Change imminent for China's One Child Policy

first of all, i never said that poor people in india and the philippines are net consumers, nor was i the one to bring those countries into the discussion in the first place.

secondly, it makes no difference if there is a government safety net to support the people in india/the philippines' slums, the fact that they are underemployed makes the situation more malthusian than in a place where they can be more productive. the fact that so many people cannot find employment that allows them to reach their productive potential means that they will likely stay poor because their numbers only devalues their labour. granted, if the market adjusts and all of a sudden gainful new job markets are created to accommodate these people then the situation will be less malthusian, but that is not the case in most places where there is overpopulation.

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If we accept that nearly everyone everywhere is a net producer or "break evener" over their lifetime, then Malthus' argument falls. Malthus was afraid that people would consume more than they produce over their lifetime but there is no long-term example of that in the modern world.

Anti-natalists often point to the slums of India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. as evidence of overpopulation. They say there aren't enough jobs or food for people, and thus those people leach off the work of everyone else. Yet the fact that residents of slums have to work for everything they have--and do work and make money--shows that slum residents are not parasitic. In fact they are important contributors to the economy. This says slum residents constitute 7% of India's GDP.

The second Malthusian/anti-natalist argument is that large populations are bad because it means people will be poor. Even though we know high population growth does not cause poverty, even if that were true it does not justify anti-natal policies like China's One Child Policy. Even poor people's lives have value.

Anti-natalists often point to the terrible living conditions of the aforementioned slums. Their argument is that slum residents would be better off not existing than living in their current conditions. And yet suicide is thankfully a rare occurrence. Thus we can say that given the choice between a life of poverty and no life at all, most people would choose the life of poverty.

Posters on this thread have bemoaned the under-employment of Chinese college graduates, saying there are more workers than good jobs. So who among those under-employed workers would you eliminate? I wouldn't eliminate anyone. Even an uneducated manual laborer's life has value. Notice how the anti-natalists and neo-Malthusians always talk about overpopulation as being someone else's problem. I remember a satirical t-shirt which said "I'm not overpopulation, it must be you!"

Geographer said:

If we accept that nearly everyone everywhere is a net producer or "break evener" over their lifetime, then Malthus' argument falls. Malthus was afraid that people would consume more than they produce over their lifetime but there is no long-term example of that in the modern world.

Anti-natalists often point to the slums of India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. as evidence of overpopulation. They say there aren't enough jobs or food for people, and thus those people leach off the work of everyone else. Yet the fact that residents of slums have to work for everything they have--and do work and make money--shows that slum residents are not parasitic. In fact they are important contributors to the economy. This

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says slum residents constitute 7% of India's GDP.

The second Malthusian/anti-natalist argument is that large populations are bad because it means people will be poor. Even though we know high population growth does not cause poverty, even if that were true it does not justify anti-natal policies like China's One Child Policy. Even poor people's lives have value.

Anti-natalists often point to the terrible living conditions of the aforementioned slums. Their argument is that slum residents would be better off not existing than living in their current conditions. And yet suicide is thankfully a rare occurrence. Thus we can say that given the choice between a life of poverty and no life at all, most people would choose the life of poverty.

Posters on this thread have bemoaned the under-employment of Chinese college graduates, saying there are more workers than good jobs. So who among those under-employed workers would you eliminate? I wouldn't eliminate anyone. Even an uneducated manual laborer's life has value. Notice how the anti-natalists and neo-Malthusians always talk about overpopulation as being someone else's problem. I remember a satirical t-shirt which said "I'm not overpopulation, it must be you!"

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Your argument is flawed because you assume that "money = resources".

Malthus was not concerned with productivity, he was concerned with natural resources. You cannot argue that natural resources is finite, because we live on a finite planet.

Productivity can delay a malthusian scenario, but that factor depends on the degree of productivity vs overpopulation. In essence, productivity offsets overpopulation.

Productivity is not the goal. You cannot argue that just because the extremely poor are "net producers", this is a good thing. In fact, by your definition, any group that is not a "net producer" will simply die out, so you're really just arguing a tautology.

The goal of life is to live well. A nation prospers not when it has a lot of people eking out an existence in the slums, but when its citizens can lead a safe and bountiful existence. The standards of living of a country is determined by the amount of resources available to each resident. Productivity allows us to do more with less, but it cannot offset population increases indefinitely. Unless you go into the realm of colonizing other planets, a rather unrealistic scenario in the foreseeable future.

You also argue that we haven't seen any Malthusian catastrophe since it was proposed over 200 years ago, but you are wrong. We have seen plenty of Malthusian catastrophes, just not on a global scale.

A Malthusian catastrophe (also known as Malthusian check) was originally foreseen to be a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production.

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"Agricultural production" simply means the availability of resources. We see people being forced to return to subsistence-level conditions due to a lack of resources whenever a famine occurs or when wars and genocide happens due to economic reasons. (And as things go, wars and genocides almost *always* happen for economic reasons.)

These things are understood implicitly, hence why no sane government is going to adopt an infinite growth policy like you seem to argue for.

Finally, you don't have to kill people to reduce population over time. That's a straw man argument.

One thing posters here fail to recognize is that changing this policy does not mean China will become India or the Philippines. Those two are the ultimate strawmen in this debate.

China's labor to dependent ratio is steadily falling. China achieved its highest rate of capital accumulation and its highest rate of economic growth at a higher ratio than it did now, and while fixing the one child policy may drop the ratio in the short term, in the long term a revised policy will bring its labor-to-dependency ratio back to a 'goldilocks point'.

Well that's the hope. I emphasis that. The damage has been done and I doubt this slightly loosened version of the policy is actually going to solve the problem of the population problems. As it stands the labor force is already loosing numbers at a faster rate then originally protected. With the new policies it will still take generations to correct the population decline and adjust the sex ratio away from its current numbers. As it stands today China is still likely to be on the same downward population spiral. Additional headaches for the CCP is that the policy of one child was not governed evenly over the whole of the population. Ethnic groups other then the Han were not included. This is a population density that could cause the Chinese government problems as they try to keep the status quo in occupied territories with smaller and smaller numbers of officials.

You also argue that we haven't seen any Malthusian catastrophe since it was proposed over 200 years ago, but you are wrong. We have seen plenty of Malthusian catastrophes, just not on a global scale.

Malthusian catastrophe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Wikipedia article does not give examples of Malthusian catastrophes.

Geographer said:

The Wikipedia article does not give examples of Malthusian catastrophes.

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It provides a definition on the very first line:

A Malthusian catastrophe (also known as Malthusian check) was originally foreseen to be a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production.

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Refugees forced into starvation and abject poverty by wars caused by economic problems certainly fits that definition.

The one child policy would result in increased inheritance, because of a decreasing number of people and increased efforts per child (including sex determination and education). It does create a mindset about children that is very different from having numerous offsprings with as little investment as necessary.
To keep a population stable and avoid problems of overaging, a two child policy is necessary. I presume, the path taken will be to reduce legal burdens for families with two children in order to create a viable legal option to the one child family.
High to Late Medieval Europe is an example of a Malthusian catastrophy with low population levels and wealth for several centuries thereafter. The catastrophe came in several waves with loss of harvest due to abnormal weather and illnesses ravaging the survivors. China is far from it, under current conditions, nor has it reached the maximum of agricultural output of the land, as in Europe prior to this event. You could rather argue about a Malthusian trap, but that is neither the case.

Geographer said:

Anti-natalists often point to the slums of India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Brazil, etc. as evidence of overpopulation. They say there aren't enough jobs or food for people, and thus those people leach off the work of everyone else. Yet the fact that residents of slums have to work for everything they have--and do work and make money--shows that slum residents are not parasitic. In fact they are important contributors to the economy. This

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says slum residents constitute 7% of India's GDP.

The second Malthusian/anti-natalist argument is that large populations are bad because it means people will be poor. Even though we know high population growth does not cause poverty, even if that were true it does not justify anti-natal policies like China's One Child Policy. Even poor people's lives have value.

Anti-natalists often point to the terrible living conditions of the aforementioned slums. Their argument is that slum residents would be better off not existing than living in their current conditions. And yet suicide is thankfully a rare occurrence. Thus we can say that given the choice between a life of poverty and no life at all, most people would choose the life of poverty.

Posters on this thread have bemoaned the under-employment of Chinese college graduates, saying there are more workers than good jobs. So who among those under-employed workers would you eliminate? I wouldn't eliminate anyone. Even an uneducated manual laborer's life has value. Notice how the anti-natalists and neo-Malthusians always talk about overpopulation as being someone else's problem. I remember a satirical t-shirt which said "I'm not overpopulation, it must be you!"

Click to expand...

And how long does those poor people are willing to accept their fate? when they see their more fortunate fellow citizens driving in BMWs, living in air-conditioned nice apartments and mansions just 1km away from their shanty houses made from paper, plastic, earthen floors, mud-and-wattle walls, barely making enough money to eat.

With their factory bosses determined to milked every single drop of their sweat and blood for $2 a day.

I worked as a volunteer doctor at medicines sans frontieres couple of years ago, and I have visited many slums in brazil, india and philipines and the living conditions of those poor people is just beyond tragic.

Exploiting poor and uneducated people for cheap labor is not only despicable policy, but also a recipe for social instability.
I think the duty of all governments in the world is to lift as many people as possible out of poverty and to live well.
Therefore all governments should aim to create a middle class society and having more than a billion people in your country will make that task a lot more difficult.