Shadow1980 said:
Developed nations almost invariably have a total fertility rate at or below the replacement level. This is because of the so-called "demographic transition." As nations industrialize and standards of living improve, people tend to have fewer children on average. The only reason most developed nations are seeing increased population is because of immigration. This isn't the case in Japan, which has essentially a net migration rate of zero, and with sub-replacement fertility that means their population will decline.
We have yet to sit back and ask two fundamental questions: 1) "Is perpetual growth possible?", and 2) "Is perpetual growth really, objectively desirable?" Most humans have a snap judgement, answering "I don't care" to #1 and "Obviously" to question two. Civilization is addicted to growth, and humans are really shitty long-term planners. The only things we don't want to see grow are the price of goods and services relative to our incomes, and tumors. But we do like seeing economic indicators grow, especially that all-important GDP, and we're really only concerned with short-term gains, not long-term sustainability or what effects our actions have on future generations. And GDPs grow from two factors: increases to per capita GDP, and population growth. Population decline can cause GDP growth to slow or decline, and this is why many countries freak out over slowing population growth.
The U.S.'s total GDP has a growth rate higher than its per capita growth rate. While real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) total GDP has grown by about 114% over the past 30 years, but real per capita GDP has grown by only about 58%. Our population has increased by about 35% since 1986, which accounts for the disparity. If we were to shut down all immigration today, our GDP growth rate would slow dramatically even if the per capita GDP growth rate remained unchanged. Had we shut down all immigration 30 years ago, then assuming all other variables remained the same our GDP would only be about $13 trillion tops instead of $16.8 trillion.
Of course, proposing increased immigration is rarely mentioned as a solution. Many countries facing declining population advocate natalist policies geared towards increasing the fertility rate, a policy especially popular with insular societies, as well as nativists concerned with "muh sovereignty and muh homogeneous ethno-state." But a lot of the problems we face as a species derive at least in part due to massive population growth. More people means more demand for resources, and we've taxed our planet to an incredible degree. There's only so much mineral resources, arable land, and clean water to go around. Issues like global warming, resource depletion, and peak oil are largely a function of population size. The solution to economic issues isn't "Grow the population." But once again humans love to prove that they're piss-poor long-term planners, with the thought of "What effects will this have 20, 50, 100 years now?" never entering their heads, and "Make more people!" is a quick, easy, simple solution to short-term slowing of economic growth.
At some point we're going to have to face facts. There are limits to growth in a finite world. Every nation will inevitably have to deal with the reality that GDP cannot grow at a high rate forever, and that eventually their populations will start to level out, maybe even shrink. We should be preparing for, perhaps even welcoming, a post-growth economic regime, but to do that we need to break our addiction to the idea of unlimited growth. And population decline will come with its own unique challengers. But anybody who promises you infinite growth in a finite world is bullshitting you with a Ponzi scheme.
University of Wisconsin professor Steve Dutch talked about this in the past, and I recommend reading his comments on the issue of population growth and how it's a Ponzi scheme:
https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSEUDOSC/Ponzi.HTM
http://stevedutch.blogspot.com/2014/02/growth-is-ponzi-scheme.html
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