Meanwhile, back at the population boom

I guess great minds think alike.  Over at The Corner, Mark Steyn links to this interesting article about the return of the Patriarchy.

It is basically the same thing that I was talking about here.

You'll notice the date of that article is March, 2006.  Well, here is what I was saying on January 5, 2006:

To use a Marxist phrase, the "correlation of forces" heavily favors the right: we have the guns, the guts and the babies.

Of course, the Muslim nations have even more babies, but they have far less skill in technology (that is maintaining and developing it) or organization (which is why their countries are run by morally bankrupt kleptocrats).

Steyn keeps saying "we are reaching a point beyond which no civilization has recovered" but as Longman shows in his "Patriarchy" article, population decline is an old problem - and it doesn't always mean the entire civilization collapses.

Longman gives two clear examples:  the Roman aristocrats c. 131 B.C. and in the time of the Emperor Augustus - a full century later.

Obviously the worries of Macedonicus were ultimately false - the Roman Empire didn't cease in 131 B.C. or even 31 B.C.  In fact, it kept growing, not reaching its full extent until around 140 A.D.  If that's a decline, more, please.

Longman also mentions Greece, which did decline, and basically became a Roman museum.  Its people were diminished, it is true, but its civilization lived on.

I think Steyn is being far too pessimistic.  Yes, we are about to undergo wrenching change and we live in dangerous times.

But (taking the long view) we've always lived in dangerous times.  Before the rise of militant Islam, there was Communism.  Before that Fascism, Prussian militarism, Anarchism, Marxism, Napoleon, Jacobins, etc.

Every generation has some great brooding menace that threatens to overturn the existing order.  Whether it is Habsburg Spain or Nuclear Iran, people at the time are convinced that unless they win, the world is doomed.

They're right, of course.  The world that they want will be doomed if they lose.  Certainly the West can fail if it doesn't take the threat seriously.

But the issue is far from decided.  Birth rates change.  They go down, they go up.  The Roe Effect is slowly but steadily being felt - those Baby Boomers who had the one designer kid are being outreproduced by the traditional religious families that went in for more. 

When the Younger Posse Members were in public school, our family was considered quite large.  Inside the parish hall, however, three kids is merely "a good start."

Obviously, that's far from comprehensive, but the point remains - the Decline of the West is an uneven thing, and in the end, the conservatives are the ones who are "showing up" for the future.

Comments

[Childe Roland]

Besides all that, a drop in the population rate isn't the tragedy that some people who never made it past Econ 201 will try to tell you it is. Population rate effects the economy positively in that the stock of ideas and rate of technological growth increases (more brains means more ideas). But it also has a negative effect on the economy because capital accumulation has to keep increasing with the population rate. Otherwise, a nation becomes poorer over time. In short, investment rates and technological progress is much more important. But people with nothing better to do like to sit around crying wolf at anything they can.

[Brent in NH]

I have four children and, sorry to say, my parish in New Hampshire considers this large.

I wish Catholics didn't practice contraception and abortion at rates comparable with other groups.

I just say this NRA video via Townhall.com about Ohio public schools putting age restrictions on who can handle firearms, given to unsuspecting third-graders:
http://www.townhall.com/video/nranews/1450_NRA110507