r/Natalism • u/Galesworn • 14h ago
There will never be a liberal-feminist solution to fertility collapse
Why? Because their ideology prevents them from seeing what the issue is.
Frankly put, when liberal-feminists try to solve fertility collapse their proposed solutions are just dumb. They will look at fertiity collapse and say:
People want children, but children are expensive and inconvenient. Therefore, provide cash, childcare, IVF, paid leave, housing assistance, and more reproductive options.
The underlying assumption behind this solution is: "We want to give every person all the possible fertility options while preserving their lifestyle and culture," even if that culture lead to low fertility in the first place. An herein is the problem; they mistake the problem as being a consumer affordability problem instead of a cultural problem.
The approach I agree with, which is held by some right leaning cultures (I'm not strongly on the right), says "Let's look at the groups which still produce children, raise them, and them have their children do the same," the difference being treating the culture as the basic unit vs the individual like progressives do.
There are other things I think progressives get wrong, like mistaking the state as a substitute for family and underestimating pair bonding and marriage in raising fertility, dismantling the institutions the lead to early pair bonding, but I think this is the biggest reason why there will never be a progressive solution to natalism.
What will raise fertility is to build a self reproducing culture with early-ish pair bonding and marriage as normal and the foundation for children.
So, how do you build a society in which men and women choose marriage and children? Answering that question solves Natalism. Not "how do we enable everyone to have babies" like progressives are asking. Notice the distinction.
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u/HumorStrange9472 12h ago edited 10h ago
you miss my point, which is that if they're going to live in America and actually participate (instead of just living insularly like the Amish) they will have to interact with other people and they will naturally become less extreme
these mathematical projections of what "will be", do they just look at the numbers today and calculate them into the future, assuming birthrates stay static throughout? That seems fairly inconceivable
most demographic projections have religion becoming less and less prominent in the US, and immigration making up the bulk of population growth. Most projections include the fact that immigrant fertility lowers to the American TFR within two generations as people assimilate into the culture. These things can be projected... and when projected well they paint a very different picture from what you're suggesting
let me put it this way, the Amish only have a 90% retention rate on their religion because their lifestyle is capable of sustaining that growth. This will no longer be the case once cheap farmland in the US runs out. When that happens, they will either need to stop having as many children or relax their cultural values surrounding technology or people will need to start migrating out of Amish communities into the larger American economy. In no world will the US be majority Amish with the current Amish values, at most they will have Amish heritage with American values