Commentary
We tend to overuse the term “existential” crisis. Politicians and self-described cultural leaders in the mainstream media and Hollywood are particularly guilty of being Chicken Littles. They tell us that unless we adopt economy-destroying policies, climate change will doom us to mass starvation, flooded coastal cities, and a constant barrage of category-five hurricanes. Some thought leaders on the other side of the political spectrum warn that we’re entering a period where a group of a few hundred thousand global elitist supervillains with enormous IQs will depopulate the planet and keep the rest of us as techno-serfs.
Yet we have a more apparent and obvious threat to our future due to cultural and economic changes never seen before. The populations of many advanced nations from Finland to Australia and from America to Italy are suffering from fertility rates that are significantly below the levels required to maintain current populations. Adding to the issue is that we have an economic system that requires an increase in consumers and productive workers. Immigration has largely been used as a way of dealing with this issue, but it’s debatable whether or not this form of population growth is equal in outcome to the organic method of the local population having children….