but this worldview relies upon a bounce back in the population as happened following the bubonic plague. When economic actors realise that a lack of children is simply a secular trend, out-bidding for labour makes no sense when your consumer base is thought to continue to shrink and shrink.
Population collapse also informs geopolitics in our own time. China’s pending demographic implosion is often put forward as an increasing risk factor of any military incursions against Taiwan taking place in the next decade – they have to act fast or face total implosion. On an even longer horizon however, it is clear that the future belongs to the continent of Africa should they be able to capitalise on their enormous source of labour. That may not be a given, but for the continent with the highest birth rate, enough to replace and boost the population, multitudes of people on their own can dominate, Diasporas’ and economic output are examples of soft and hard power impacting heavily on world affairs all driven by family composition.
So it is amusing to see Anglo countries all stuck in the mindset of the three-to-four-year election term. In the long run of this century – demographics will ultimately fuel all the problems that dominate these election cycles. Changing the composition of the nation, including just its absolute size, is a whole lot harder than amending the activities of the state. That is why everyone does the latter and we’re worse off for it.
