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03/23/2008: "Socialism opposes organic principle of family"

According to UN projections, Latvia will lose 44 percent of its population by 2050 as a result of demographic trends. In Estonia, the population is expected to shrink by 52 percent, in Bulgaria 36 percent, in Ukraine 35 percent, and in Russia 30 percent. In comparison with these figures, the projected population decline in Italy (22 percent), the Czech Republic (17 percent), Poland (15 percent) or Slovakia (8 percent) looks like a small decrease. France and Germany will lose relatively little population, and the population of the United Kingdom will even see a slight growth -- thanks to immigrants.

To put it straightforwardly, and perhaps a little cynically, in the past children used to be regarded as investments that provided their parents with means of subsistence in old age. In Czech the word "vejminek" (a place in a farmhouse reserved for the farmer's old parents) is actually derived from a verb meaning "to stipulate": in the deed of transfer, the old farmer stipulated the conditions on which the farm was to be transferred to his son. Instead of an "intergenerational" policy, there used to be direct dependence of parents on their children. This meant that people had immediate economic motivation to have a sufficiently numerous and well-bred offspring - whereas today's anonymous system makes all workers pay for the pensions of all retirees in an utterly depersonalized manner.

This system enables huge numbers of "free riders" to receive more than what would correspond to their overall contribution in their productive life. Those with incomes way above the average, on the contrary, are penalized, as the system gives them less money than they contributed to it. This is referred to as the "solidarity principle".

[ Actually, the reason there are fewer children is that your society is falling apart, not that we lack a way to financially motivate parents, but this is a great criticism of socialism. National Socialism fixed these problems and problems in capitalism, but it's taboo to mention that we want working solutions. ]

http://www.techcentralstation.com/012705D.html