[cw: eugenics, physical child abuse] I'm feeling physically ill after reading this article: America’s premier pronatalists on having ‘tons of kids’ to save the world
Elon Musk (father of 11) supports their cause. Thousands follow their ideology. Malcolm and Simone Collins are on a mission to make it easier for everyone to have multiple children. But are they really model parents?
How have I never heard that Elon has 11 fucking kids? Every bourgeois "hero" pushing this movement deserves .
If decreasing birth rates are scaring you so much for the future of humanity, as if you ever really gave a shit about it, then stop enslaving the working class to the point that they have no time or money for kids.
Capitalists heighten contradictions. They don't solve them. Proletarianization destroys the productive basis for the nuclear family while the capitalist state upholds it as an institution. Only the socialist state can resolve this contradiction with socialized childcare & childrearing, children's autonomy, abolition of marriage, etc. (sorry USSR you didn't go far enough). The capitalist solution is reaction, a return to 19th century working conditions, family relations, and religiosity that saw high birth rates. Unfortunately that all existed within the context of things, so it's probably impossible to recreate at large scale.
It's the definition of a non-problem. Oh no, there won't be enough children to care for you in your old age? So? Suffer and die like literally every other human ever. Manufacturing new people to drive you to dialysis is fucking weird. Just... acept your mortality with at least an iota of dignity.
Right, I just think it's worth emphasising this point as the communist response to capital just letting humans die without dignity in order to save a buck.
Saying only that people should just accept their horrible approaching deaths as inevitable is defeatist and myopic.
I should clarify. There are two separate issues here; Providing the necessary resources and support for people to have a dignified, comfortable old age is good and important. We absolutely should do that and it is an important priority.
Separate from that is the idea that we should create more people to care for existing people. This is generally phrased as though existing people are owed the labor of people yet unborn, and that creating more people specifically to benefit from their labor is morally neutral or good.
A dwindling population will create hardships for people currently living, but I do not think that justifies or necessitates creating more people specifically to maintain the status quo. Having kids for the joy of having children in the world is good, but there's something very perverse about John Capitalist telling you to have kids specifically so that John can benefit from their labor right up until he dies and doesn't care about any of it anymore. There's an unspoken "I got mine fuck you" where John Capitalist is only worried about lower populations in so far as it will effect him and the systems he thinks are important.