Could socialism work without any limit to procreation? Why or why not?
If all basic needs were met (food, shelter, and medical), could socialism work (without the need for wars or famine to reduce the population)?
I mean, when people have education and free access to birth control birth rates go down without infringements on bodily autonomy.
Ideally, socialism isn't just "the government provides for your needs", it goes the other way around too. The point is to come together, pool resources and combine our strenghts. There's no free handouts, you give and you receive.
You shouldn't have to enforce a birth rate cap if the population understand that they need to match society's capacity to expand and build the infrastructure. You'd announce the recommended number and danger number, and people would organically organize to on average make it, knowing their large family could lead to famine.
The main problem here is
If all basic needs were met (food, shelter, and medical)
That part does a lot of heavylifting there. People only play nice all together when society is working for them, people need to respect the society they live in. When scarcity happens, people become selfish, it's survival of the strongest, and everything falls off the rails and naturally goes to capitalism and hoarding resources. The population cannot lose faith in the system.
When scarcity happens, people become selfish, it's survival of the strongest, and everything falls off the rails and naturally goes to capitalism and hoarding resources.
I take huge exception to this. That is absolutely not the case in my experience. Poor people are often much more generous with their time and resources than rich people. Any given billionaire could give up 1% of their wealth to end hunger in their country, but they don't. Rich people could give up their holiday homes and empty rental properties to end homelessness, but they don't. And yet poor people will volunteer in food co-ops, donate to homeless shelters, work extra hours to provide for their families.
naturally goes to capitalism
Capitalism is only around 300 years old, it is absolutely NOT a natural state of affairs for humans. It's just another way of arranging the economy like mercantilism or socialism.
Scarcity and being poor are two different things: when you're poor, the grocery store is fully stocked, you just can't afford it. When resources are scarce, the store is empty or almost empty. We've seen it artificially with COVID when people panicked about toilet paper. People bought all the toilet paper, some even to resell at higher prices. People do crazy things when you don't know when you'll get more, especially food and essential supplies.
Being kind when you're poor is advantageous because other poor people will help you too when you need something. It's community, and you basically end up somewhat pooling and managing resources together. But it kind of only works at small scale, because humans build relationships. At large scale it breaks into groups, and groups form even bigger groups, and you have factions and big fights.
For capitalism, maybe it's not the best fitting word. I mean specifically people will barter and trade, someone will find a way to generate profits, hiring other people for profit and eventually slowly start hoarding all the resources just like regular corporate modern day. Even the concept of taxes is pretty old: you give me some extra grain and I'll protect your farm. Someone will find a way to position themselves as important and justify taking more than others. Get favors, bribes, make more kids to help maintain the family's power.
One of the social factors that most limits procreation is the education of women. If advanced education is available and encouraged, the age a woman has their first child is pushed back. As fertile years are limited for women, this reduces their potential numbers of children. On top of that, educated women often seek careers which often further reduces their active reproductive years. This is why developed countries usually have much lower birthrates than underdeveloped countries.
Please share your definition of socialism.
Is your definition of socialism basic needs met or something else?
The Nordic countries gets close to the food, shelter, medical being met. Homelessness (sleeping in public) was surveyed at 0.04% according to first Google result (Sweden 2023). Healthcare is not free but very cheap.
Anyway if that qualifies then yes, birthrate is less than replacement level.
The only people that want to create issue around how many children you have are those that will eventually exploit your children. The number one polluter is the military industrial complex and our whole society revolves around killing people. Everything is a monopoly. So, I think we can't even really address that question without seeing what the world would be like if we could... I don't know. Tax the rich. So we can have the leverage to push back against our masters, or we could just use kinetic means, but either way. I don't know. Naval gazing is not really going to... or is even fruitful when we have to deal with the class war, because there is no war but the class war.
Socialism would certainly work better than capitalism does. Under capitalism, because every company is driven to increase profits and the rate of profits, we have tons and tons of:
In a socialist society (and, I would argue, a [libertarian socialist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism society) society in which there were systems in place to prevent the accumulation of power), the base incentives of the system should be to fulfill human needs and promote human flourishing, as part of a web of ecosystems on Earth, and not to make a profit.
Here are a few examples of how that would make society much more efficient in its use of resources:
I would also argue that there is no true socialism if it is not anti-hierarchical, which includes liberation and full bodily autonomy for everyone having childbearing anatomy. Among other things, that means the right to choose when and when not to have a child.
If we could achieve a libertarian socialist commune-of-communes in which we could guarantee ourselves and each other a dignified and abundant standard of living, in which we could provide for the varying needs of different kinds of people instead of demanding that we fit one or two pre-approved molds, and which has mechanisms to prevent the accumulation of power, then I think we can turn to questions about the number of humans who can exist on Earth, how we might travel the stars to find/create additional homes, and so on.
Love your insight here, thank you!
The problem is profits is what drives innovation, research and development. Without the incentive to improve your own situation you are not motivated to innovate and improve the life of everyone. That's why it is doomed to fail.
Yes. Birth rates in developed countries naturally drop without government intervention.
That being said, socialism is more than just basic needs being met - it's a question of who owns what laborers produce. Under socialism, the idea is that the workers themselves own what they produce (or the fruits of their labor, more generally), as opposed to shareholders or firm owners.
Is this question based on China?
I don't understand how this a question? Socialism does work, everyday, in many places and certainly doesn't need war or famine.