Population and Housing

[danbrotherston]

Capitalism can probably cheat for a while in the face of worsening demographics and outright population decline. As an example, you can have household formation without population increase for a while through innovations like grey divorce. Demographics have been worsening in the West for decades, the question is how long it can keep this up.

Overall population decline and our worsening demographics are very bad things, and saying things like "when population declines, there are more resources around for those that are left" is ridiculous in today's context.

I strongly disagree that population decline of any kind is a "very bad thing". In fact, given the population on this planet, global population decline would probably be a good thing.

But it must be slow and consistent so as to not create demographic issues. And further, we need an economic system geared towards sustainability, rather than one predicated on infinite exponential growth.