Yes and that will bring all sorts of troubles, look at Japan for a modern example. One of many reasons we should be welcoming immigrants instead of shutting them out.
Yes it'd be a shame if, in the long run, Japan stabilized its population growth or even shrank down to what was sustainable for several thousand years.
Japan is the size of California, and its population is 127 million or more than 3x that of CA. The average size of a single family dwelling is less than half that of the US. Japan cannot feed itself, nor power itself, and depends on open trade and foreign countries for almost all its natural resources.
This was not always the case, though. Their growth outgrew their borders in the early 21st century - they were forced to expand into their neighbors' yards for space and resources, and we all know how well that turned out.
Maybe the idea of endless exponential population growth isn't the best idea, and if Japan would prefer to keep their culture instead of bowing down to the globalist elites who want open borders, never-ending GDP growth and markets, I give them credit.
What we are doing in the West with unlimited immigration and forced diversity will not end well, IMO.
Nobody in the West is allowing unlimited immigration. In the US there's obviously strong executive action against it, and the EU is paying billions to keep immigrants out (€3B more approved just this year).
> We tend to cut costs and reward the capital managers... but why not maintain costs while rewarding employees?
Because there is competition. If not you, then someone else will cut costs, and then you can either start cutting costs too, or get outcompeted. Either way, costs get reduced anyway.
Now it sometimes happens that a bunch of competing companies can coordinate and agree to not cut costs. Those cases are usually of interest to the regulators, because the benefits almost universally line the pockets of top company executives, and trickle down to neither employees, nor customers.
What you're describing parallels the struggle between monarchs. Territory is a zero-sum game so conquer your neighbors or risk being conquered. Unless you trust your neighbors, in which case peace can be even more profitable.
The arguments hold where power is highly centralized, however democracies tend to see the world very differently.
But forcing private individuals to act against their own self-interest in order to protect the whole from disproportional damage is often considered "authoritarian".
It is, and I didn't say it's a bad thing. The only thing I said is that it can be called by bad names, and if you want sources, open any news site or political discussion thread on the Internet.
Authoritarianism is antithetical to rule of law. It “forces people to act against their own self-interest because The Authority says so.” This is why the US has long described itself as a “nation of laws”: to set itself apart from (non-constitutional) monarchies, oligarchies, and dictatorships.
I haven’t seen any journalists confuse the two, but of course people offering an opinion are free to confuse them.
I think Temporal and I share similar views on this matter. I believe neither he nor I are arguing that a properly executed welfare system* is bad. Speaking just for myself, it seems rational that most billionaires in America would try to minimize their contribution to social welfare. It would take some authoritarianism to prevent them from parking their money in tax havens, setting up trust funds for their kids, and so forth.
To revisit the comment above:
> Why can't progress in technology replace population growth through higher productivity?
We tend to cut costs and reward the capital managers... but why not maintain costs while rewarding employees?
This _can_ happen, but I don't believe it _will_ without some authoritarianism. Otherwise, the wealthy will find legal means to reward themselves disproportionately more than their workers. Individuals in America have widely varying interpretations of what it means to take a fair cut. The law is very slow to respond to companies like Walmart or Amazon paying shamefully low warehouse wages. Even usury is borderline legal: I believe most states have some kind of payday loan company.
To be perfectly clear on my views, I think the goals of universal healthcare and universal basic income are good. I don't believe the American socio-cutural system is capable of achieving these in my lifetime. I hope for the sake of my friends and family that I'm wrong, but I'm planning my life around finding a country on a track I believe in.
* I would have preferred a less loaded term than this. The American welfare system is far from effective in it's goals IMO.
Are you disagreeing with my wording? Or with my observation that America has systematically and disproportionately rewarded its capital managers over its have-nots through most of it's history?
How well we pay workers has nothing to do with who owns the means of production. It's nothing distinctly capitalist, communist, or socialist about how well people are paid.
(And you don't need 10%, a lot more money is in bonds than equities and at much lower rates.)