I’m not quite sure that penalties are that low outside China.
There are of course places where penalties for many babies are low, and there are even states that encourage having babies — but the latter is because birth rates are below replacement, so outside of our exponential growth discussion; I’m not sure about the former, but the obvious cases (very poor countries) are in the malthusian scenario already due to high death rates.
But in (relatively) rich economies there are non-obvious implicit limits to reproduction: you’re generally supposed to provide a minimum of care to children; even more, that “minimum” tends to grow with the richness of the economy. I’m not talking only about legal minimum, but social ones: children in rich societies “need” mobile phones and designer clothes, adolescents “need” cars, etc.
So having children tends to become more expensive in richer societies, even absent explicit legal limits like in China, at least in wide swaths of those societies. (This is a personal observation, not a proof. Exceptions exist. YMMV. “Satisfaction guaranteed” is not a guarantee.)
The legal minimum care requirement is a good point. With the social minimum: I recognize that this meme exists but it doesn’t seem like there are very high costs to disobeying it. If I’m part of a religion with an anti-materialist streak and those in my religious community aren’t buying their children designer clothes either… I can’t think of what kind of penalty would ensue (whereas not bathing or feeding your children has all sorts of costs if an outsider finds out). It seems better to think of this as a meme which competes with “Reproduce a lot” for resources rather than as a penalty for defection.
Sure, within a relatively homogeneous and sufficiently “socially isolated”* community the social cost is light.
(*: in the sense that “social minimum” pressures from outside don’t affect it significantly, including by making at least some members “defect to consumerism” and start a consumerist child-pampering positive feedback loop.)
I seem to think that such communities will not become very rich, but I can’t justify it other than with a vague “isolation is bad for growth” idea, so I don’t trust my thought.
Do you have any examples of “rich” societies (by current 1st-world standards) which are socially isolated in the way you describe? (Ie, free from “consumerist” pressure from inside and immune to it from outside.) I can’t think of any.
I’m not quite sure that penalties are that low outside China.
There are of course places where penalties for many babies are low, and there are even states that encourage having babies — but the latter is because birth rates are below replacement, so outside of our exponential growth discussion; I’m not sure about the former, but the obvious cases (very poor countries) are in the malthusian scenario already due to high death rates.
But in (relatively) rich economies there are non-obvious implicit limits to reproduction: you’re generally supposed to provide a minimum of care to children; even more, that “minimum” tends to grow with the richness of the economy. I’m not talking only about legal minimum, but social ones: children in rich societies “need” mobile phones and designer clothes, adolescents “need” cars, etc.
So having children tends to become more expensive in richer societies, even absent explicit legal limits like in China, at least in wide swaths of those societies. (This is a personal observation, not a proof. Exceptions exist. YMMV. “Satisfaction guaranteed” is not a guarantee.)
The legal minimum care requirement is a good point. With the social minimum: I recognize that this meme exists but it doesn’t seem like there are very high costs to disobeying it. If I’m part of a religion with an anti-materialist streak and those in my religious community aren’t buying their children designer clothes either… I can’t think of what kind of penalty would ensue (whereas not bathing or feeding your children has all sorts of costs if an outsider finds out). It seems better to think of this as a meme which competes with “Reproduce a lot” for resources rather than as a penalty for defection.
Your observation is a good one though.
Sure, within a relatively homogeneous and sufficiently “socially isolated”* community the social cost is light.
(*: in the sense that “social minimum” pressures from outside don’t affect it significantly, including by making at least some members “defect to consumerism” and start a consumerist child-pampering positive feedback loop.)
I seem to think that such communities will not become very rich, but I can’t justify it other than with a vague “isolation is bad for growth” idea, so I don’t trust my thought.
Do you have any examples of “rich” societies (by current 1st-world standards) which are socially isolated in the way you describe? (Ie, free from “consumerist” pressure from inside and immune to it from outside.) I can’t think of any.
Mormons?