Drunken Nation: Russia’s Depopulation Bomb
worldaffairsjournal.org
worldaffairsjournal.org
"history offers no examples of a society that has demonstrated sustained material advance in the face of long-term population decline"
Of course it does: Russia, from 1999-2007. For most of the last decade, Russia was the fastest growing economy in the G8. And it may have been growing even longer than that if you discount the contribution of the sudden drop in weapons production after the fall of the Soviet Union.
And second, how much of the cumulative growth from 1999-2007 was due to astronomical energy prices? I don't think it's absurd to point out that for half of the period you mention, energy prices made Russia's economy appear much stronger than it was in reality. The same happened in the late 1970s and the early 1980s with the USSR. Many attribute the USSR's implosion in large part to the collapse in energy prices in the late 1980s/early 1990s, since the failings of their centrally planned economy couldn't be concealed any longer.
Not when the thesis on the table is that "relentless, unremitting, and perhaps unstoppable depopulation" is "a bomb" that "amounts to an ethnic self-cleansing" and "carries with it grim and potentially disastrous implications." Since depopulation began in 1992 Russia has enjoyed eight years of extraordinary economic growth, not all of which can be accounted for by rising oil prices. That is a salient fact, which the article completely ignores. At best it's shoddy journalism.
It is opinion article. It does not cite any sources for its data, for example birthrate grows since 2005 (according to CIA factbook). And please stop the vodka/drunken nation thing, the rest of the world does not write articles that British have problem with gin anymore.
Since 1999, in fact, as the article acknowledges: "Russia’s post-Communist TFR hit its low—perhaps we should say its low to date—in 1999, when it was 1.17. By 2005, the total fertility rate in the Russian Federation was up to about 1.3".
Some of its conclusions require more evidence (the contention that Russian standard of living will decline, the attribution of increased accidental mortality to alcohol problems instead of more people driving, etc.) But I'm not sure why you doubt the actual statistics.
The British don't have a problem? I thought it was the consensus that British cities are descending into alcoholic loutish hell holes.
There isn't yet a pleasant solution for that.
Unfortunately, segments of population have been reduced before.
While I do agree that the planet can sustain a much higher population, modern farming practices are causing problems and not necessarily sustainable in the long term. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_farming#Disadvantages)
Properly thought out food production that utilizes under-used resources (vast swaths in Russia for instance!) is the key.
Regardless, the concern of the article isn't even whether or not depopulation is bad; in fact it states: "In the modern era, population decline itself need not be a cause for acute economic alarm." Rather the concern is that Russia's depopulation is fueled by increases in illness and mortality. Just my personal opinion, but death and disease are bad things. The article claims that, furthermore, they are bad things for economic growth over the long term.
That's some loopy hyperbole, right there. Babies are still being born in Russia. Even a shockingly huge drop in population due to low replacement will eventually end in a stable population size.
Births aren't evenly-distributed. The population segments that are having more births now are the segments likely to have more births down the road. Death, on the other hand, is much more evenly distributed, and the number of deaths per year is directly related to population. As the population shrinks, you have a smaller number of deaths, but births don't decrease as quickly. Eventually, you hit a new equilibrium.
>Russia’s patterns of death from injury and violence (by whatever provenance) are so extreme and brutal that they invite comparison only with the most tormented spots on the face of the planet today. The five places estimated to be roughly in the same league as Russia as of 2002 were Angola, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Congo? Which one?
Russia's murder rate (while appalling) is below Colombia, South Africa, Jamaica and Venezuela:.
And precision statistics is not required anymore - just step down into any station of Moscow's or Saint-Petersburg's subway at friday's night and take a look at the faces. Everything is visible with naked eyes.