Blaming the Catholic church specifically for high birth rates is a misstep especially since the author compares to England which has a long and varied history with Protestantism. The argument should be reframed around religiosity in general or he should show data for England that indicates a difference in fertility during the periods of stronger and weaker Catholic influence in England.
France's baby bust
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Re: France's baby bust
#52Earlier 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…
> 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.
You are begging the question. It is far from settled that we “got out” of the trap. Did we buy ourselves some time with the “Green Revolution”, yes. But it’s clear we have exceeded the environment’s waste absorption capacities in local ecosystems (see nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in streams, lakes, and rivers), regionally (see estuarine dead zones where local nutrient pollution collects), as well as globally (chiefly greenhouse gases).
Re: France's baby bust
#53In my estimation its worth a decline in standard of living to be free of traditional, conservative values.
Re: France's baby bust
#54In my estimation its worth a decline in standard of living to be free of traditional, conservative values.
Poverty generates more conservatism, not less.
Re: France's baby bust
#55In my estimation its worth a decline in standard of living to be free of traditional, conservative values.
Isn't the view of the article that you get both? The areas where the counter reformation was strongest had the biggest drop in fertility.
Re: France's baby bust
#56The changing male and female roles in society also has a part to play in any society where women are needed to work
Re: France's baby bust
#57> 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…
>with 70 million inhabitants
Because capitalists want more. More workers, more consumers, more sales, more demand for housing, more demand for goods, more profit.
Re: France's baby bust
#58> France appeared to be a stagnant society before the French Revolution. If culture was not changing, then how could it be responsible for such a climactic shift in such an important social outcome?
> Using this genealogical data, I estimate that the decline in fertility took hold in France in the 1760s
1760s don’t look far from the French Revolution to me. Ending a regime that lasted more than a dozen centuries doesn’t happen from a one night cultural shift, and I’d argue a shift starting in the 1960s seems pretty reasonable.
Of course the cultural itself is coming from other factors, but I’m not convinced it can be dismissed so lightly.
Re: France's baby bust
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I don't see American presidents making religion "a major part of their platform" either. They get some photo ops in church just like British leaders, and they side with their voters on things like abortion, which breaks down roughly along religious lines without being explicitly so. But a major policy decision directly targeting religion? The closest I can think of in the US is Trump banning immigration from majority…
Maybe its harder to see from the inside... As an example I've pulled up the last state of the union address which appears to be a regular and semi-important thing across the pond. God is mentioned 11 times by my count.
That would be considered OOT for a priest over here.
Re: France's baby bust
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Lol. I was hoping the OP had some definition of success that wasn't literally population growth.