This was a book written in 1987 by Ben Wattenberg, which claims that Americans were having less than replacement level children.
This was a bad thing because:
Social Secrity problems
Less rich white Americans
These many years later, was he wrong?
Is the birth rate going up in America? Elsewhere?
Down where?
First, I think that our birthrate has leveled off, and we have not achieved zero population growth. Some European countries are at or near negative population growth. But, immigration has more than accounted for this. Whether the SS problem is addressed is a little more complicated. Overall the world population keeps growing.
Why is fewer rich white Americans a problem?
First, I think that our birthrate has leveled off, and we have not achieved zero population growth. Some European countries are at or near negative population growth. But, immigration has more than accounted for this. Whether the SS problem is addressed is a little more complicated. Overall the world population keeps growing.
Why is fewer rich white Americans a problem?
If there are paying jobs available in America, and there are not enough well-educated whites or otherly-colored natives to take them, that will attract well-educated immigrants.
In fact, I recall reading an article a couple years ago, saying that the American high-tech industry was battling the INS to raise the number of legal immigrants to take jobs. This may have changed after the dotcom crash, but there are still a lot of Indian engineers and programmers out here around L.A.
This is a common rasist argument to get people worried about the other people who are not like us. I’ve heard this argument in every conflict situation between two groups of people. 'Those palestinians/irish/blacks/mexicans/communists are out breeding us and we will soon be overrun by them.
I’ve been reading editorials lately warning of the dire consequences of a falling birth rate. Personally, it’s the last thing I’m worried about. I read a column by somebody who was worried because new projections predict the world population peaking at “only” 9 billion instead of the 13 billion predicted before. If that’s true, it’s great news – we might actually be able to get past that peak with an intact civilization; I just hope we can avoid any famines great enough to bring on nuclear wars.
Overpopulation is still the word that sums up our biggest problem. There’s a growing concensus that as a species, we’re simply using up planetary resources faster than they can be replaced. I’m not worried about “the planet”; if we destroy ourselves, eventually the Earth will recover. I’m just selfish enough to want the human world not to be completely miserable.
And the industrialized countries are part of the problem so far, not part of the solution. I hope our birth rate keeps falling. Every American baby born will use the resources of about six kids in the third world; we have a much bigger “ecological footprint” because of our high-consumption, high-energy use lifestyles. I think couples should get a tax break for remaining childless.
Right now I’m reading The Death of the West by Pat Buchanan. I wouldn’t normally have picked it up, but was intrigued by the book’s subtitle, How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil our Country and Civilization. I’ve never given a second thought to falling birth rates, either, but this book has really made me think of the larger consequences of a falling birth rate in today’s crazy world. It made me aware of the connection between birth rate and population replacement and America’s position in the world. A falling birth rate means we can’t replace our current population and he discusses how that will weaken America, because other populations (Islamic, Arab, Muslim, African, Latin American) are going to town on the birth rate.
He also uses hard facts and figures persuasively to support his claim that America “harbors a nation within a nation”, that is, immigrants and illegal aliens, and says their populations are having a staggering amount of children while Americans have already fallen below the zero population, or simple population replacement rate. He does rant on about religion and popular culture, as he is wont to do, but actually it is a well-written and very interesting book that’s making me think. I thought I’d probably just skim it for the highlights, but I’m reading it cover to cover.
I pitty Pat Buchanan, he laments about us loosing when he doesn’t realize that we’ve already won. America has always been a melting pot. I don’t see him taking up the plight of the the Native Americans, if anyone has a right to complain about getting breeded out, they do. The WASPs were just the first to do so and now they’re getting cranky that the same thing is happening to them (I’m a WASP BTW).
Personally I welcome it. The way I figure it, the best and the brightest from around the world are immigrating to our gene pool because it’s the place to be. We have to stop thinking about color and start thinking about culture. If Pat is motivated onto his patriotic soap box by fears of diluting the American Dream, he hasn’t spent enough time looking at the rest of the world. They are just as concerned about the fact that Westernized American culture is abducting the youth meant to take up the family business of perpetuating theirs. Hell, there’s even an India MTV.
Pedro and Maria might have nine kids growing up in a small house in NY, but those kids are American. They speak American English, dress like the rest of us, and dream the same dream. America has been inundated by first and second generation immigrants for hundreds of years and it has only helped us to grow. Even if all the whites die out America will still be America, because these people come here not to take us over but to become part of us.
Pat is an idiot, the west is not dying, it is growing at a rate that scares the rest of the world. Ask any Arab nation how they feel about their children dressing in jeans and listening to Rage Against the Machine. We are the only nation in the world that doesn’t have a country suffux at the end of our dot coms. More people listen to our music and watch our movies outside of the US than within. We should feel honored, and maybe a little bit scared about how seriously everyone else is taking us.
Yes, Mr. Wattenberg was accused of racism, because he thought that it would be bad if all the commie nations had lots more folk than us.
This was back in 1987 however.
I’d thought the world population was getting too big, not too small.
Isn’t the birth dearth over?
He said back in the 80’s, we were at 1.8 children a couple, instead of the 2.1 that was needed to sustain us.
It was kind of a reaction to the Population Explosion book.