The Right of Reproduction
by Dimitri K.
It is widely accepted that, in the relationship between a citizen and the state, the right of violence has been delegated from the citizen to the state. The state protects its citizens, solves their disputes, and uses violence if necessary.
There are disputes about to what extent that right should be delegated, but almost everybody agrees that to some extent such a delegation is necessary. The result is a more or less peaceful and civilized society.
With the advance of socialism, other responsibilities were also delegated to the state: health, education, food, and much more. That may have created some problems through inefficient management by bureaucrats, but it was still not a complete failure. In most cases states could manage those needs so that society could survive and develop.
- - - - - - - - -
In this reliance on the state, there is one function which nobody usually mentions, but it is one of the most important functions of the society: reproduction. In their reliance on the state, many people decided that the populating of the country can also be delegated to the state. They tacitly assumed that if they pay taxes, they can rely on the state in this delicate issue, too.
The state tried hard, but without citizens’ participation it was almost impossible to achieve. Finally, the state found the only available solution — immigration. Immigration is the bureaucratic mechanism used to populate the country.
Now, the question is: what rights do we need to start having children? Do we need any violence, at least imaginary, in order to reproduce? Do we need any other rights for this, except the right to have sex? What are we missing, people?
28 comments:
We're missing a lot of things. Men are reluctant to start a family knowing that no-fault divorce and unfair custody laws will make it easy for their wives to leave and deprive them of their children (and money).
Government domination of education, combined with the extreme degeneration of the schools, means that parents cannot be confident that they will be able to teach their children their own values. If they can't afford a private school that suits their values, then no matter what they tell their children at home, at school the children will still be told that terrorists are "freedom fighters", that socialist measures will be good for the economy, etc., and some of their classmates will inevitably make them aware of drugs and early sex as options. Homeschooling is the obvious solution, but governments hate homeschooling and there's no telling when the law might change and police will drag your child to the nearest school which statistically will probably be run by immoral leftists and full of drugs, sex and violence.
Then there's the money issue. When Women's Lib campaigned for "equal pay for equal work", what they were actually fighting was the "family wage". Before the 1970's, married men were routinely paid more in order to support their wives and children. When that was changed, mothers who didn't actually want to work were forced to. The prices of cars and houses went up because a two-income family could afford it... well, sometimes. This changed the economy. Now few couples can get by on just the husband's income. It makes people feel they can't afford children, or they have fewer, because taking care of more than one child when the mother has to work full-time is so exhausting.
There's also the legal and social sanctioning of killing your children if you decide you don't feel like looking after them. In America alone, more than one million babies are killed prenatally every year. As of now, mothers who want to kill their children have to do it before the children pass through the birth canal, but there are people working to change that. At present, they're only shooting to be allowed to kill children under the age of two, but when they win that, no doubt they'll seek for further expansion, until in a few decades no one who isn't old enough to vote will have the right not to be murdered.
What the state should do immediately is to stop importing immigrants for work and give up the fatalism "not enough children, so we must replace the working population with foreigners". Take notice that in every European country the rate of unemployment is relatively high and some of the pensioners still want to work. Any European state should find domestic, internal solutions if there is really a crisis regarding the work force. Then people will start believe in their future as a community and consequently will feel the desire to have children. Many Europeans do not want to have children because their political and social environment is hostile. They watch what is happening around as a fatality: "Well, it is good to have immigrants because we don't have enough children". This is a vicious circle. When the policies of the state will emphasize strong enough that this is not an alternative ("We have to find domestic solutions") the problem is solved.
I see no alternative to the government forcing people to have children. When people are given the option of not having enough children, they tend to do so. Light incentives don't work, we already have had them in Europe for a long time. What is necessary, is for the government to decide who should have children and how many and then tax everybody, intentionally not obliging to this demand, so highly that he or she has to exist at welfare level for all his or her life. Having enough children must be seen as a duty to society, similar to military service.
"Racist and xenophobic ideas are deeply embedded in Europe. France is no exception where an alarmingly strident xenophobia exists among a substantial portion of the population manifest in the attitudes towards immigrants, minorities and foreigners. The trend has been to see immigrants as racial minorities and racial minorities as immigrants - - regardless of these individuals' country of origin or their citizenship - Accordingly, issues facing "immigrants" often relate to the problems of racial and ethnic minorities in France as well.
The connection between race, nationality and socio-economics is stark. The immigrants are blamed by a majority of French citizens for increases in unemployment, crime and decreasing educational standards. They are seen by nearly three-quarters of the population as more likely to commit crimes than the average French person is. Nearly 40% of the population supports forcible repatriation of unemployed immigrants, and 22% supports forcible repatriation of all immigrants."
"22% supports forcible repatriation of all immigrants"
Interesting. More than one fifth of the whole of the French population.
Being one tenth (or more) of that population already "ethnic", we get with 24,2% of the French population.
One quarter of the French people...
Really interesting.
No more than thirty years to the Civil War... due to "reprodution and population".
Long live the May 68! (That in Prague, I mean.)
Yeap!
Long live my heroes from Prague '68, Budapest '56 and Warsaw the 70's and 80's! In this Month of May we have two anniversaries: Prague 68 and Paris 68. The same date, different universies. I bow in front of Prague.
Dmitri,you have once again prooved that you have a great talent for "thinking outside of the box"
The question about what we are missing can be answered in a thousand specifik ways, none of which will tell the real story.
Human behavior-patterns are probably the only thing that can compete with DNA in its level of comlexity
One way to look at it is to suppose that our culture has somehow developed itself into a "blind alley ",a paradoxical situation where its great succes in eliminating the traditional aspekts of the individuals struggle for survival has damaged the same individuals motivation to reproduce.
Humans have two separate motivation-systems for their behavior;one cultural and one instinctual. The instinktual one might be seen as the backup option.
If cultural behavior goes KAPUT (-why have child if you can buy a new car for half the price ? -), then there must be in the populaton SOME individuals whose instinctual motivation to have children , are strong enough to overcome the deadly cultral stupidity.
And given time enough,a majority of the population would be decendants of people with such extra large instincts.
The only problem is , that such a natural selection proces would take several generations to become effective.
So, what we miss might just be TIME enough to adjust to modern society.
Sadly , we don't have it . In two generations Islaam wil have changed the rules by destroying many of the same qualities of modern society that made "the struglle for survival"unnecesary.
I see no alternative to the government forcing people to have children.
Oh. I do. Abstain from rampant welfarism, let people keep more of their income and spend it the way they like. Many will like to spend it on family, or on prospective family, and that would improve the chances of having more children.
Being devorce once, I had some opportunity to consider this problem. And my conclusion is that the welfare state, in the long term, is disruptive to the value and strength of family relations. This is something that's going to get worse before it gets better.
Armance, I agree that there were no heroes in Paris in May 1968, only bullies lacking understanding of what they attacked.
The heroes of Prague, on the other hand, knew exactly what they were up against and why it was worth taking a risk against it.
"In this Month of May we have two anniversaries: Prague 68 and Paris 68."
I am not celebrating the first, though.
It's interesting that the date of the document that Afonso linked to is Sept 2001.
@Henrik R Clausen:
"Abstain from rampant welfarism, let people keep more of their income and spend it the way they like. Many will like to spend it on family, or on prospective family,..."
Hong Kong, Singapore or Japan have virtually no welfare state at all and yet have among the world's lowest average number of children per woman, 0.98 for Hong Kong, 1.07 for Singapore and 1.23 for Japan. (Source ) In Europe, the Scandinavian countries, which are reputed to be particularly strong welfare states, tend to have even slightly higher fertility rates than the rest of Europe. There is no correlation between the existence of a welfare state and lack of children. If anything, abolishing the welfare state might make matters even worse.
Thanks, pasta, that was food for thought...
I think we need to look at abortion, too. In Denmark, we have some 20,000 a year, which is a *lot*!
If we could pursuade at least some of these to opt for adoption instead, there would be three parties to benefit greatly:
- The mother, for not killing her unborn child.
- The adopting parents, for getting a child they could otherwise not have recieved.
- The child, for getting the greatest gift possible: Life.
Pasta,
There is no correlation between the existence of a welfare state and lack of children.
What you say is absolutely correct, and I have been pointing this out many a times. But people base their arguments too much on their inner beliefs, their pet doctrines, and not sufficiently on opening their eyes and studying the world around them.
I have written about it here, for example:
Catholicism--birth control and birth rates (part II)
But there is still a puzzle to be solved here. In the conclusion of my article above, I give my take on it:
So, finally, why then do the Protestant countries breed more than the Catholics? My explanation is that the Catholics in Europe are more hurt by the egalitarian modern ideals, imposed upon us, than the places from where it originates, America and Scandinavia, and where there has always been a more equal relation between men and women traditionally.
1st, I think American Monarchist has it largely correct.
I think it pertinent that, although Russia's native birthrate is currently crashing, that 70-80 years ago their predecessor honored and rewarded women for having many children.
Between Feminism and the ZPG (Zero Population Growth) movements of the '60s espoused by gloria steinam and paul ehrlich (disrespect intended) which largely led to Roe v Wade and court orders that--for all intents and purposes--made the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment) law without legislation we find ourselves (Americans) dis-incentivised to have children.
Minimum replacement rate is 2.1 children per mother.
The first of Dimitri's questions at the end of his very good post was, "Now, the question is: what rights do we need to start having children?"
We need no 'rights'. This isn't China. We only need to replace disincentives with incentives.
Let's play with some numbers; out of ten women we need to get to 21 children.
Let's say (group a) two opt for none, (group b) two opt for one, (group c) four opt for two, and (group d) two opt for three or more.
That's +-16. But let's deal with a solid number of 16. This means we have a population deficit of five.
If we can incentivise one of the two women from (a) to have one child, one of the two women from (b) to have more than one child, two from group (c) to add another child, and one from (d) to have just one more we end our population deficit with that minimum 2.1 kids.
Conswede-
Interesting take on the Catholic/Prod. I'm not Gaelic but I've long held the opinion that much of the Irish 'troubles' of the last 40 years had to do with the economic struggles of large Catholic families v smaller and therefore more affluent Prod families.
___________
Afonso-
There is deep disagreement on this side of our mutual pond regarding what conservatism is. In a nutshell it is preserving that which we value from the philosophy and writings and laws from the past coupled with rejection of ideas we recognize as threatening.
Threatened by the notion of ending black slavery we never-the-less examined our core beliefs and the writings of our Founders and concluded that the institution had to be abolished. It was the conservative side that championed and won that dispute--with much blood and sacrifice.
Any nation with pride and self-confidence will wish to preserve--conserve, if you will--their identity--their core ideals.
_____________
Armance-
Not in May, but another important 1968 anniversary--the Chicago DNC (Democrat National Convention) at which the agitprop of the American Communist Party finally raised its ugly head.
It was beaten back and bloodied not unlike what happened in Prague but it scored powerful points with elements of the public (just as Prague citizens came to hate their overlords).
______________
For a thoroughly depressing but probably accurate assessment of where we stand go to here and weep.
You will never get the birthrate up without limiting women's rights. This all started with the pill, abortion, no-fault divorce, and women entering the workplace. Sad as it may be, we have to go back to the beginning and question all our liberal fantasies, not just cherry pick from them the ones we dislike most.
So long as immigrants are pouring in people see no reason to have kids--the supply exceeds the demand for labor already, and no one wants to be a minority and bullied by all the immigrants.
Taxes are too high even while the cost of raising kids has increased exponentially, (each kid needs a room, a car, an ipod, a college education, blah blah.) the result is not enough money to go around.
To restore a decent birth rate to the country, all three of these issues must be addressed.
Limiting women's rights?
There is no need to limit anybody's rights - nor should there be.
I used to think emancipation meant people could be and do whatever they wanted to in future without being curtailed by expectations following out of their 'gender'- their supposed wants, needs and abilities
Unfortunately with solving one problem a new one was created immediately: how do we get èvery woman to strive for a career, and how come they still seem to be dragging their heels.
We simply traded our icons: the holy mother for superwoman.
As a result a war among women has erupted - the 'homemakers' versus the 'working women'; both of them feeling insufficient, guilty or belittled.
So having children has become a private hobby, which you are supposed to spirit away and manage in the off-hours and your spare time, so that nobody notices.
If you have one, or at most two children, a woman may just be able to manage, with what a part-time job and all the other time-neutral affairs that need to be seen to, again so that nobody notices.
I think a lot of women would be very happy staying at home raising more children and supervising and directing their lives, that is to say: if they weren't taking an enormous economic risk by doing so.
For when forty-something mothers are deserted and swapped for two succulent twenty-something new girlfriends it's a good thing if mama has at least one foot in the door to the world of jobs and careers; so she can still feed and clothe her 2.1 children.
That is why women do not want to have children: to be a mother is a dangerous, low esteemed chore.
Women with children are troublesome and a liability, and nobody thinks raising children is a job.
Dimitri K. asked “what do we need to start having children ?”
I want to answer as a feminist and as a democrat together.
The population of Europe “in general”, as the people of the ancient Rome, wishing to be richer, has diminish the number of their own children and imported workers and goods to get more goods for less work.
The conquest of the feminist of contraception means was relatively easy, not because the feminist were heroic fighter or terrorist, of course they were never strong enough, but because it met the wishes of the european men to have less children of their own.
The people of Europe was collectively ( men and women together) as blind and short-sighted that the old Roman.
But in addition of that, the (so to say) “right of women” to have the children that they wished, remains repressed by the unaquality and the chauvinism and the western society.
“Chauvinism” is a temptation wich has always been present in the man of all time, in differents form, the male egoism use different strategy, including the apparence of “progressive ideas”.
The old institution are ambigous : on one hand they legitimated abuse of power of the men on the women, but on the other hand, they were also means to repress the male egoism and to compell the men to take care and support their children (and wife). The actuel fight against this old institution is therefore also ambiguous : it presents itself as a “liberation struggle”, but it is also a way for the men and father to escape theyr responsabilities and duties...
“Freedom of choice” is also mentionned as an argument to defend the fierest form of exploitation and torture on women and children, when one pretend to defend the “choice” to be prostituted, to be a surrogated womb ...
Powerty and precarity of the women, violence against them, is always present, and legitimated by the misogynist propaganda of pornography or of the “scientific” psychology...
What does a woman need to have children : for me the answer is very simple : security, support from the father, support from the family and society if the father has himself problems.
If a woman is afraid of lacking of means to feed or educate or to protect her children, she will not have children ... If she is afraid to be harassed by her employer, if she is afraid of the violence or abuse of the men of her family against her children or herself, if she is not sure to have basic means to feed and protect her children, she will not have children.
Our european society have still so much threats against women ( look at the legalisation of pimps in Germany or Holland !), so few help to working women ( like public kinder garden), that we are far from an real help for the women how want to have babies.
Now, what would need the european men and women together, the families, to be push to have more children ? There too my answer is very simple : they have to understand, that if their children become a minority on theyr own country, even if they are relativement rich and well educated, they will be soon just in danger and miserable... A few decades before the parents probably thought that the choice to make few children, and to get goods by anyways including immigration, was the best choice for their children, and also a chance for the immigrants and their children. Now they have to understand that it was (partly at least) a mistake, and that to protect their children, they have to give them little brothers and sisters.
Elisseievna.
The only legitimate means for a gov't to encourage more children would be bribery, and possibly overturning Roe vs. Wade. Abortion is not a right, it isn't in the constitution, and it is demonstratably bad for society. Strengthening marriage would work to, but feminazi's are winning the battle of turning things the other way. Gay marriage has to go. No-fault divorce has to go. Adultry needs to be punished again, not ignored by the same justice system that will ruin a man based on mere accusation of violence.
Basically, feminists need lose every battle for the next 20 years, because almost every one that they have won in the last 40 has been bad for western civilization.
I don't think, that it's like that. There is a theory of
the "natural control mechanism of birthrate" - I hope,
that this is the right name in English. One of the 1st
works on this topic is the behavioristic: V.C.
Wynne-Edwards "Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social
Behaviour".
That is: Populations have certain control mechanisms,
that regulate their birthrate. This funktions not only
with animals, but also with human communities of stone
age level - as proven by ethnologists.
Now, such natural mechanisms are blocked by religious and
political ideologies to a great extent. Nevertheless they
funktion even in such societies. Europe is a good
example:
In mediaeval Europe, after the great pest plague there
was such a demographic draw back, that an accelerated
birthrate was neccessary and wellcome. Nuns and monks in
this time widely practiced sex and monasteries had
baby-doors, where the babies could be deposited (also
nuns' babies). It is the time of the Borgia-family.
Europe accepted a pope with bastard children. Would
Europe do the same today?
In the 19th century there was overpopulation, starving in
Irland, in Silesia... Many goverments introduced
mariage-regulations like minimal age, couples had to
prove that they have an income (that the man had work)
a.s.o.
So I would put Dimitri's thesis a bit differently:
If the state would not force immigration as the more
confortable alternative, the people would get more
children - as it was the case after the great pest
plague, or after the great wars.
Because Europe had managed to have a rather constant
demographic evolution throughout many centuries (u find
enough data here online).
The countries with the worst demographic evolution are
the islamic countries. Some of them have a doubling rate
of their population in about 20-25 years. And that is
horrible!
@Kybeline:
"So I would put Dimitri's thesis a bit differently:
If the state would not force immigration as the more confortable alternative, the people would get more children - as it was the case after the great pest plague, or after the great wars."
Eastern Europe doesn't have a significant number of immigrants, yet its fertility rates are among the lowest of the world. And, according to my knowledge, for the Great European population explosion after the plague to happen, the practice of birth control and all sexuality for other purposes than making children (like homosexuality, masturbation etc.) had to be outlawed. Later even the knowledge of birth control got lost. Therefore, the population explosion lasted on even after Europe couldn't feed its masses of children anymore.
pasta said....
I see no alternative to the government forcing people to have children. When people are given the option of not having enough children, they tend to do so. What is necessary, is for the government to decide who should have children and how many and then tax everybody..... Having enough children must be seen as a duty to society, similar to military service.
That has to be the one of the most immoral statement's I have ever seen. I had to read it twice to make sure you were not being sarcastic.
You fascist who would remove the right of an individual to live for their own sake. You fascist who would have the government dictate over the right of the individual. You whose stinking immorality would force and individual to sacrifice for the common good. What you demand is SLAVERY.
You belong to Islam.
Islam deserves you.
You would serve your god/master well.
Rebel Radius,
You're an hysteric. Take a pill or something.
Pasta,
Your observation is important, and I thought about it too. Concrete things, such as taxation and immigration, matter less, and the societal climate, such as ideals and ideology, matter more. This is the human nature.
Check out this article from New York Times in 1991. The birth rates dropped drastically in Eastern Europe directly after 1989. I quote:
These abrupt declines in demographic indicators that usually move with glacial slowness "are very symbolic of the times of troubles they are living in," said Murray Feshbach, a research professor of demographics at Georgetown University. Such sudden reductions in fertility, he and other experts said, are usually associated with cataclysms like wars, famines or severe economic disruption such as Germany experienced in the early 1930's.
So what was it that hit Eastern Europe that was as troublesome and cataclysmic as war or famine? It was Western liberalism.
@rebel:
If you wish to live in a family, community, society, or state, you're expected to uphold that family/community/society/state's standards. If you do not measure up to the standards people expect of each other, then you are harming everyone else by selfishly benefiting from their good behavior while not behaving well yourself, meaning no one benefits in turn from you. The right of the individual does not include the right to benefit from the efforts of others while not contributing those same efforts to others. A family cannot hold if only one member is faithful, a community cannot hold if only one member mows their lawn, a society cannot hold if only one member teaches their kids how to read, a state cannot hold if only one soldier volunteers to defend it. Either we're all in this together or you're a parasite and a public nuisance, it's that simple.
No one is stamping on your individual rights, because you signed a social contract when you agreed to stay in that family/community/society/state that you would put effort into the welfare of the greater whole not just yourself, and in turn so would everyone else. One of the most desperately necessary duties of any family/community/society/state is the next generation. Without it everything else is pointless. If men must brave fire and storm to preserve our homeland, women have an equal duty to have children and raise the next generation--there is no way around it. The health of the community demands the sacrifice of individuals, it always has, and it always will. Hyper-selfish people who feed off the health of the community while living only for themselves are nothing but trash.
Lastly I'd like to point out that a thousand generations of parents and grandparents all chose to have you at great cost to themselves. If any one of them had shared your philosophy and chosen, for whatever whimsical reason, to not have kids because that just wasn't his/her style, you wouldn't exist. Surely a philosophy that kills anyone who follows it can't be taken seriously, that's pretty much the first test of any new idea.
@rebel radius:
I am even somewhat grateful for your strong emotional response, because I know that my ideas on this subject are at odds with the prevalent liberal ideology and I was afraid that I hadn't managed to communicate my message properly.
"You fascist who would remove the right of an individual to live for their own sake. You fascist who would have the government dictate over the right of the individual. You whose stinking immorality would force and individual to sacrifice for the common good. What you demand is SLAVERY."
What is so abhorrent about the idea that individuals, for all the freedoms they enjoy, have obligations to fulfill to their societies, too? And how do you think about governments drafting young men into military service then? Do you consider that slavery, too?
For the longest part of mankind's history, it was understood as a matter of course, that a nation just had to demand from every of its young men to risk his life at war. Any serious-minded person understood that this was simply necessary for a nation's very survival and for this reason the right of the state to draft all young men into the military was not questioned, even though in the great wars the chance of getting killed or severely injured was high. Any nation which had taken the stance that the government had no right to force its young men into its army against their will and it was up to the individual, if they wanted to fight or not, would soon have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Now, if you are fine with governments drafting young men into military service, why not with demanding children from its population, when this is necessary for the survival of a nation? What makes military service acceptable but procreation service not?
"There is no correlation between the existence of a welfare state and lack of children."
Let's get real, shall we gentlemans?
It all depends on HOW the welfare state is pushing towards more children or less children and the welfare systems in Europa are not, I repeat, are not made to help the majority of the society (middle classes) on having children.
The current European welfare is based on "rob the middle class and give to the poors".
This made (at least here) many poor people to rise till middle class. And because of that we needed more poor people (and as so we imported immigrants). Now, the poors who have benefitted from welfare are now "attacked" by it and they finance the new poors. Also, there is not very likely for the higher classes to have many children.
Though here, and with all the Catholicism vs Protestantism mood here, I must say that the more Traditionalist and Catholic high class families have more children. Opus Dei members of high class (literally, making millions or tens of millions of Euros per year) are the ones who have more children.
The others have one, two, three maximum. But I'd say that 50% have only one.
I am all for eugenics. Natural eugenics to be more precise.
We need to prevent "undesirable men" to "copulate" with "desirable women", we have to make difficult for lower classes - and "ethnics" - to have children and we have to get high class people to have the more children possible.
The problem is, who's desirable?
The more "desirable" a person woud be, the more children they would be incited to have.
But this system would easily descent into the formation of castes: Nobility/Burgoise/Clerics/Peasentry or something like it. All we have to do is to install this system not in a totalitarian mean but in a Gramscian way.
I realy feel "Conservatives/Traditionalists" should use Gramsci's technics.
Turn, I liked your definition of Conservatism/Conservative but I think it is a little too vague to apply.
"You will never get the birthrate up without limiting women's rights."
Do never say that again you machist pig!
It's not "rights" its "irrational histeria". I agree with you. We have to show to OUR (yes, the same ethnic group, they are ours, like OUR mother, OUR children, etc...) women that femminism is not good at all.
We should fight femininism because it is a radical, nihilist, violent and irrational ideology.
Thank you Elise for your wonderfully clever "femininist(?)" comment:
"What does a woman need to have children : for me the answer is very simple : security, support from the father, support from the family and society if the father has himself problems."
You say it all.
Security;
A man;
A family;
Society.
A family should search (by aprooving or not) a man that would provide security. If something happened, the Catholic Church (Society) would help the orphan or something.
It wasn't so bad, was it?
One thing you have forget though:
The willing to have a children (that being, from the mother of course). Maybe you ommited this in order to make a "femininist" comment, hmm?
"they have to understand, that if their children become a minority on theyr own country, even if they are relativement rich and well educated, they will be soon just in danger and miserable..."
But... a great problem of our European (actual) society is that people care only with theirs life span time. Only when the parents are eighty will they start to realise that maybe the world will not end with their deaths...
"Nuns and monks in this time widely practiced sex"
Wow... you are from where? Red neighbourhood, Amsterdam?
"In the 19th century there was overpopulation, starving..."
In the XV and XVI century as well. Colonisation time!
Or worst, French Revolution time.
"So what was it that hit Eastern Europe that was as troublesome and cataclysmic as war or famine? It was Western liberalism."
Not yet Conservative Swede, not yet... it was most likely the bankrupcy (Romania, Ceausesco) after exploding birth rates.
Rebel Radius,
despite I do agree that Pasta's statements are exagerated, I think he has a point worth looking at. Really.
Here is a radical solution.
Why don't we commercialize the family? Some women could just sell their family service on the free market.
If a man or woman wants to have a child but has no time, he/she buys the service of a professional mother. (For very busy women, there can even be surrogate mothers.)
Whoever doesn't contract with a professional for whatever reasons, must pay a childless tax which is as high as a professional mother would get paid per year for one child. A professional mother is not a low wage worker, she should have a degree which functions as a kind of IQ test. Let's say a professional mother raises 4 children in her life, then she should get a middle class income. If someone hires a cheaper mother his tax burdens still has him pay the difference, so he has no incentive to do that. By this you can assure that the tax determines how big the wage is. (This is a kind of very high minimum wage.)
Every woman (or man, if there is a market) can be a professional mother, but she has to find a customer. (Professional mothers can raise a common child with their customer or any other combination. Everything is possible. Nobody is forced to anything.) There is high minimum wage, but no upper limit to what a mother can make. If a mother is in high demand, she sure can make a lot.
So there are basically three options: 1. You like to raise children the old style, okay, you are not taxed. But a family must have a minimum of two children. 2. You contract with a professional mother = you are not taxed. And you only have to contract for one child. But remember, if you are married, but childless, your husband or spouse has to contract too, else he/she is taxed. 3. You don't want any children = you are taxed and the state takes your money to hire a professional mother on your behalf. In this case the child belongs to the mother, you lose any right as a parent.
So everybody pays his dues. The only exceptions are people who earn so small wages that you can't tax them. But these fellows shouldn't have children at all. (Any welfare gets cancelled. Low wage or no wage types can raise children, but without any help.)
For the libertarians out there: the childless tax is legitimate, because having no children is a kind of free riding. A market failure. Just like enjoying military protection would be, if we wouldn’t raise some taxes.
A 'childless tax'?
Interesting notion.
Also, I think society should stop subsidizing divorces.
People without children would be taxed and then, the State would pay the woman who had her second child (of the same father) back what she has paied with her taxes.
We should also discriminate if not, the "ethnics" would like it much. And some very bad moms would also want to have children...
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