How to have a stable population size in a Marxist country

[Niels the Bigot]

I have noticed in previous posts that you communists are very much agianst the traditional family and are very much for abortion. Europe today, especially Eastern Europe are already starting to have population problems. Not enough babies are born to actually hold a stable population size.

This is the problem we have now even when there are still alot of traditional families and in alot of countries abortion. How would you battle this problem? How would you solve the total population crisis that would result from the abolishment of the traditional family.

To prove my point, here is a chart from wikipedia: -en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_population_growth_ra te-

As you can see, the Eastern European birthrate is falling down bad. How are you gonna solve this?

EDIT: In case you were wondering, the reason the wikipedia link is rather messed up is because I can't post links yet

[Fakeblock]

Decrease in birthrate is only a problem in capitalist countries, where old people are a burden on the state.

[Niels the Bigot]

Decrease in birthrate is only a problem in capitalist countries, where old people are a burden on the state.

So what's your plan with old people then?

[Polaris]

We don't want to destroy the family per se, our issue is the power dynamics in it today, that the father is seen as the most important figure and holds dominance over the wife and children. Also, we find fault in its development: the modern family structure formed due to inheritance between male relatives. Once that inheritance no longer exists, the family unit as it is known today will crumble away-- but take note that no one is going to rip parents and child apart if they so choose to live together.

I don't think this would necessarily cause a decline in population. People who want to have children will still have children. It's possible the population could even increase because women wouldn't have to worry about money issues with the child, etc.

As for abortion, you seem to be suggesting that women should not be allowed to have abortions for the good of society. Please go fuck yourself.

[Vireya]

It's only a problem in capitalist states because their are only capitalist states. I think the OP is correct, however. A communist society would face stifling decreases in birthrate due to their anti-natalist social views. Commies have been traditionally pro-abortion and anti-family, both self-defeating policies.

[Fakeblock]

Why is a decrease in birth rate a problem? Why is the bourgeois family sacrosanct?

[Vireya]

Why is a decrease in birth rate a problem? Why is the bourgeois family sacrosanct?

Nations need man power for economic productivity, a community should atleast be able to break even. Negative birthrates are a sign of decline, your population will continue to grow older on average.

Also, I'm still a bit confused by the idea of the "bourgeois family" what would be considered an acceptable family unit to you? I don't support men being dominant over women in marriage, I don't believe that is even the inherent outcome of such an arrangement.

[Vireya]

So what's your plan with old people then?

Knowing them, probably forced euthanization.

[helot]

Since when was it proven that the family as is known today is the most effective form of organisation for reproduction? In fact i'd say within the contemporary family the rate of reproduction is lower than it ought to be due to a lack of communal childrearing.

Btw, didnt people within the matrilocal clan have sex?

[Fakeblock]

Knowing them, probably forced euthanization.

Doesn't seem like you know anybody then

[Q]

Since when was it proven that the family as is known today is the most effective form of organisation for reproduction? In fact i'd say within the contemporary family the rate of reproduction is lower than it ought to be due to a lack of communal childrearing.

Btw, didnt people within the matrilocal clan have sex?
This really.

I suggest the OP reads a bit more into primitive communism. We've led very good lives like this for tens of thousands of years and it didn't drive us to extinction.

[Vireya]

This really.

I suggest the OP reads a bit more into primitive communism. We've led very good lives like this for tens of thousands of years and it didn't drive us to extinction.

Communism didn't exist tens of thousands of years ago because socialism didn't exist then either. Even back then you still had your nuclear families within tribes.

[helot]

Communism didn't exist tens of thousands of years ago because socialism didn't exist then either. Even back then you still had your nuclear families within tribes.

No, you had the matrilocal clan.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Communism didn't exist tens of thousands of years ago because socialism didn't exist then either. Even back then you still had your nuclear families within tribes.

I don't think you know what a nuclear family is.

[Vireya]

No, you had the matrilocal clan.

Not every tribe operated like that.

[Vireya]

I don't think you know what a nuclear family is.

Actually, I do. You should probably get off your high horse, dear.

[d3crypt]

Communism didn't exist tens of thousands of years ago because socialism didn't exist then either. Even back then you still had your nuclear families within tribes.

Primitive Communism is the earliest form of society. Thats simple historical materialism. The nuclear family was not the normal family unit, as people were raised by the elders and community.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Actually, I do. You should probably get off your high horse, dear.

Definition of the Nuclear family:


The nuclear family or elementary family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a pair of adults,[1] globally and historically a husband and wife,[2] and their children. This is in contrast to a single-parent family, to the larger extended family, and to a family with more than two parents.

You said:


Even back (ten thousand years ago) then you still had your nuclear families within tribes.

Now this is complete and utter bullshit. I challenge you to show me one example of the nuclear family in tribal societies. Even societies which had monogamous relationships, such as many Aboriginal Australian cultures which are still practiced even today, this modern and closed structure of a 'nuclear family' as referenced above clearly does not exist, as extended family are treated as other parents and are closely connected in social life.

The 'nuclear family' is a very modern invention, coming with the advent of the industrial revolution, the atomisation of society and the heavy influence of the Church on society. It is a social construct which appeared in response to the social and economic conditions of it's time - not because it is a facet of human existence. To say that this social construct is the 'cornerstone of civilisation' (a belief originating in America and touted mainly by conservative Americans mind you), letalone claiming that it has existed for all of human history, is an absolutely fucking ludicrous, static and shallow claim.


And also: I wasn't being condescending at all when I said that you didn't know what a nuclear family was. If I wanted to do that, then I'd just call you something like a clueless moron and leave it at that. But you clearly do not know what a nuclear family is, otherwise you wouldn't be claiming that it existed during the primitive economic systems.

This is why I said 'I don't think you know what the nuclear family is' - not because I hate you and want to talk down to you, but because you don't.

[Niels the Bigot]

We don't want to destroy the family per se, our issue is the power dynamics in it today, that the father is seen as the most important figure and holds dominance over the wife and children. Also, we find fault in its development: the modern family structure formed due to inheritance between male relatives. Once that inheritance no longer exists, the family unit as it is known today will crumble away-- but take note that no one is going to rip parents and child apart if they so choose to live together.

I don't think this would necessarily cause a decline in population. People who want to have children will still have children. It's possible the population could even increase because women wouldn't have to worry about money issues with the child, etc.

As for abortion, you seem to be suggesting that women should not be allowed to have abortions for the good of society. Please go fuck yourself.

Thank you kindly for telling me to go fuck myself, really nice welcome on this forum, also, wasn't this called the Opposing Ideologies part of the forum?. Anyway, yes I do think that women shouldn't get abortions if it more or less directly causes a destruction of society. It is very selfish and invidualistic and I am pretty sure communism was also about fuctioning as a community and not just think about what is in your own interest.

Also, you mention that more childs will be born if there are no economic worries for them. I have a theory(disprove it if you want of course) that makes that a bad idea. The thing is that if you fully emancipate women and give full economic benefits to mothers that it will for a significant amount cause smarter women to largely seek a career and that a more stupid(excuse me for that term) part of the women will be in fact more or less career baby makers. The children from these mothers will have very little care for them. Sure you can say that the community will care for them but people are genetically programmed(you probably hate those words) to take care of their own offspring. A community will feel ALOT less motivated to take care of a child that isn't theirs. Thus a nuclear family with 2-5 children will in my view result in a much more stable society and children will have much better childhoods and become better fuctioning members of society.

My sources for these theories is that when you look at very socialistic countries in for example Europe today, you have some, usually single mothers who basicallly live on the large amount of government handouts they get for all their(sometimes about 10 or 15) children. These children usually live in dirty ugly appartments or cheap houses where they live a very low quality life. The view the community has of this is usually very negative as well. On my stance of communities raising a children: Ask dads whose wives cheated on them and whose child isn't really theirs and they know it. Most, if not all of these dads will leave the mother and the child. It's not their child, they don't feel any responsibility to it. The fact is just that the community you are talking about will feel no(or at least not a large amount of) motivation to succesfully raise a child that isn't theirs.

EDIT: But really, what is your plan for old folks, a rapidly aging population will in no way be able to support their elderly, how can you prevent them from losing their support. And this solution seems so far fetched that I would declare your ideology not fuctionally working if it s true.


Knowing them, probably forced euthanization.

[Sasha]

OP restricted for obvious reasons.

Typical choice for an avatar by the way, what are you, voorpost?

[Niels the Bigot]

A Dutch republican?

[Sasha]

Hahaha, like anyone but a fash will use that flag since the NSB used it, and before that it was a royalist, not a republican flag, it orange for a reason...

[Jimmie Higgins]

Decrease in birthrate is only a problem in capitalist countries, where old people are a burden on the state.Not to mention that capitalism needs a labor supply and when possible reserve labor to drive down wages through people competing for jobs.

Since modern porduction techniques allow people to produce far more than they could consume induvidually, a decline in population would not cause the kind of economic problems it does for modern capitalist states where then production declines, investment declines and so on.

[liberlict]

A Marxist analysis of the current population situation in the countries of the Third World would aim at specifying, for each country, the concrete relations of economic dependency that link that country to another or to others, as well as the kinds of social and political structures which emerged upon the basis of such colonial or neo-colonial relationships. Once that aspect of the problem has been determined, the nature of capital accumulation and its effects upon population (i.e., its effect upon the quantity and quality of the demand for labor, location of investments and their relationship to migration and population distribution, etc.) can be assessed within the context of the existing legal and political framework and the main tenets of the dominant ideologies about the family and sex roles.

Neo-Malthusian emphasis on birth control and family planning programs aimed at underdeveloped countries today repeat the same error that Malthus committed almost two hundred years ago. There is obviously (i.e., empirically available to common sense perception) a problem of "overpopulation" in the Third World if by that it is meant that a large proportion of their population is hungry, jobless, sickly, and dies very young. It also appears obvious that, given the situation of economic stagnation of those countries, lowering the birth rate might improve a little their situation. However, such arguments assumes that both private and public sources of investments whether national or foreign are ACTUALLY spending too much in services for the excessive dependent population (i.e., housing hospitals, schools, etc.) and that such funds would be automatically diverted towards productive enterprises if population size or, more specifically, if the dependency ration were to decline. Such assumption is not only naive but reveals lack of scientific rigor in the analysis of population within underdeveloped countries.

http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/gimenez/work/popissue.html

[Polaris]

Thank you kindly for telling me to go fuck myself, really nice welcome on this forum, also, wasn't this called the Opposing Ideologies part of the forum?. Anyway, yes I do think that women shouldn't get abortions if it more or less directly causes a destruction of society. It is very selfish and invidualistic and I am pretty sure communism was also about fuctioning as a community and not just think about what is in your own interest.
If you would prevent me from getting an abortion if I so chose then I personally dislike you very much. Perhaps that wasn't the most mature way to express that, but it packs more of a punch than 'you hold views that I find revolting and make me very upset.'
No no, that's not what communism is about.
You cannot force a woman (or anyone else who can get pregnant) to give birth to and raise a child which she doesn't want "for the good of society." That is a gross infringement on bodily autonomy, control over one's own body.


Also, you mention that more childs will be born if there are no economic worries for them. I have a theory(disprove it if you want of course) that makes that a bad idea. The thing is that if you fully emancipate women and give full economic benefits to mothers that it will for a significant amount cause smarter women to largely seek a career and that a more stupid(excuse me for that term) part of the women will be in fact more or less career baby makers.The children from these mothers will have very little care for them. Sure you can say that the community will care for them but people are genetically programmed(you probably hate those words) to take care of their own offspring. A community will feel ALOT less motivated to take care of a child that isn't theirs. Thus a nuclear family with 2-5 children will in my view result in a much more stable society and children will have much better childhoods and become better fuctioning members of society.
Well the other option is to not emancipate women and not let them be educated. In this case, who would be benefiting from the stable population? Definitely not women, which account for ~half the population last time I checked.
As far as the career homemakers you mention, there probably will be some of those. But they will not be forced into because they are "stupid"-- just like with "stupid" men there are simple things that anyone could do to produce things/services. They would be homemakers because they want to be homemakers, and if they want to be homemakers then they probably will care for their children. If a woman was just blatantly neglecting her children someone would intervene instead of just sitting around letting her give birth to more children which she'll just treat like a piece of trash. There wouldn't be a reason for anyone to have a child that they don't want in a society where they are given the opportunity to abort or give it up for adoption.


My sources for these theories is that when you look at very socialistic countries in for example Europe today,you have some, usually single mothers who basicallly live on the large amount of government handouts they get for all their(sometimes about 10 or 15) children. These children usually live in dirty ugly appartments or cheap houses where they live a very low quality life. The view the community has of this is usually very negative as well.
:glare:
You seem to be of the impression that socialism = capitalist welfare state. No.
As I said before, this would not happen in a socialist/communist society as people/the state would not just stand by as a child is being abused/neglected.


On my stance of communities raising a children: Ask dads whose wives cheated on them and whose child isn't really theirs and they know it. Most, if not all of these dads will leave the mother and the child. It's not their child, they don't feel any responsibility to it. The fact is just that the community you are talking about will feel no(or at least not a large amount of) motivation to succesfully raise a child that isn't theirs.
If people feel such as strong biological inclination to take care of their children then they will do so. Like I said, no one is going to stop someone from raising a child by themselves/with partner if they want, but the community will be there if they want. Child raising is really a social norm thing as opposed to a "human nature" thing. If it is expected that the community will chip in, then people will feel obligated to do so. The truth is I have no idea what family units/child raising will be like in the future nor does anyone, we can only make guess based on information we already have.

[Karlorax]

Some demographers got unfairly criticized during the Maoist period in China. There is a really interesting review I read (http://llco.org/dissent-science-and-a-healthy-world/), it includes some information about how the population issue was treated in China.

__________________

Currently reading, dare to join me? I am no Leading Light Communist, but I am studying their work for my MA thesis

Leading Light on Conspiracy Theory is Intelligent Design (http://llco.org/leading-light-on-conspiracy-theory-is-intelligent-design/)
Was Lin Biao guilty plotting a coup? Part 1 of 2 (draft) (http://llco.org/draft-was-lin-biao-guilty-plotting-a-coup-part-1-of-2/)
Revisiting Value and Exploitation (http://llco.org/revisiting-value-and-exploitation/)
What about the Gulag? Mao’s errors? Stalin’s? (http://llco.org/revolutionary-history-initial-summations/)

[NGNM85]

We have a loooooong way to go before 'underpopulation' becomes a problem that we actually have to worry about. Given the horrifying ecological devastation that we are wreaking on this planet, and the fact that most of that is produced by the West, declining populations in the western world is probably a good thing, on balance.

[Baseball]

Not to mention that capitalism needs a labor supply and when possible reserve labor to drive down wages through people competing for jobs.

Since modern porduction techniques allow people to produce far more than they could consume induvidually, a decline in population would not cause the kind of economic problems it does for modern capitalist states where then production declines, investment declines and so on.


One would think that socialism also needs a labor supply...

"Modern production techniques" are capitalist production techniques. It is rather doubtful that socialism would have them at its disposal. Relying upon them to resolve population issues in a socialist community seems a rather dubious proposition.

[Comrade Jacob]

Communism didn't exist tens of thousands of years ago

You should read "The origins of family..." By Engels.

[Jimmie Higgins]

One would think that socialism also needs a labor supply...No question there - any society needs some kind of labor supply. But what overpopulation and underpopulation mean socially depends on the ways those societies operate. A surplus economy based around production for use means that if the use or demand of something goes down, then production can be reduced accordingly without any negative effects. An economy based around production for profit or accumulation for the sake of accumulation runs into several major problems if the population declines A) it hurts the labor market from a capitalist standpoint because they loose some of the downward pressure on wages and job conditions that competition in conditions of joblessness creates B) consumtion declines and so less investment happens, capitalists sit on their money and an economic spiral could result in stagnation if not crisis.


"Modern production techniques" are capitalist production techniques. It is rather doubtful that socialism would have them at its disposal.Capitalism has an incentive to reduce and regulate labor times and so it creates amazing methods for producing a lot with the least labor possible. Maybe counter-intuituvly, workers have almost always opposed this process - but their opposition only makes sense in terms of having to compete on the labor market. Socialism would also have inherent incentives towards reducing necissary labor time - but it would be not maximizing exploitation and profit, it would be producing with less cost to our labor or materials.

But even if no new labor-saving technology is invented and we stay at current levels, there's no reason that a population decline in a socialist society would cause massive hardships (well unless the population decline was due to terrible hardships or a disease or something). Everyone today produces more wealth than they consume themselves or their family - this is how the rich and corporations have so much wealth. If all production was centered around meeting our needs and many of our basic wants (and production was not being used to create and maintain armadas and fleets of aircraft for war, to name just one major source of social wealth that regular people have no access to) then there's no reason that reduced consumer needs would cause hardship for remaining workers who would still be producing more than they could use themselves.

I suppose at a point, populations could become so scarse and scattered that people could only concentrate on meeting their own (or family) basic food and shelter needs and society would collapse and people would revert to living off the land. But that would have to be some major doomsday scenerio, not a population decline just based on people having one or two kids instead of several.

[Lokomotive293]

I just love how conservatives go from "You want abortion to be legal" to "You want everyone to have an abortion" to "But there won't be any babies!" and really believe those all logically follow from each other.

You know why so many people in Western Europe decide not to have children nowadays? Because raising children is damn expensive.
In the GDR (=real socialist country, unlike France), women could go to college or work full-time and still have a baby, and there was absolutely no problem, as there were free daycare centers everywhere, and mothers got everything they needed. And tons of people had babies. Abortion was legal, btw.

[Vireya]

You should read "The origins of family..." By Engels.

I will give it a read. I find utility in the works of Engels and Marx, though I'm not a marxist myself.

[Ritzy Cat]

If any of you have read Inferno by Dan Brown, a unique virus was let out into the global population that rendered 50% of its victims sterile. No death, and no immediate effects, and it is kind of brutal - but it would get the job done without any bloodshed.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

If any of you have read Inferno by Dan Brown, a unique virus was let out into the global population that rendered 50% of its victims sterile. No death, and no immediate effects, and it is kind of brutal - but it would get the job done without any bloodshed.

That would hardly be the problem though, in the long run. The story idea, furthermore, it's a quite the old idea - but that's because Dan Brown is as original as a sewer.

[helot]

I will give it a read. I find utility in the works of Engels and Marx, though I'm not a marxist myself.

You really should. It's not upto date (1884: how could it be?) but the basis of it is pretty much accepted throughout contemporary anthropology. I'm not a marxist either but this is my favourite thing written by Engels. It saddens me that alot of Marxists are quite unaware of Origin of the Family... as it has incredible implications for revolutionaries.

[crescent]

Mass 3rd world immigration

[Crux]

Mass 3rd world immigration
Bye bye.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Bye bye.

Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick, but my impression was that crescent was putting forth immigration from the third world as a means of maintaining population.

Of course, it would help if crescent explained exactly what they meant.

[Skyhilist]

Fewer people are a good thing because it means more resources can become freely available to all under socialism (less demand relative to supply). It also means more areas that can be reclaimed by a natural world that has already been decimated by human expansion. There will be plenty of work to go around for all able bodied people, but not so much that if everyone shares in the undesirable work they will be overburdened with a lower population (especially with fewer people meaning less demand). This would be a good thing under socialism. I'd also like to point out that with this established as a good thing, socialism would also decrease the birth rate in places like overcrowded Indian villages, because having more kids would no longer be an economic advantage. Socialism would solve a lot of potential population-induced problems actually. "Overpopulation" is an unpopular term here, but considering the inherent environmental impact of 7 billion (imagine 10 billion) people, I think it's obvious that the world could use a decrease in birth rate.

[Crux]

Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick, but my impression was that crescent was putting forth immigration from the third world as a means of maintaining population.

Of course, it would help if crescent explained exactly what they meant.
His previous posts were deleted by another admin because they were quotes from the Elder Scrolls of Zion or something rather similar in any case. About jews wanting to exterminate the white race. That post right there seals the deal for me.

[Vireya]

Fewer people are a good thing because it means more resources can become freely available to all under socialism (less demand relative to supply). It also means more areas that can be reclaimed by a natural world that has already been decimated by human expansion. There will be plenty of work to go around for all able bodied people, but not so much that if everyone shares in the undesirable work they will be overburdened with a lower population (especially with fewer people meaning less demand). This would be a good thing under socialism. I'd also like to point out that with this established as a good thing, socialism would also decrease the birth rate in places like overcrowded Indian villages, because having more kids would no longer be an economic advantage. Socialism would solve a lot of potential population-induced problems actually. "Overpopulation" is an unpopular term here, but considering the inherent environmental impact of 7 billion (imagine 10 billion) people, I think it's obvious that the world could use a decrease in birth rate.

I'll stick my neck out on this at the risk of sounding brash or trollish, but I must respond to this honestly.

If you're arguing less is better for nature and all, why not just kill everyone, the least humans you have is none right? The problem isn't "overpopulation", it is capitalism and it's inefficient distribution of basic needs and wealth.