Not a population time bomb, but a revolutionary opportunity for the Third World:
Demographic facts back MIM line on gender
White nationalism on the horizon
So why not join in the "culture wars"?
Imperialist country wimmin are having fewer and
fewer children. The New York Times finally ran an
article in August admitting that the "population
bomb" of 1960s lore looks like a dud. In 1968,
the UN worried about 12 billion people existing
in 2050. Now 9 billion seems likely--still
a 50% increase from now.(1) The decline
is both in the imperialist countries and the Third World--
the whole world.
The underlying reason that population theorist
Malthus is proving wrong again this time (and Mao right by
the way) is the dynamics of leisure-time. After
centuries of being coerced into having children by
parents and grandparents and by the economic
necessity of having someone as a caretaker in old
age, we are now seeing a drop-off in the birth
rate. Whereas it used to be necessary to have
maybe 10 children to see two survive, now parents
have fewer and fewer children in the rich
countries, because health-care is good enough to
see most children survive and because wimmin now
have more opportunities open to them than in the
past.
As a larger portion of wimmin work in the rich
countries, we see that on average wimmin are
choosing to put their time into career and non-
children-oriented leisure-time lives rather than
children-oriented leisure-time lives. Many richer
wimmin have figured out that they will not die if
they have no children. Thanks to various lacks of
opportunity and superstitions, wimmin only rarely
came to that conclusion in the past.
This is not to say it is the case of every single
imperialist country womyn to give up motherhood--
of course not. Many still choose "traditional
family." The point is the percentages or average.
Although U.$. population is not declining, it has
ceased growing in the old patterns. According to a
Rutgers study, "just one-third of American
households--are choosing to have children. That's
down from 80 percent in the mid-1800s and 50
percent in 1960. By 2010, the US Census Bureau
projects just one-quarter of all American
households will have children
living in them."(2)
No matter who preaches, a powerful trend like the
one we are seeing now does not alter course.
The Pope is famous for advocating no birth control
and large families--especially relative to Protestantism.
Yet, in Italy, a recent poll found 52% of females aged
16 to 24 plan to have no children.(3) It's powerful proof
of Marx's science that ideas do not move history: underlying
material forces do.
"By 2000, Italy's fertility rate was Western
Europe's lowest, at 1.2 births per woman. Its
population is expected to drop 20 percent by
midcentury.
"Italy plummeted right past wealthy, liberal,
Protestant Denmark, where women got birth control
early. Denmark was below population replacement
level in 1970, at 2.0 births per woman, and slid
to 1.7 by 2001."(1)
The United $tates is averaging 2.13 births per
womyn,(1) enough to break even in population. The
crypto-racists like Patrick Buchanan are concerned
that within that white wimmin have given up on
Christian family like the Europeans.
Apparently, having a Pope in the backyard is not
good enough, so self-professed
"counterrevolutionary" Patrick Buchanan has given
praise to fascist Franco, the general in Spain who
took power with help from Mussolini and Hitler.(4)
Yet, even there, the land of Franco has reached a
point where it has the lowest birthrate in Europe
according to Buchanan.
Even in the least Westernized of the major white
race countries--Russia-- Buchanan recounts that
population will fall from 147 million to 114
million by 2050 thanks to a birthrate of 1.35
children per womyn.(4)
One of the biggest changes for wimmin since Mao's
absolutely revolutionary advances for wimmin is
occurring right now in Japan, where the taboo
against wimmin staying unmarried after 30 is
suddenly gone with more than half unmarried after
30.(5) In 1985, 30.6% of Japanese wimmin were
unmarried in their late 20s. Now it is 54%.(6)
Among couples, the average produces 1.32
children,(6) when 2.08 is necessary
to replace Japanese population.
Here's another interesting leisure-time dynamic--
Japan's check-ins at love hotels are off 20% or
more in the last five years. Love hotels used to
have one purpose dedicated to a couple hours
of action. Now they have shifted to
Karaoke and video games.(6)
Meanwhile, Japanese divorce has also increased
from 1.3 divorces per 1000 people in 1990 to 2.3
in 2002, which is still below the U.$. 4.0 per
1000 people.(6)
The most revealing of all is that economic factors
appear to underlie the new choices of wimmin.
Young wimmin live with prosperous parents who do
not have overcrowded houses as they did 50 or 100
years ago. The perception of both male and female
singles in Japan is that living together with the opposite
sex would result in a decrease in living
standards-- 59.9% in the case of wimmin who live
with their parents and 58.2% of men who live with
their parents. Even among singles living apart
from their parents, most perceive not much gain in
shacking up. Only 20.9% see their living standards
would increase that way among wimmin singles and
14.2% among men.(6) These economic and
sociological complexities have found their
expression in the idea that "the good men are all
married." "Good men" translates as sufficiently
richer than the wimmin's parents that Japanese
single wimmin would not feel a disadvantage of
doing chores around the house.
In many ways, the Japanese situation is the
most revealing of all the imperialist country
situations, because the situation of Japanese
wimmin had been most backward of the imperialist
countries--with no permission for careers or
staying unmarried after 30 up until recently.
Today we see that Japan may have to choose between
letting wimmin work or taking in immigrants,
something very psychologically difficult for the
Japanese labor aristocracy and rulers. A survey
has also uncovered what really used to keep the
Japanese family glued together-- not love, but
money. It just so happens that in this odd moment
in history, Japanese wimmin expect to have a lower
standard of living if they marry Japanese men. It
is better to live with one's parents economically-
speaking--not in every case, but on average. So
now, Japanese wimmin have lost interest in
Japanese men--not in every case but on average.
This shows in the statistics and
disproves ages of received "wisdom" on the family.
The Japanese case definitely reinforces MIM's
theory that leaves open the possibility that sex
may disappear as non-sexual coercion of wimmin
disappears. It certainly seems that if desire is
only the eroticization of power, when power
disappears, desire may also. Already Japanese
report having sex less than one third as much as
Amerikans--36 times a year to 124 for
Americans.(6)
The Japanese statistics raise the question whether
Japanese men will be able to change a few cultural
habits and then woo Japanese wimmin again or
whether there is a more profound trend, even more
radical than that by Japanese and international
standards. Right now it looks like the truth may
very well be that Japanese wimmin submitted for
centuries as a favor to men and as a factor in
peace at home. Now that wimmin are OK economically
in Japan without boyfriends or husbands, the
romance culture goes out the window--not in every
single case but in the majority.
The reactionaries may oppose the trend by giving
ever steeper tax cuts to people who have children. As that
becomes the only way to bribe people into having
family, the traditional brainwashing on the family
will stand only more exposed. The risk is that the
entire people will realize that money holds the whole
thing together.
MIM does not have a theory for all the leisure-
time reasons that well-off people prefer a life of
partying or socializing to a life of raising
children. The invention of the pill may be
an explanation for some of the increased leisure-time
spent enjoying life instead of raising children.
However, we can say that the facts prove
that coercion was an essential part of the family
unit prior to the economic prosperity and
independence of wimmin seen in the imperialist
countries today. There is no other possible
explanation for why better-off wimmin choose to
have fewer children or forego gender relations entirely
as in Japan.
Even Patrick Buchanan admitted the truth about
wimmin's choices--if only in one sentence in a whole
book in which he tries to invalidate those choices:
"This is not a matter of conspiracy but of consensus,
of free choice. European women have decided they
want one or two children, or none, and they have
the means--contraception, sterilization, and
abortion."(7)
Birth rates are higher in
more coercive cultures. Whether referred to as a
duty to God, country or family, the raising of
children by many wimmin in the past looks rather
forced, now that we see what wimmin would do in
better-off circumstances economically-speaking.
MIM would like to see the coercion of wimmin
in the family unit reduced internationally.
MIM celebrates the choices of the white wimmin to
become more independent and enjoy themselves. It
means that many fewer troops available to destroy
Iraq, occupy Korea, Haiti and Afghanistan etc.
In the short and medium-run the facts of war and
peace are much more important than anything
about population.
Notes:
The facts of population growth are pointing to
serious cranky white nationalist outbursts in the coming
years. The strategy of Patrick Buchanan is out in
the open in his book The Death of the West: "Only a social
counterrevolution or a religious awakening can
turn the West around before a falling birthrate closes
off the last exit ramp and rings down the curtain on
Western Man's long-running play. But not a sign of either
can be seen on the horizon."(1) In order to save
"Western civilization" from population suicide,
Buchanan has become the official theorist of the Amerikkkan
trailer trash. "Go Bubba, go! Get your honey to squeeze
out another rug-rat!" Talk about the barbarians from within!
He has seen correctly that the demographic trend
toward aging disproportionately affects the
imperialist countries and that means the white
race. Repeatedly he says that he has to admit
that the Western culture he cherishes may
be doomed.(1)
Buchanan does not give any reason for why
he wants to preserve the white race or why Third
World people cannot take up Western culture, in
which he counts Marxism. Instead, knowing full
well that demographic tides are impossible
for anybody to overturn, Buchanan calls for a "shoot-for-the-
moon" strategy--an extremely dangerous one with
all the main rules written by Hitler.
Buchanan argues a la Hitler that cosmopolitan
elites have ruined the West with their
decadent pornographic culture(2) that causes wimmin to enjoy
life and not raise children in stable families.
(Buchanan's argument is so out-of-date and old-
fashioned, most people today won't see that it is
from Hitler's book Mein Kampf and earlier
reactionary works. In other words it may seem that
what Buchanan is saying is even "novel.")
Buchanan recognizes full well that the way things
are there will be no one to pay the social
security pensions when all the whites of the
current generation retire in the united $tates and
Europe. (This might be one reason he made the
observation that he could tolerate a 90% tax for
some tax brackets.(3)) Despite the facts about the
danger to pensions in the imperialist countries,
Buchanan actually wants to halt immigration, not
increase it! In other words, he sees things getting out of wack
soon and he wants to make it worse.
Buchanan also raises hoary stories about politically
correct people run amok and treating Blacks too
liberally.(4) They need to be under more control
Buchanan says; even though the prisons already
hold a higher percentage of Blacks than Stalin's
peacetime prisons held of Soviet citizens--something
Nixon propagandist Buchanan and the like never mention anywhere.
We should be clear that even rich retired people
with many assets can face a life of ruin without
immigration from the Third World. What MIM is calling
for is difficult for whites to see but not entirely opposed
to their interests and even Buchanan obliquely acknowledges it.
Money is worthless with no one to hire or with a ruinous
inflation caused by too few workers to produce
goods and services. (This is another reason that
commodity fetishism is just that--fetishism.
Having big numbers in the bank account mean
nothing if the demographics are not right.)
In other words, Buchanan is betting that 25 years
from now, imperialist governments will not raise
taxes sufficiently. He won't be too sad if social
security disappears. That's part of "socialism" in
the baby-talk of this sort of reactionary anyway.
This is the kind of guy who sees millions die in
Russia from diminishing pensions and alcoholism and without
batting an eyelash says the sacrifice is necessary for
capitalist success hundreds of years in the Russian future.
Drawing a comparison with ancient empires
destroyed by "barbarians" from within, Buchanan
says that immigrants from the Third World do not
assimilate into Western culture. They move in and
simply reproduce without changing or improving he says. Of
course he points to the 911 hijackers as an
example of immigration;(5) even though the white nation
he loves arrived by immigration too.
Buchanan calls on the whites to go back to the
Christian family(6) to reproduce and do without all
the disruption caused by immigration. With their
social services being higher than in the United
$tates, the Europeans according to Buchanan are in
deeper trouble than the Amerikans, and this is
part of the reason that Buchanan claims to want to
withdraw from Europe and empire generally. Maybe
he sees the writing on the wall and wants to
give fascism a chance to rise again in Europe.
In any case, Buchanan says Europe would have to allow
in 1.4 billion Third World emigrants in order to maintain
the present level of social-services in Europe in 2050.(7)
For this reason, he says Europe is headed to being
a "Third World continent."
To all the short-sighted labor bureaucrats and
labor aristocrats attacking NAFTA & GATT
agreements because they allow Third World workers
to "steal our jobs," MIM points out that Pat
Buchanan and the KKK agree with you.
It is very
clear that Buchanan intends fully to unite with
the Naders and social-democrats to stop the
stealing of "our jobs." "As the Battle of Seattle
showed, the passion and fire, be it laborite, Naderite
or Far Right, were outside the hall in the street."(8)
As far as MIM is concerned, we've been down that road
before of idiotic racist social-democrats paving the
way to fascist victory. What Buchanan is talking about
underscores the urgency of taking up the MIM line and
only the MIM line in the imperialist countries. The
rare internationalist social-democrats who want reforms to
open the borders, reduce tariffs on the Third World
and internationalize any agricultural subsidies are our friends.
The majority of social-democrats
are the conscious and unconscious instigators of fascism.
They demand high levels of social services while undercutting
the means for paying for them.
With luck, Buchanan is thinking
that there won't be enough workers to pay for
social security, so the welfare state will come
tumbling down. With bad luck from Buchanan's
point of view, taxes will go up
very high to cover the welfare state, but at least
the taxes will provide a deterrent to immigration these
white nationalists think. Working for the
Republican Party most of his life with a mantra of
cutting taxes and big government, Buchanan has
offered a glimpse of unity with the taxers if he
can save Christianity and the racial composition
of the imperialist countries.
Perhaps there can be a major threat to pensions
and a rise in taxes without a social explosion landing
in fascism. MIM would not bet on it in the imperialist
countries, which is another reason to favor the MIM platform
to open the borders and work on getting white people used to it.
While Buchanan is a simple-minded and open enemy,
in many ways the European social-democratic nationalist
or racist is the worst enemy. The racist social-democrat
demands services while also opposing immigration; thereby
creating the worst sort of economic crisis that plays
right into fascist hands when the public becomes frustrated
for social and economic reasons it does not understand.
As MIM has said in Imperialism
and Its Class Structure in 1997 if there is one concession
that makes sense to make to the labor aristocracy,
it is their pensions in return for political
quietude. The MIM line championing the Third
World proletariat and opening the borders of
imperialist countries--if carried out quickly
enough--can provide a sufficient basis to pay a
pension to retiring imperialist country workers.
One has to let in immigrants now if they are to have
children to support others in old age.
With the line of Buchanan or Nader, the economic
or tax basis for support of social security will
be very much in doubt.
It will be far better to
handle some insecurities about jobs now than to face
a crisis of social security and stupid white nationalists
complaining about that and a sudden influx of immigrants
later. The whites need to prepare themselves now
for the MIM line on the Third World and stop borrowing
money from the world to attack Third World countries,
which are going to be providing the economic well-being
of elderly whites if anyone does.
Instead of bowing to economic necessity, Buchanan makes it
clear that he seeks to impose minority rule: "Western
civilization and culture are superior. One-person, one-vote
democracy is not an inviolate principle. . . On a global basis
it will not do. With 4 percent of the world's people and
30 percent of its economic wealth and military power,
Americans should be the last people on earth to be babbling
nonsense about the equality of nations."(9)
If the species survives
weapons of mass destruction and environmental destruction
by 2050 and socialism does not
seize the world by then, there may well be a competition in reformist internationalism
instead of nationalism. More advanced countries will realize
that it makes sense to get along with large numbers of people
including peoples who are having many children. The narrow-minded will
fall by the economic wayside.
Notes:
2. Ibid., e.g., p. 84.Demographic facts back MIM line on gender
1. DONALD G. McNEIL Jr., "Demographic
'Bomb' May Only Go 'Pop!'" New York Times
29Aug2004.
2. Carlene Hempel, "No kids, please," Boston Globe Magazine 22Feb2004, p. 19.
3. Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying
Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country
and Civilization (NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), p. 16.
Go To Amazon.com to Buy
This Book
4. Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying
Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country
and Civilization (NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), p. 17.
5. Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying
Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country
and Civilization (NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), p. 21.
6. USA Today 3June2004, pp. 15a, 17a.
7. Buchanan, p. 99.
White nationalism on the horizon
1. Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying
Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country
and Civilization (NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2002), p. 47.
Go To Amazon.com to Buy
This Book
"The rise of feminism spells the death of the nation
and the end of the West." Ibid., p. 42.
"The death of the West may already be baked in the cake."
Ibid., p. 231.
"Candor compels one to admit that the prognosis is not good." Ibid., p. 264.
3. Ibid., p. 37.
4. Ibid., e.g., p. 70.
5. Ibid., p. 235.
6. See for example Buchanan's call for religious
war to stop gay marriage: http://www.theamericancause.org/patyesvirginia.htm
7. Ibid., p. 22.
8. Ibid., p. 240.
9. Ibid., p. 246.