[user104658]

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Originally Posted by Livia

Overly complicated.

My parents would have loved a big family, but they couldn't afford one. Consequently, it's just me and my brother. My mother always worked and so did my father. Maybe we should go back to that kind of family planning. We've had free contraception since the sixties, there's no excuse really.

Not to be rude about your age, Livia, but I feel that it's important to point out that the country has changed rather a lot since your parents were doing their family planning. Our entire economic structure has shifted to being consumer based, for a start.

The major difference is that people on a full time working class income used to be able to own a home, pay their bills, and keep food on the table for a family, and usually run a car. Luxuries may have been few but sustaining a family was possible. These days, you're VERY lucky if low wage full time work covers rent, council tax and utility bills without being topped up with tax credits.

So, you're not simply suggesting that only those "with jobs" have children, you're suggesting that only those who are skilled / lower middle class or above reproduce at all. So when the current generation of menial / unskilled workers die off, who takes their place?

It's not overly complicated. Unless you're expecting one of the following scenarios:

1) a sudden and practically impossible economic turnaround heralding an era of living wages, lower cost of living, and a stock of affordable housing. (ideal situation - not feasible, not happening)

2) a massive jump in technology allowing us to create a robot workforce to fill all of the menial roles (we're getting there to be fair...)

IF neither of the above then we need a replenishing stock of unskilled labour to fill menial roles. Not to mention that an economy based on consumerism needs... Well... Consumers... To function. The rank and file (and their children) are consumers. Vital consumers.

Without these things, the entire consumer economy falls flat on its arse and most of us die. It couldn't really be much more simple. I mean, it's already stumbling... But your suggestion would be giving it a shove. No... In fact... it would be putting a double barrelled shotgun to the back of its head, pulling the trigger and watching it pop like a ripe watermelon.

Now this might sound like I'm IN FAVOUR of the system as it stands. I'm not, it's a ****ing shambles, it's a disgrace that working people can't afford a family. I'm on board with what you're saying about multiple children, but they can't afford ONE without wage top ups. It's a fundamentally broken system. But for now, we're lumbered with it, and if it is ever going to be fixed, it's with a more subtle tactic than shouting "sterilise the proletariat!!"