The Consequences of Real-Existing Capitalism for Fertility

This is an extension of the line of argument I began in “No More Throne and AltarSt. JP2 on Inequality is the Root of Social Evil.”

My adopted hometown of Seattle is experiencing a population boom.

No, it’s not human babies. Heck, my wife and I get dirty looks all the time on the street when she walks with our economically nonviable brood of three. They probably think she’s a “breeder,” obviously a term of opprobrium.

Dogs breeding is a totally different thing here in Seattle. Seattle, a digital economy boomtown, has had more dogs than babies for a while now. Here is a story about the proliferation of dog services in our city. It is an eminently dog-friendly city, even if you can’t say it’s entirely child friendly.

I make the argument over at Ethika Politika, in a piece entitled “Catholic Fertility and Capitalist Celibacy,” working off the arguments of Fred Pearce in The Coming Population Crash, that capitalism has potentially disastrous consequences for the world’s population numbers. I also suspect Catholics aren’t up to the challenge, because we’ve been co-opted by a real-existing market logic (as opposed to all the free-market utopias we’re sold) that puts more incentives upon being productive in the economy, rather than in the bedroom.

Go over to Ethika Politika to scrutinize the details of my argument. See why I think Mary Eberstadt’s How the West Lost God might be a must read book.

And, if you really want to be scared, follow this link to the abstract to my friend Matthew Tan‘s essay from Solidarity: A Journal of Catholic Social Thought and Secular Ethics on how abortion has become become a deeply ingrained consumerist  habit. If you want to read the whole essay click on the upper right hand corner “download” button.

I feel like I might need to state the obvious: I’m not arguing for communism or socialism. I’m only trying to share my perplexity at the present moment.

Even the hippies knew what is going on: