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France's baby bust

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Re: France's baby bust

#21

Post by inglor_cz »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #4

So, the demographic transition took place exceptionally early in France, but why? In my research, I argue that the diminished sway of the Catholic Church, nearly 30 years before the French Revolution, was the key driver of the fertility decline. It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate. If they are beneficial to the individuals comprising them, this is a matte…

"It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate."

Weren't pretty much all societies on the planet in the 1700s and 1800s "traditional and conservative"?

Yet most of them weren't particularly successful against the British, who, on aggregate, weren't that much traditional (superficially, yes, but behind the visible old-school clergy and nobility, ruthless modernization continued apace).

Re: France's baby bust

#22

Post by maelito »

> she declined over the next 250 years to be just another European power.

Why would we want 300 millions inhabitants in France ? That's what we would have with the density of the Netherlands.

Why couldn't France be on top of leisure, urban transports, ecology, natural ecosystems, technology, political innovation, and even military defense, with 70 million inhabitants ?

Worlwide politics are biased, always considering GDP first, instead of a myriad of more relevant indicators.

Re: France's baby bust

#23

Post by swarnie »

langsoul-com wrote: post #6

The book, "shall the religious inherit the world" is relevant. I'd be interested what happens when general birthrate declines and a religious group, that massively encourages tons of children, take larger voting percentages.

I understand this is an America-centric forum but does religion play a major role in politics in the rest of the western world?

I'm counting back though prime ministers and i can't recall one who made religion a major part of their platform in my lifetime.

Re: France's baby bust

#24

Post by mytailorisrich »

adaml_623 wrote: post #16
4gotunameagain wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not talking about fringe, weird, or internationally blockaded societies, but ones like the comparison of Provence and Brittany of the article.

Can you quickly specify what you mean by successful. And which "conservative" societies you were thinking of as successful

Well, by the metric of Conservative and high birth rate Afghanistan is currently the most successful country on Earth, as I believe it has the leading population growth rate...

Re: France's baby bust

#25

Post by twelve40 »

Interesting. Also funny that this pioneer of the child-free movement has actually the best fertility rate in Europe currently. Not by much, and still in the negative, but.

Re: France's baby bust

#26

Post by throwaway049 »

rippercushions wrote: post #14
eastbound wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, why would we want to overpopulate? The whole premise is wrong. We need to weigh less on the environment, and currently farmers are receding in France, and it’s the first profession for suicide; All tells us that the next generation will be full-urban, which is an extremely bad thing. Of course, empires with more dense populations have more ability to dominate others, at least thanks to the variety of skills and…

If you want to weigh less on the environment, you want to go urban: it's far more efficient to live in shared housing (apartments), commute by public transport, etc.

The person you replied to was arguing for a smaller total population - for humans in aggregate to weigh less on the environment even if individuals weigh more.

Re: France's baby bust

#27

Post by jstanley »

eastbound wrote: post #9
franky47 wrote: post #2

> In 1700, almost 1 in 25 inhabitants on Earth, and one in five in Europe, was French. Today, less than a percent of humanity is French. Why did France’s population decline in relative terms so dramatically, and did it really mark the decline of France? It seems far-fetched to use global population as a relative indicator of France's "decline", where the global population exploded after the industrial revolution.

Also, why would we want to overpopulate? The whole premise is wrong. We need to weigh less on the environment, and currently farmers are receding in France, and it’s the first profession for suicide; All tells us that the next generation will be full-urban, which is an extremely bad thing. Of course, empires with more dense populations have more ability to dominate others, at least thanks to the variety of skills and…

> why would we want to overpopulate?

Half the reason we got out of the Malthusian trap is that we finally got enough people that specialisation and economies of scale start to pay off.

Wanting to reduce the global population is like saying you want to eliminate economies of scale, which would make life harder for those who remain, not easier.

Re: France's baby bust

#28

Post by [deleted] »

eastbound wrote: post #9
franky47 wrote: post #2

> In 1700, almost 1 in 25 inhabitants on Earth, and one in five in Europe, was French. Today, less than a percent of humanity is French. Why did France’s population decline in relative terms so dramatically, and did it really mark the decline of France? It seems far-fetched to use global population as a relative indicator of France's "decline", where the global population exploded after the industrial revolution.

Also, why would we want to overpopulate? The whole premise is wrong. We need to weigh less on the environment, and currently farmers are receding in France, and it’s the first profession for suicide; All tells us that the next generation will be full-urban, which is an extremely bad thing. Of course, empires with more dense populations have more ability to dominate others, at least thanks to the variety of skills and…

[deleted]

Re: France's baby bust

#29

Post by vidarh »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #4

So, the demographic transition took place exceptionally early in France, but why? In my research, I argue that the diminished sway of the Catholic Church, nearly 30 years before the French Revolution, was the key driver of the fertility decline. It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate. If they are beneficial to the individuals comprising them, this is a matte…

If you define success as "maintains high birth rates that suppress standards of living", sure.

Re: France's baby bust

#30

Post by ookdatnog »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #4

So, the demographic transition took place exceptionally early in France, but why? In my research, I argue that the diminished sway of the Catholic Church, nearly 30 years before the French Revolution, was the key driver of the fertility decline. It more and more seems like "traditional", conservative societies are more successful on aggregate. If they are beneficial to the individuals comprising them, this is a matte…

I'm not sure how you're getting to this enormous generalization. Seems to me that for the past century or so, liberal societies have been the dominant societies on the world stage. Which conservative, traditionalist societies are you thinking of that are more successful or have "higher fitness" than liberal societies?

When I think of an archetypal "conservative, traditional" society, the first countries that spring to mind are Afghanistan and Iran, which I wouldn't call particularly successful countries.

Some like Saudi-Arabia do better by virtue of sitting on an infinite source of money, but even these oil nations have something dysfunctional to them. They tend to be so corrupt and anti-meritocratic that they need foreign companies to perform any non-trivial task, as they can't get anything done themselves and do nothing to foster homegrown talent. They don't produce value beyond what they (or rather, a mix of hired and pseudo-enslaved foreigners) dig up from the ground.

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