# Declining population= higher standard of living? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 27, 2018, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923 "2018-05-27T21:04:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/41 "2018-05-28T17:13:26Z")
_Unrestricted_ Capitalism would be a nightmare for the Human race. The economic battle between Republicans and Democrats is about the degree of restrictions. Republicans on the side of least possible restrictions, Democrats desiring restrictions that protect the people and the environment. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/42 "2018-05-28T17:33:09Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > A declining population means a declining workforce, and a declining workforce means declining national productivity. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I guess it depends where you stand. The Black Plague wiped out about a third of the people in Europe. As a result there was not enough labor to do all the work and that put an end to feudalism and serfdom. Each lord no longer had enough serfs to do the work needed so they had to entice others to come work for them with the promise of better conditions and pay and whatnot. When you have a glut of labor employers can suppress wages and working conditions to absurdly low levels because there is always someone else who will do the work for a little less than the current person doing it. Yeah productivity goes up but at what cost? ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/43 "2018-05-28T18:01:31Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > A declining population means a declining workforce, and a declining workforce means declining national productivity. > > Basically, as long as each worker produces more than he consumes, the the addition of own worker to the population raises production, both in absolute and per-capita terms. > > It’s not as simple as that, of course, because you have to grapple with things like changes to dependency ratios in the population,etc. But the analysis in the OP basically treats wealth as a fixed quantity, to be divided among the population, so a smaller population means a larger share of the cake for all. That’s not right; the population both produces and consumes the cake, so a smaller population means a smaller cake. My daughter was just learning about China in her geography class and this nails a lot of it. They’ve had declining birthrates and will be dealing with an aging population. The costs of caring for the older, retired population combined with a shortage of working age people could cause some major economic headaches. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/44 "2018-05-28T22:29:39Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > _Unrestricted_ Capitalism would be a nightmare for the Human race. Unrestricted capitalism has been an outstanding success for the human race. Just count the number of people there are in the world compared with 500 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/45 "2018-05-28T22:34:31Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Unrestricted capitalism has been an outstanding success for the human race. You obviously don’t know what unrestricted capitalism is. It certainly isn’t what we have now. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/46 "2018-05-28T23:28:22Z")
I think the primary retort to the black death example is…So what? There are countless examples where countries’ populations have increased at the same time as the economy has grown significantly. So a single example of the opposite correlation…tells us what? ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2018, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/47 "2018-05-28T23:43:36Z")
From another source; \*Economic Impact The Black Death turned the economy upside-down. It disrupted trade and put manufacturing on hold as skilled artisans and merchants died by the thousands—not to mention the customers who bought their wares. Workers’ wages skyrocketed as arable land lay fallow; landlords, desperate for people to work their land, were forced to renegotiate farmers’ wages. Famine followed. Widespread death eroded the strict hereditary class divisions that had, for centuries, bound peasants to land owned by local lords.\* It also mentions that the Medici family was a rural family that moved to Florence in the aftermath of the plague and first gained wealth in the wool trade, then branched out into banking before becoming the powerful House they did. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2018, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/48 "2018-05-29T13:50:59Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Cite? For suggesting a hypothesis? Surely you jest. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/49 "2018-05-30T01:05:15Z")
A declining population means there is a bigger share of the physical goods for the remaining people. For example, with a smaller population, there is more food to go around. But a declining population means there are fewer people to provide the services that are needed. So if population gets so small there aren’t enough people to harvest the food crops, that’s a problem. Sometimes, improved technology can increase productivity of each person to compensate. In our modern economy, services (communication technology, computer programming, personal services) are growing compared to the production & distribution of physical goods. So a declining population is a mixed blessing for the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/50 "2018-05-30T02:20:02Z")
With global warming, there won’t be enough ice floes to put old people on and push them out to sea. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/51 "2018-05-30T02:40:44Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > With global warming, there won’t be enough ice floes to put old people on and push them out to sea. By then we will have robotic icebergs that push themselves out to sea. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/52 "2018-05-30T04:19:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > With global warming, there won’t be enough ice floes to put old people on and push them out to sea. I don’t see the issue. We just have to stack the old people higher. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923/53 "2018-05-30T05:04:37Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > A declining population means there is a bigger share of the physical goods for the remaining people. For example, with a smaller population, there is more food to go around. > > But a declining population means there are fewer people to provide the services that are needed. So if population gets so small there aren’t enough people to harvest the food crops, that’s a problem. Well more than that, because in the journey from soil to plate there are many roles for humans right now. With the world as it is today, cutting the population will cut the number of people who can work in processing, distribution, sales etc with knock on effects for food prices. And other economic factors come to play: it just doesn’t make sense for landowners to farm the same amount of land and let the price drop even as costs increase. …unless they start to export more, but then there’s no significant local change in price or availability. So unless we’re talking about countries that are food scarce right now, there’s little to no benefit in a smaller population: the supply will likely drop in line with declining demand. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/declining-population-higher-standard-of-living/814923.md?page=2)