submitted 1 month ago by orc_princess@lemmy.ml to c/genzedong@lemmygrad.ml

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hi everyone, I'm only interested in hearing from comrades so that's why I thought this could be a good community to post, but if you think this is the wrong community please direct me somewhere else!

Today I was talking to someone somewhat close to me, he mentioned countries like Germany have an aging population and a falling birth rate and I pointed out that I believe it's connected to the cost of living crisis (especially with the expensive energy imports and with governments happily destroying the welfare state) and my friend said that he doesn't buy it and that in his opinion it's hedonism (?).

I find that kind of argument unprovable and moralistic, but it caught me off guard and I figured I'd take this as a learning opportunity. Have you heard this kind of argumentation? Am I right to assume it's just a reactionary thing? Is this worth engaging with, even if it's just for criticism, and if so how? Or should I just move on? I can't cut contact with him but I can just change the topic again if it comes to that lol.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] MasterDeeLuke@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think the primary driver of low birth rates is stress. When you are a subsistence farmer in a rural undeveloped country, things are simple and having children doesn't complicate things very much. In a modern industrialized country having children clashes with rigid time demands of 9-5 jobs and there is a lot more legal headache to worry about. Even if the government subsidizes the money issues that doesn't make up for the loss of communal support and lack of time to adequately take care of children.

this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026

17 points (100.0% liked)

GenZedong

5197 readers

73 users here now

This is a Dengist community in favor of Bashar al-Assad with no information that can lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton, our fellow liberal and queen. This community is not ironic. We are Marxists-Leninists.

See this GitHub page for a collection of sources about socialism, imperialism, and other relevant topics.

This community is for posts about Marxism and geopolitics (including shitposts to some extent). Serious posts can be posted here or in /c/GenZhou. Reactionary or ultra-leftist cringe posts belong in /c/shitreactionariessay or /c/shitultrassay respectively.

We have a Matrix homeserver and a Matrix space. See this thread for more information. If you believe the server may be down, check the status on status.elara.ws.

Rules:

No bigotry, anti-communism, pro-imperialism or ultra-leftism (anti-AES)
We support indigenous liberation as the primary contradiction in settler colonies like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel
If you post an archived link (excluding archive.org), include the URL of the original article as well
Unless it's an obvious shitpost, include relevant sources
For articles behind paywalls, try to include the text in the post
Mark all posts containing NSFW images as NSFW (including things like Nazi imagery)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

GrainEater@lemmygrad.ml

Elara@lemmygrad.ml

ComradePupIvy@lemmygrad.ml

American_Communist22@lemmygrad.ml