Thought provoking piece. It's interesting to compare how east-asia (namely Japan and South Korea) and the west (Europe and the Anglosphere) have reacted to this decline.
As you point out the west seems to be holding sterility at bay with mass immigration, the notion of a multicultural society that we are all familiar with. How long it can be maintained, what effects it will have, and whether it will buy them enough time to come up with an alternative solution - if it even exists, is still under consideration.
Japan and increasingly South Korea seem more complacent. They recognise their declining birth rates as a problem, yes, but the Japanese government's battle against it has been largely futile. Perhaps because they are more homogenous cultures with stricter social norms they are less willing to use immigration as a means to stave off economic stagnation. The likely end-state is that these countries wont face a steep decline per say, instead simply stagnation.
Perhaps that is not so bad a fate. Japan has long life expectancies, low crime rates, good social services, etc. Then again there is something to be said about their dystopian work culture, and the power and influence their corporations hold (South Korea's Chaebols and Japan's Amakudari system).
Perhaps we need to reframe what growth is. Is a consistent 1% increase in economic growth stagnation? Is it your growth relative to other countries? Regardless if you are western or eastern in your approach, is Moloch's victory inevitable?
Cities are aberattions of nature in some sense. Humans have evolved living off the land, whether that is hunting its animals, gathering its wild fruits, or sowing crops in its soil. Even in the early modern era this was true for most people. We grew and cut trees to make our furniture, fished in rivers and seas, mined ores from its earth, raised animals on its pastures.
The city dweller is usually several degrees of seperation away from this. They are distanced from the original sources of their consumables and materials. Right now somewhere on this planet an adult winces at the realisation that their big mac comes from the actual slaughter of a cow.
I'm sure there is a place for the economy of services, but lets put it this way, if all farming stopped tommorow Tesco's would be pretty fucked, but if all supermarkets shut down tommorow, people would probably still find a way to buy their food off its orginal creators. The base value lies in the farmer, everything else is a derivative.
In other words the base value lies in the proprietor of materials/consumables (primary sector - farming, mining, fishing), and the one who turns those materials/consumables into something that has even more utility (secondary sector - construction, manufacturing, cooking). I am not saying that services have no value, in fact they are incredibly important to modern economies. What I am pointing out is that the city dweller of middling intelligience may conflate the former with the latter. He may begin to subconsciously believe that his food comes from KFC instead of a chicken farm.
For me when that happens that is the start of something, perhaps decline, perhaps stagnation, perhaps decadence. Lets see.
Thought provoking piece. It's interesting to compare how east-asia (namely Japan and South Korea) and the west (Europe and the Anglosphere) have reacted to this decline.
As you point out the west seems to be holding sterility at bay with mass immigration, the notion of a multicultural society that we are all familiar with. How long it can be maintained, what effects it will have, and whether it will buy them enough time to come up with an alternative solution - if it even exists, is still under consideration.
Japan and increasingly South Korea seem more complacent. They recognise their declining birth rates as a problem, yes, but the Japanese government's battle against it has been largely futile. Perhaps because they are more homogenous cultures with stricter social norms they are less willing to use immigration as a means to stave off economic stagnation. The likely end-state is that these countries wont face a steep decline per say, instead simply stagnation.
Perhaps that is not so bad a fate. Japan has long life expectancies, low crime rates, good social services, etc. Then again there is something to be said about their dystopian work culture, and the power and influence their corporations hold (South Korea's Chaebols and Japan's Amakudari system).
Perhaps we need to reframe what growth is. Is a consistent 1% increase in economic growth stagnation? Is it your growth relative to other countries? Regardless if you are western or eastern in your approach, is Moloch's victory inevitable?
Cities are aberattions of nature in some sense. Humans have evolved living off the land, whether that is hunting its animals, gathering its wild fruits, or sowing crops in its soil. Even in the early modern era this was true for most people. We grew and cut trees to make our furniture, fished in rivers and seas, mined ores from its earth, raised animals on its pastures.
The city dweller is usually several degrees of seperation away from this. They are distanced from the original sources of their consumables and materials. Right now somewhere on this planet an adult winces at the realisation that their big mac comes from the actual slaughter of a cow.
I'm sure there is a place for the economy of services, but lets put it this way, if all farming stopped tommorow Tesco's would be pretty fucked, but if all supermarkets shut down tommorow, people would probably still find a way to buy their food off its orginal creators. The base value lies in the farmer, everything else is a derivative.
In other words the base value lies in the proprietor of materials/consumables (primary sector - farming, mining, fishing), and the one who turns those materials/consumables into something that has even more utility (secondary sector - construction, manufacturing, cooking). I am not saying that services have no value, in fact they are incredibly important to modern economies. What I am pointing out is that the city dweller of middling intelligience may conflate the former with the latter. He may begin to subconsciously believe that his food comes from KFC instead of a chicken farm.
For me when that happens that is the start of something, perhaps decline, perhaps stagnation, perhaps decadence. Lets see.