Fertility rates and the conflict with the liberal vision

More worrying about the fertility rate:

Politics works on the basis that society will go on and on into the future. The intense focus on climate change – for good or ill – takes for granted that there will be many future generations whose welfare is threatened by damage to the environment. But can we really be so sure that there will be future generations to benefit from our endeavours – or even to look after us in our old age?

The short answer is no: the evidence suggests that the very existence of future society hangs in the balance. The current UK fertility rate – the average number of children per woman – stands at 1.6. This is significantly below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, and continues to fall.

The correct answer there is well, bully for politics then. Because the liberal vision - by which we mean the real one, not the modern - is to maximise choice, freedom and liberty to the individual. Society is then the aggregation of those individual choices. Yes, of course there are limits, things like third party harm and so on. But leave people be and see what happens - that is the design for the liberal society.

This past century has included glorious events - the economic liberation of women for one. The result of that freedom and liberty is fewer children. Oh well, that’s just what humans want to do with their freedom and liberty.

It’s therefore the politics that needs to change, nothing else. For the people have spoken in their most intimate acts and decisions.

It might well be true that some don’t like that aggregate result, the society that results from freedom. But bully for the complaint, not the acts.