> there won't be enough housing, food or medicine for everyone.
This scarcity of resources is true and it has nothing to do with capital allocation methodology. It's just economics. Human beings collectively have unlimited wants. You can't solve it by changing the allocation method.
When there's a stable supply of food, medicine, and housing people reproduce. More aggregate people implies more aggregate demand.
Suppose only 5% of the population breeds like rabbits in the presence of food, medicine, and housing. It won't take long for that cultural subpopulation to dominate.
Humans are not unlike microorganisms in a petri dish when one adds nutrients. All life is.
Wtf are you even talking about. Do you feel like some people should be starved, homeless and sick because else they would "breed like rabbits"? What a deranged view to hold.
I said human wants are limitless. You said no they're not. I said yes they are, giving the example of population growth as a way that aggregate demand increases even if some people are completely satisfied. This is ECON 101 and a small amount of biology. That's what I am talking about. Notice "need" and "want" are 2 distinct words and you are reading past the difference.
Demographic transition in one culture does not imply universal demographic transition across the species. Because those who haven't yet transitioned will control population growth rates.
Now why did I say this? Because you opened by presuming that socialism would solve human wants. Which is nonsense. Nothing solves human wants.
Demographic transition is absolutely a universal phenomenon, no country has ever been observed taking another path.
I reiterate, the need for food, housing and medicine is not unlimited. The population is not infinite and humans have a limited need of these things. Do the math: finite×finite=finite
"Nothing solves human wants": what about prices? It seems like it does. It's a flawed solution that leaves some with nothing, but it does solve it. Now, what if we distributed the basic utilities on an as-needed basis. That too would solve "human wants" on those things, and would ideally leave none lacking.
Please don't quote "econ 101 and basic biology" at me without actually engaging with what I'm saying. You're ignoring material reality and using abstract nonsense to deter from the subject.
People reproduced much more when food, medicine, and housing were much more scarce. Humans are quite a bit different from micro-organisms. Humans are a K-selected species - the optimal strategy for passing on our genes is to invest as many resources as possible into the smallest viable number of offspring. In the past people needed large numbers of children because infant mortality was very high - the average number of children that actually survived to reproductive age in rural, pre-industrial populations was less than 2. Now that infant mortality is low, there is no need for spares.
We see this quite clearly. Wealthy nations have much lower fertility rates. Wealthy individuals tend to have fewer kids. Even those pursuing large families have smaller families than they did in the recent past - my grandfather was the youngest of 12, when was the last time you met someone with 12 kids? Even Elon Musk, one of the richest people in human history whose net worth exceeds what a medieval peasant would make in their lifetime a million times over and who has an obsession with maximizing his reproduction has a number of offspring that would not be seen as exceptionally large by a medieval peasant, particularly when spread across multiple women.
Realistically, no one is going on a breeding frenzy because they can suddenly afford a 3 bedroom apartment.
> Humans are a K-selected species - the optimal strategy for passing on our genes is to invest as many resources as possible into the smallest viable number of offspring.
It's certainly fashionable these days in the West. I don't know that I would call it optimal. Optimal now for passing along genes is probably donating at a sperm bank after getting into a regionally swanky university. A joke, of course, but notice it stacks! Certainly the donating to the sperm bank plus what you profess dominates what you profess in isolation. Since I just improved the strategy, it wasn't optimal.
> People reproduced much more when food, medicine, and housing were much more scarce.
Yet the population was smaller. You're talking per capita rates and I am not.
We successfully produce more viable adults now in absolute terms than ever before, the number of live births notwithstanding. Otherwise, global population would drop. Which it hasn't. Definitely slower growth but not shrinking: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/#growth rate
That site says "The latest world population projections indicate that world population will reach 10 billion persons in the year 2060 and 10.2 billion in 2100."
> Humans are quite a bit different from micro-organisms
Humans increasingly inhabit inhabitable parts of the Earth with increasing density. This species-wide growth, regardless of the optimal reproductive strategy for any single individual, is like a microorganism spreading across a petri dish. We're starting to run into the edges of the dish so we're slowing down a tad. But, likely growth for at least the next 75 projected years per the above 10.2B people in 2100 projection.
Going back a step: My point is there's no end in sight for needs around housing, food, and medicine. Human beings aren't special. We consume all available resources, in part due to population growth. I did not expect population growth to be such a controversial topic. Population, it grows.
> Since I just improved the strategy, it wasn't optimal.
You did not improve on the strategy.
> You're talking per capita rates and I am not.
Because per capita rates are all that matters. specifically your concern was "Suppose only 5% of the population breeds like rabbits in the presence of food, medicine, and housing." This requires individuals to have more children per capita.
Population growth has been dominated by demographic momentum. Because a few generations ago infant mortality fell, those generations that had high birthrates produced much larger subsequent generations than thir immediate predecessors. These later generations had much lower per capita birthrates but they were larger, so as you say, they have more aggregate children. Subsequent generations after this have very similar numbers of children, but these generations are replacing smaller generations from when the infant mortality rate was higher. Once you get far enough from industrialization that no one from before the infant mortality decrease is left to be replaced, the population stops growing, at least from births. In the developed world which is now well over 100 years from this transition, population growth is purely from immigration, and in fact without this immigration the populations would be decreasing (as it is in a few less desirable locales like eastern europe). East Asia which went through this transition about 60 years ago is plateauing now. World population growth is only continuing in parts of the world where infant mortality is still falling, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.
You conveniently failed to mention in your link that it shows the world population dropping to 10.2 billion in 2100 after peaking in the 2080s.
> Humans increasingly inhabit inhabitable parts of the Earth with increasing density.
False. Huge potentially inhabitable parts of the earth remain uninhabited and are unlikely to ever be inhabited, and population densities in most inhabited areas are falling. There are a few distinct areas, namely urban centers, where population density is large and increasing, but this only proves that population density is not resource constrained.
> We're starting to run into the edges of the dish so we're slowing down a tad.
False. Resources are more abundant than ever, and our rate of production is growing faster than ever. Places with the most resources, the most petri dish available, have the lowest birthrates.
> But, likely growth for at least the next 75 projected years per the above 10.2B people in 2100 projection.
57 years based on the above projection
> We consume all available resources, in part due to population growth.
False. See above.
> I did not expect population growth to be such a controversial topic. Population, it grows.
Because you were uninformed on the topic.
> My point is there's no end in sight for needs around housing, food, and medicine.
There very clearly is an end in sight for the need for higher levels of housing, food production, and medicine production. Specifically it's in decades, not centuries, barring some future demographic shift comparable to the reduction in infant mortality during industrialization.
This scarcity of resources is true and it has nothing to do with capital allocation methodology. It's just economics. Human beings collectively have unlimited wants. You can't solve it by changing the allocation method.