Breeding for Growth?

The dumbest idea

The idea that we need more people to keep the economy expanding is really stupid. On the face of it, the idea presupposes pretty much everything that might make the world a better place.

Logically, more people means more consumers, but labeling someone a “consumer” does not necessarily mean much by itself especially in terms of economic productivity. For example, it might be useful to ask if those people are going to grow up to just barely make ends meet and struggle to survive or if they are going to grow up to be full middle-class consumers capable of voraciously spending money on restaurants, hobbies, and retirement accounts and other investment vehicles that power a dynamic, sustainable 21st-century economy. There is a big difference between the two, and increasing the former will not make up for the lack of the latter.

Also, an important follow-up question to ask is what the overall conditions of the society that those extra children are going to be born into. Is it one that will actually promote sustainable growth? Is it a society with wealth inequality approaching escape velocity with a massive underclass of poor people living in squalor? Is it a society living in a dog-eat-dog geopolitical hellscape of great powers fighting each other in an overlapping kaleidoscope of cold, hot, and proxy wars? Is it a world where the constant drive for economic growth continues to destroy the rainforests, pollute the oceans, and destroy the environment? Is it a world where the rich are literally buying up private islands and building walled compounds to hedge their bets against social and political catastrophe?

Focusing solely on headcount, and ignoring any of the hard work that might make society better, is the stupidest and least efficient way to go about expanding the economy. For example, we could just collectively agree to have 2 million more babies born every single year, and yes, some of them will grow up in middle-class families and get a good education and then when they are 25 start buying more phones, cars, houses, and other products to grow the economy more than it otherwise would have been. But that will just likely perpetuate the exact same percentage of financially secure people that we already have today, and also it will take 25 years. It would surely be far more efficient to instead focus on the approximate 90 million Americans aged 20-40 living right now who, given marginally more fair and equitable tax and redistribution policies, could thrive and dramatically expand the economy right now.

A second reason focusing on headcount is stupid is that it treats individuals as interchangeable units of economic output as though their mere existence is what creates “growth.” Ironically, many of the people making this argument, like Elon Musk, are exactly the kind of people whose personal life stories explain where economic dynamism often comes from; namely people who have had ample access to quality education, health care, and a variety of incredible opportunities funded, subsidized, or otherwise supported by government programs, stable communities, and functioning institutions. Oh, and bailouts, too.

If we really cared about maintaining and expanding a strong, dynamic economy, we would not punt on hypothetical babies who may or may not buy Teslas and Nintendo Switch 6’s in the 2050s, we would work to create real pathways for upward mobility now.

FINAL ANALYSIS: 0.7 Nitwits

Let me know, are YOU breeding for growth???