The Broligarchs (Musk, Trump, Vance, and their entourage), and the oligarchs in general, seem to be panicking now about birthrates being too low for their liking. Trump himself may not be harping on it so much, but the others are. And they, along with the rest of the GOP are apparently more than willing to revoke women's hard-won reproductive rights in their zeal to raise the numbers.
But what about the supposedly legitimate economic fears of an aging (and eventually shrinking) population? Well, a recent study came out that found that such fears are essentially overblown. In fact, moderately low fertility (i.e. between 1.5-2.0 children per woman) and a shrinking population would actually maximize living standards for the general population. Another recent study found that there is essentially no robust correlation between population aging and economic growth, contrary to what many people seem to believe. Not to say that an aging population will not pose some challenges, but on balance the benefits would outweigh such drawbacks. And our Monetarily Sovereign federal government can easily absorb the fiscal costs of aging such as pensions and healthcare, since the issuer of its own currency by definition has infinite money.
Oh, and by the way, there is that elephant in the room--make that the "elephant in the Volkswagen"--OVERPOPULATION. Left unchecked, it will destroy the very planet that gives us life. While technology (and Monetary Sovereignty) can largely solve the foreseeable economic challenges of aging and declining populations, the same cannot really be said of the intractable ecological problems of overpopulation. And the only ethical way to do this is to voluntarily have fewer children, i.e. well below the "replacement rate" of 2.1 or so. And the TFR is now below that in the USA, around 1.6 to 1.7. The recent drop in birthrates is thus actually GOOD news on balance.
But wait, isn't the conspiracy narrative that the oligarchs in general want depopulation? Well, that may have been true in the past, but now that seems to be more of a "Scooby Doo" narrative (that is, the one that they want us all to "discover"). And in any case, Musk has long called for "more babies", and the Rethuglicans (both MAGA and otherwise) have long been on a self-righteous crusade of sorts to trample and revoke women's reproductive rights. There seem to be multiple agendas here, but in 2025, they all seem to be coalescing into one overarching agenda: to prop up the current Ponzi scheme and pyramid scheme that is neoliberal late capitalist patriarchy, by any means necessary.
Enter the iron laws of supply and demand, particularly how they apply to labor. Low birthrates now, by definition, portend labor shortages in the future, all else being equal. And we know what happened in the decades following the Black Death: the period from 1350-1500 was known as the "Golden Age of the European Proletariat" per Sylvia Federici. Why? Because after the population plummeted following the plague, there was a massive labor shortage, and the working class had a LOT of bargaining power. Wages went way up, working hours went down, and working conditions improved as well. And it sounded the death knell for feudalism. Of course, the ruling class then did two things in response: 1) the Burning Times (witch trials), which killed off many revolutionaries, as Federici notes in her book
Caliban and the Witch, and 2) the enclosures of the commons, thoroughly dispossessing and immiserating the working class. Both of which combined to pave the way for capitalism, and then imperialism, colonialism, and all that jazz, and as they say, the rest is history. Jason Hickel
discusses the latter in depth in his book,
Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World.
Cue the predictable cries of "nobody wants to work anymore!" from the chattering classes. Sound familiar? It's really more like, no one wants to be exploited anymore. And the oligarchs fear that like, well, the plague. Kings need peasants, after all.
Long story short, the ruling class fears a labor shortage, because that would upend their power, faster than they can automate the "problem" away. So why are they engaging in mass deportations now, which would cause a labor shortage in the short to medium term? Well, racism and white nationalism, for starters. And it also serves as a form of "chaos manufacture", that is, deliberately creating unnecessary chaos in a "shock and awe" campaign to mess with everyone's heads so as to seize more power.
In other words, it's all about power and control to these psychopaths, sociopaths, and malignant narcissists. The kinds of people that are not even bound by logical consistency, let alone ethics and morals.
All the more reason NOT to give the Broligarchs, and the oligarchs in general, what they want. Fie upon them!
UPDATE: Antonio Melonio notably wrote a
great article called "The Childfree Are Ungovernable", noting how the capitalist oligarchs have another, related major reason why they want the common people to have as many kids as possible ASAP: to make us all easier to control as good little serfs. And that dovetails well with
another good article of his: "Declining Birth Rates Are A Good Thing, Actually".
(Mic drop)
