It's not prosperity, but consumerism. Consumerism causes demographic decline, because it unhinges people's priorities. Their conception of the purpose of life becomes more materialistic, and children compete with that kind of materialistic, self-indulgent consumption.

In that sense, the Poles have been seduced by consumerism.

▲

merpkz 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

First time I hear this explanation of why demographics is in decline in Europe and it kind of makes sense, every so often having this discussion about having children people bring up that they wont be able to enjoy things anymore, like travel, which in itself is a form of consumerism - buying the "experience"

	▲	lo_zamoyski 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Indeed. People also like status. If consumerism ties status to consumption, then children constrain that consumption and thus constrain status. It also used to be that having a large family was a source of honor. Today, it makes people uncomfortable. They may even take a condescending view of those with many children. People have formed a strange association between having many children and poverty. What you find is that the highest fertility in the developed consumerist world tends toward the poor and the rich. It's the middle class that has the fewest children. This makes sense through the lens of consumerism: the consumption of the rich is not constrained by having more children, while the poor can't consume all that much anyway, so having more children doesn't really change their buying power meaningfully where conspicuous consumption is concerned. It is the middle class (especially the upper middle class) that is anxiously keeping up with the Joneses and engaged in aggressive and petty consumerist competition. They have just enough to consume conspicuously, but not enough that they don't need to prioritize their spending. Consumerism simply prioritizes conspicuous consumption to the detriment of fecundity.

▲

greenavocado 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's crazy to think that a 21st century genocide could be as simple as extending massive amounts of credit to your victims for a long enough time to obliterate their social order.