Social Security

The Social Security crisis in America is simply a symptom of a larger problem that our government and leaders are failing to communicate to the people. Bush and conservatives are selling people on the idea of privatization based upon the assumption that past performance in the stock and bond markets should be extrapolated to predict future performance. This is how they are boosting support for privatization, but more importantly, support for reneging on an unstated promise to look out for citizens in their old age.

The real crisis in America, and indeed of most “First World” nations, is a crisis in female fertility. The decline in births among American women is what caused the demarcation of the “Baby Boom” generation. As the baby boom generation matriculates through the workforce and into retirement, the fall off in fertility makes the system of social security unsustainable. The government does not link it to fertility crisis, but rather, a flaw in the systems long term planning by its creators. It then goes on to promote the idea that privatization will actually give Americans more money than the current system. Don’t you believe it.

In truth, the same core fertility crisis that will cause a crisis in social security, theoretically, will or should theoretically cause a similar crisis in the economy. Think about it. If there is a shortage of workers to pay into the system, then there will also be a shortage of workers to replace those retiring or dying prematurely. The workers are the life blood of an economy and the fertility crisis means that America cannot grow its economy unless by increasing productivity per worker. However, most of capitalism’s growth is from the addition of new workers and new consumers and population growth gives an economy just that. This is another reason why capitalism is always seeking new markets, because its continued growth and viability is dependant upon it.

In about 20 years companies are going to have a serious problem trying to find enough people to produce the continued growth of GDP at historical levels. This is or should be good news for the American worker, as there should be plenty of opportunities in the future due to the fertility crisis. However, that is only true in theory. The trend in the off shoring of jobs to cheaper labor nations could siphon off many potential jobs to China, India and other developing economies. If American companies cannot meet their labor needs then that will only increase the push factor to off shore jobs.

The crisis in fertility is most profound among white Americans, which is the primary source that America uses to fuel its managerial, technical and professional component of the job market. America’s failure in will to solve the socioeconomic inequalities of blacks and other minorities will prevent these groups from being able to fill the void in the stagnation and future decline of the white population base. America failed to seriously fix the problem of black poverty and educating. Thus, higher rates of black fertility in America cannot offset the lower rates of white fertility.

The only way out of this for America is through opening the doors to immigration, if not a campaign to promote higher fertility rates. This is the way that our nation has chose promote the nations continued population growth. This is why there is no real effort to curtail illegal immigration and to eventually naturalize those who come here illegally. The problem with this is that the people coming to America are people of color who will eventually morph the culture of America and makes whites the minority over time. When whites become the minority they will lose their political and racial control over the direction of the nation and its institutions. More than a few white folks will not accept such a proposition and hence one can predict an increase in proactive white supremacy.

The problem with our system is that its success is its nemesis. The success of our system to increase opportunities and thus change the role of women has resulted in decreased rates of fertility. Women are now in the competition for opportunity, income and wealth with men. In order to compete with men and reach the heights of men, they have to play the traditional behavior and role of men. Men have never been burdened by bearing children and child rearing. Men simply provided the sperm, hunted and protected. Men could then go out and compete with other men, while the women cared for children. Now that the women is competing with man, child rearing bearing and rearing is a competitive disadvantage that many women are forgoing until much later in life, after they have established themselves with careers and income.

The influx of women into the labor force as workers helped to increase our nations output and GDP growth. We traded profit and economic growth in exchange for fertility and the traditional family. We sold out or biological primal directive to be fruitful and multiply. We figured that we could create more fruit for ourselves, the less we multiplied. This worked well in the short run, but the long run consequence of zero and negative population growth, via births outnumbering deaths, can be catastrophic for our growth dependant capitalist system.

No one can argue against providing opportunity for women as being a good thing. However, every action has reactions. Providing opportunity for women should be an imperative. The greater imperative of life and existence, though, is continuing the bloodline through propagating the species. In other words, the purpose and goal of women in nature is to replenish the earth with humanity. When the quest for opportunity and the ability to be equal with men threatens this prime directive, there will be a negative reaction upon humanity and life. Too often in our greed driven, individualist culture and system, children become a constraint on our ability to manifest our greed and individualist selfishness. We can have more material things, the fewer children we have to siphon off our money and time. In Americas quest to maximize capitalism via maximizing greed and consumption is coming back to haunt us.