The End of Abundance?

I cannot confirm it online. But I hear a rumour there has been a sudden drop in birth rates across the world just in the past year.

True or not, it is surely true that birth rates have been dropping in the developed world over the last few years; and in most of the rest of the world too.

Many reasons could be offered. Feminism, pushing women into the workforce and devaluing motherhood. The rising costs of, and requirement for, children’s education. The move from rural to urban; kids are less useful and more costly in a city. The growing availability of contraception. The ability to rely on social security, rather than family support, in old age.

But there is another possibility.

Darwin notes, in The Ascent of Man, that whenever Europeans encountered a local population that was significantly less materially advanced, the fertility rate of that population suddenly dropped dramatically.

Why?

Because their established world view was challenged. They experienced “culture shock.” As the future they expected was removed from sight, they felt there was no future. Why have children?

Our elites have been telling us for years there is no future: global warming will kill us all. Overpopulation was going to kill us all too. Moreover, our elites explain, our world view is wrong. There is no truth, no meaning. The principles on which our culture is founded are racist and misogynist and wrong.

Macron, President of France, recently said publicly that the “Age of Abundance” is over. We will have to learn to do with less.

There is certainly a pervasive sense that we are at the end of something. Exacerbated by thoughts of death from the pandemic.

But we are hearing this from Macron and the elites. What if they are wrong? What if the problem is not with our world view, but with the elites?

I suspect this is the case. In ordinary circumstances it would be odd to hear this pessimism from the elites. Aside from what is real, it is their job to rally morale. They seem to be doing the opposite. THis in itself suggest a problem with the elites.

Perhaps the elites are projecting on the rest of us their sense that their time is limited. Not ours; theirs. They hear time’s winged chariot drawing near.

This is so because the explosion in information technology makes experts less useful, and reduces their ability to control.

Xi in China, or Putin in Russia, look in danger of imminent loss of power. But they have largely brought it upon themselves by attempts increase or consolidate their power. Why did they get so reckless? Might they have been driven by desperation?

So too with Trudeau in Canada, Ardern in New Zealand, and the erratic actions of the media and the Deep State in the US. The dragon, mortally wounded, is thrashing about.

Do we need to fear, or are we overly influenced by the elite here?

Look for signs of vitality and optimism in the world. They do not come from anyone in the established elites. They are all gloom and doom.

Yet I saw a strong sense of optimism and hope in Canada’s Freedom Convoy, and its supporters around the world, last February. Peace and joy seemed to be breaking out all over. I see it in the United People of Canada, who have, perhaps suitably, taken over an Ottawa Church for open discussion from all sides.

The elites fear new ideas. These common people do not. Without new ideas, there is no future.

I see optimism instead of fear of the future in the “populists” who back Trump and “Making American Great Again,” in the US. Brexit in the UK was a new departure, and expressed confidence in the future.

Perhaps this tells us all we need to know. It is not that we have no future. It is that the future does not include the elites, and so they are fighting against it.

But in all likelihood, the future will come. It belongs to those who have hope and optimism.