“The real barrier is the soaring cost of marriage and child-rearing. Many young people simply can’t afford to get married. To truly raise marriage rates, the government needs to lower these economic burdens.”
It’s the wrong approach. Earth is in a gross state of ecological overshoot. We should be embracing the demographic decline that will bring our populations and consumption back in line with earths resources.
A shrinking society due to aging is far prefereable than one due to resource exhaustion, deprivation and conflict.
Embrace a smaller population and a bigger world.
And this is where unregulated capitalism and the constant craze for GROWTH GROWTH GROWTH comes into the picture. With a failing demographic AND an aging society, economic collapse is inevitable. I mean, it could be just a long, smooth slope in theory, but not with this dystopian economic system where you have already spent the money you’re getting back in 10 years’ time, with the greedy shareholders dictating everything.
I mean, these demographic changes will happen regardless, but the effects of currently having such a flawed and short sighted system will be painfully drastic.
The issue is that under our current economic model consumption always has increase because revenue and growth for businesses is essential and CEOs are mandated by law to increase shareholder value as much as possible. While the number of people will and is decreasing, the ammount each individual will consume will have to rise so much as to increase overall despite the smaller number of consumers.
That, or the system, as it currently stands, will collapse - degrowth means recession and our society isn’t built to embrace recession yet.
CEOs are mandated by law to increase shareholder value as much as possible
One slight correction, this applies to publicly traded companies that appear on stock markets, yes. This isn’t a requirement in privately held companies.
It actually is for both. In the case of private firms, it’s not necessarily to increase shareholder value, but instead to increase profits and market share due to competition. If they don’t, they’re outcompeted, ran out of business and/or taken over by their competitors.
Besides that, many many private firms are owned by private equity investment companies which can be even more persistent in pushing for higher profits.
Thats a bit different. There isn’t a mandate to do those things which is where OP was going. Many private companies may engage in the same behavior but there isn’t a legal requirement they do so. There are companies that don’t just look one quarter ahead and run their businesses for the long term customer satisfaction. I’ll admit they are getting more rare though.
Yes but it’s important for onlookers to understand this mechanism. I often hear people believing that private firms don’t have to profit maximize. I used to think that too but it doesn’t match reality. The competitive mechanism explains what we see around us.
And of course there are exceptions depending on the exact context and market conditions of a private firm but they don’t negate the mechanism under the assumptions it operates.
And if they aren’t they are often sold into one of those systems once the younger generation of the family decides they have no interest in running their parents’ company.
Thats certainly possible, but there’s no legal requirement they do so. With publicly traded companies the CEOs have a legal fiduciary responsibility to increase shareholder value.
our society isn’t built to embrace recession yet.
Our society isn’t built to survive either.
Humans will never be able to embrace each other. We only embrace money and power. There should be no “economy” or “borders.” But that isn’t how human brains work. We can have small pockets of this way of thinking, but it always gets destroyed.
All that means is extinction right now.
It’s the poorer classes that understand how to live in the world, but they’ll be the ones to die with the rich clueless gentry inheriting an earth they can ever live in.
I have never seen a relationship that was better in marriage than dating, regardless of the timeline.
I got one anecdote but most I’ve observed fall under yours.
Theres a few pretty critical things you get with marriage that you simply can’t with long term committed dating (in the USA at least). Such as:
- being the legal authority over health decisions for your incapacitated partner
- smooth transfer of assets upon death of one partner to the other
- legal protection from one partner being compelled to testify against the other
- certain insurance benefits only apply to married partners
You can get some of these things or versions of them with complicated legal instruments like Medical PoA and trusts, but many times they are a pale imitation and some things simply have no replacement. If you’ve decided to make your life with your partner these are important.
The fact that many laws are written to favor one form of relationship is just another data point that suggests that that form of relationship needed extra incentives for people to even consider it.
Also, in a sensible legal system I could name e.g. a doctor who is a personal friend as the one who makes health decisions for me even if they are not my romantic partner.
I think you’ve got it a bit backwards. Those things aren’t written into law to make marriage more attractive, marriage is just an easy litmus test that you like your partner enough that you’d want them to have those things. As I said, the State will let you replicate a number of those things with legal instruments, but the State also says, if you trust this person enough to be legally bound to them (and responsible for their marital debts too) then we know you would also trust them with these other things so you get them without asking for them.
Of course experiences differ from person to person, culture to culture, and between different circumstances. But in my experience…
-
Have a brother-in-law who married my SO’s older sister many years before we even met. Had 3 children together. Out of nowhere he decided to run away and live with another woman, then got back, decided “people felt different” and left again, only to again try to return and be denied by my sister-in-law. They were the favorites of my mother-in-law until the separation.
-
Have another BIL, married my SO’s younger sister. 2 kids together, just months ago he threatened to leave to a younger woman (a friend of his younger sister). He was the only one to sympathize and side with the first BIL, guess why. Might still run away, because he clearly is only there for convenience.
-
Me and my SO, not married, 13 years together through thick and thin, we never saw any real point to it since we always built our relationship based in trust and mutual understanding. Still going strong and any time we have issues we face them together. Now my MIL tends to favor us over the other ‘couples’, now “marriage doesn’t guarantee anything after all”, not that I personally care about that.
The point being. Marry if you want, but never feel forced to do it. If you need a fancy piece of paper by the government or religion to stay together then it’s nothing more than a self-imposed cage, and it’s far from a guarantee against infidelity.
You only have this one single life. Live happily, don’t try to please everyone against your own happiness. Everyone will still be unpleased, and you’ll only get increasingly miserable.
Off topic to this but in my case I and my SO lived together but my family didn’t accepted her before marriage.
Married since a year and my family is now surprisingly treating her very well.
I deeply respect anyone who chooses any alternative to monogamy, but y’all have no idea how stoked I am that I get to call my partner “wife.”
It’s totally fair to be as vanilla as an unsalted cracker if that’s what you feel! The ‘Q’ part of LGBTQIA is super duper important, as how can you be sure you’re straight without ever asking?
-
Fuck religious ceremonies.
