Demographic fear-mongering and the return of patriarchy…

Phillip Longman is convinced that demographics will inevitably lead to a right-wing utopia in the West. The New America Foundation fellow and author of The Coming Demographic Apocalypse: Run While You Still Can!, has argued in the past that the aging population of the world's advanced democracies will ultimately force the roll-back of the welfare state. It's not because he wants to see it happen, it's just a demographic reality. It's inexorable.

In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Longman sets his sights on the demographic wonders of "patriarchy," which he defines in pretty benign terms.

Ultimately, according to Longman, we'll see patriarchy's return to grandeur, as traditionalists out-breed selfish, childless, me-first liberals on a global scale:

… The modern mind simply assumes that men and women, no matter how estranged, will always breed enough children to grow the population--at least until plague or starvation sets in…

Yet, for more than a generation now, well-fed, healthy, peaceful populations around the world have been producing too few children to avoid population decline. That is true even though dramatic improvements in infant and child mortality mean that far fewer children are needed today (only about 2.1 per woman in modern societies) to avoid population loss. Birthrates are falling far below replacement levels in one country after the next--from China, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, to Canada, the Caribbean, all of Europe, Russia, and even parts of the Middle East.