Preface for the Mods and anyone who has had experience with reactionary antinatalists in the past: I am a Marxist Leninist and I think the only way to rectify social ills once and for all is to end capitalism and build communism. I am aware that a nihilistic/liberal/reactionary bent has been the predominant lens through which antinatalists conjure much of their philosophy and analysis which is one reason I'm making this post and it's meant simply to be a discussion about how antinatalist might (or might not) be useful to leftists in heightening the contradictions and perhaps triggering a revolutionary scenario
Okay,,so I've become very interested in the idea of antinatalism. I assume most of you know what this is but if you don't read/skim the basics here: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antinatalism. Up til now the monopoly on discussion of antinatalism has been nihilistic and even reactionary. Most socialists I've talked to about the issue seem to assume it can only lead to reaction due to this and that it is a rightist ideology as such. However, I argue that, when distilled to its purest form it's an apolitical idea similar to atheism. Therefore I believe a Left-antinatalism or perhaps a new strain of thought utilizing antinatalism as a jumping off point can be constructed from it.
My main points are: 1) It would be very easy to ease doomer-minded liberals or apolitical proles into understanding anticapitalist ideas with antinatalist talking points. For instance, pointing out that when there is a shortage of labor due to a lack of births porky will begin to slash social programs and so on as it will put too much strain on them to care for ageing population without new workers being born. This is already being discussed in bourgeoisie media: "archive.is/wnwHG". Why should the working class have to suffer from yet another obliteration of protections because they refuse to bring more children into a dying world?
2) "Dying world" leads into my next point. Ecologically minded liberals could easily be radicialized by pointing out that refusing to have children is morally correct is evidenced by the impending environmental crisis and how refusing to have a child, even more so than stopping meat and dairy consumption or buying an electric car, is the number 1 way to personally reduce emissions. From here we could argue that it makes no sense to furnish the ruling class with more workers until we prevent or at least lessen the environmental catastrophe and that the only way to do that is the abolition of the capitalist system. With liberals as well you can strike their fetishization of "personal freedom" by pointing out that the only reason to have a child right now if you don't have the means to raise then in a healthy and happy environment is to please porky with another wageslave and why should you sacrifice the little free time you have in neoliberalism for that?
3) If a significant portion or the world was brought around to an antinatalist mindset which was tied to an anticapitalist mindset the already dropping birthrates could be accelerated and combined with mass strikes. This would have a one two punch on porky because automation isn't going to develop far enough to replace jobs for another few decades (which is why porky is freaking the fuck out about both low birthrates and nationalist who threaten to limit immigration) and because unemployment is so low right now that if repeated and prolonged work shortages were coupled with a prolonged lack of new workers it would inflict massive economic damage particularly if it follows the next financial crash.
This last point is obviously a bit tricky because porky could just attempt to rectify it through even more immigration and also because it would be a long-game. However I think porky, without sufficient automation to replace jobs without more immigration is too scared to go even further with it due to the fact that it stokes reaction. Porky is obviously not scared or reaction itself but are scared of things like Brexit (for the most part I mean there are obviously a lot of porkies who are profiting from Brexit but the bug players who make up the controllers of global capital can't stand it) which limits the autonomy of neoliberals supply chains and perpetual motion of global capital.
Essentially my argument is that while antinatalism had until now been a moralistic argument mostly latched onto by the right and liberals an argument can be made for a materialist and practical antinatalism which says no children until the abolition of capitalism. It incentives radicals to work harder and faster while also obliterating the ability of porky to perpetuate its interest. Basically antinatalism is correct but not in itself but only until capitalism is abolished
I don't want children but that's how you survive so wtf nigga
looks like lenin after blowing up a tsarist church and forgetting he had to be a little farther away from it
John Jenkins
I have no idea why Lenin has smog on his face. I got the picture from Marxists.org, it was taken in 1921 if memory serves right. Is it just badly preserved photo?
Jace Rogers
AY, YO, IT"S NIGGA LENIN
Jose Torres
That's the point. It's basically utilizing low birthrates the same way that utilizing low unemployment when strikes are,called is
Nicholas Robinson
it's just lenin doing blackface ironically
Adam Gray
There were antinatalist posters on this board before. Most were black-flags, and they were and still are regarded as some of the worst posters to ever be here. "Revolutionary" antinatalism is as retarded a "revolutionary" mass suicide, to think it will do anything whatsoever is idealist as fuck. And to put the pressure on people to give up on having children because of the system itself rather then motivating people to remove the system in the first place is completely missing the point. Read Lenin marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/jun/29.htm
Thomas Perez
I'm not saying we shouldn't remove the system I'm saying that it might be a good philosophical argument that incentives people to remove the system to point out that having a child under capitalism is innately 100x than under communism.
Chase Walker
Also if you aren't going to respond to any of the points I made in the op and just Strawman my argument by implying I'm an anarcho nihilist and thus am defending whatever retarded shit they said on the subject when I starred the entire thread with a literal preface saying that anticapitalism takes precedence and this might just be a way towards that just fuck off
I'm not interested in arguing with people about something I didn't say
Alexander Robinson
I think that was the joke, comrade user
Isaac Foster
but this is literally every single argument that happens on this website
ever talk to the average white woman between the ages of 18 and 32? all of them insist they don't want children. the Jews already won.
I'm going to kill myself before all countries are 96% boon peoples, spics and Arabs in another generation or so I will allow them to BBQ and eat me
Adam Gutierrez
will not* allow them
Matthew Flores
Birthrates have been on the decrease even in brown countries my man albeit at a mich slower rate compared to europe. It's just a side effect of development. Furthermore the immigration issue is literally cuz porky needs workers to 1)fill the positions left by ageing populations to keep up profit and 2)to have a perpetual spook to turn white workers against other workers so they don't turn against porky
Also wouldn't a white woman saying she doesn't want children also mean with colored people you,stupid fascist?
Colton Fisher
When you ask a girl out you don't let her know that she is good breeding stock.
Nolan Jackson
you idiot. why are leftists always so stupid? they are outbreeding us domestically and in their homelands. high fertility regions going from 9 children a woman to 3.6 children a woman isn't anything to write home about. especially when white fertility has hovered below 2.0 children per women for nearly five decades now and is now reaching actual extinction levels. they are still reproducing at a high level and the gates to the city remain wide open for them to come here.
god I hate you people so much but I take great solace in the fact that non whites are going to make your life hell when they outnumber you a dozen to one literally everywhere you go in a very short time.
Nathan Price
you really think I say it right out the gate? I literally wait three or four dates to ask but you can usually infer a wah-men's attitude about it within ten minutes of actually talking to her.
Ethan Flores
...
Jack Brooks
You also realize the argument I'm making in the op is that if capitalism was abolished it would make it easier to have families right? Aka it's an updated argument of shit Engels talked about 100+ years ago
Nolan Thomas
having a family has never been easier or cheaper or safe for woman in the entirety of human history especially in the western European social Democracies , just look at Abdul and his wife they gleefully shit out five children with a shit eating grin on their face
White woman are no longer having children because they are liberated thanks to feminism while patriarchal cultures continue to shit out children by the Baker's dozen both in their third world hovels and in the formerly European countries they migrate to because the women simply are not allowed a say in the matter
Nathan Moore
It's amazing how easy it is for you people to miss the point. Yeah neoliberal feminism made women more interested in careers than being moms. It also forced men to work longer for less. Thus having a family difficult. Under communism you wouldn't have to choose. Immigrants also wouldn't constantly be flooding into your precious white communities cuz imperial wars and invitations to do labor in other countries cuz while shit they're still an improvement over their hellhole wouldn't be driving massive movements of labourers.
But yeah dude keep shitting on communists cuz you saw a video where some antifa faggots beat up a limp twisted/pol/ sperg for saying the n word
Oliver Lewis
Feminism is entirely the point. women don't want children unless they are compelled to (violently) by patriarchal forces. most feminists will tell you right from the horse's mouth.
most Western women are already antinatalist. it's not them you have to convince. it's brown women you have to convince, along with their husbands who beat them if they say they not wish to have children. good luck with that.
and for the record I guarantee you I've been posting on Zig Forums longer than you and know more about communism through pure osmosis.
Jaxson Sullivan
While immigrants have quite a few children in the first generation, there is an immediate stabilization and drastic drop off as soon as the second. Also, while having children is generally safer now then generations before, it is in no way cheaper. If anything, it is far more expensive to raise a child now in developed capitalist countries then ever before given the necessary costs that need to be invested into each one.
Juan Brown
Source. Also ideally we will get to a point where we don't literally need female bodies to make babies if we absolutely have to but I'm sure the thought or that triggers you even more so I won't even go there
"I watched a bunch of YouTube video compilations or neoliberal college feminists with blue hair saying stupid shit therefore itscehay every single white woman on the planet believes or desires"
Benjamin Perez
Also Damn man it's almost like I just said this you stupid faggot
fertility rate for women in Russia has hovered just below 2.0 since 1967 as per a quick Google search, typical and in line with countries in the West where women were liberated from the patriarchy
Oliver Carter
You didn't explain shit OP. What's the case for leftist antinatalism? All you're saying is that having some leftist antinatalist position could be strategically useful. You're not giving a single reason why an authentic leftist would choose to be an antinatalist. "Let's pretend to be reactionaries to attract the reactionary audience!" No thanks.
Owen Scott
What the fuck happened during the 60's in Russia?
Ayden Martin
Yes
Never said this and while there is a reactionary strain in antinatalist thought most reactionaries are extremely pro-natalist (as the Nazi itt bears,out)
Eli Gray
lower birthrates come from living on a first world country, if we want to reduce world births we must clearly give first world conditions to every single country in the world
who's with me
Alexander Martin
it's more about feminism, birth control, and free abortions, parts of South america are actually a decent example
Chase Ramirez
I didn't really go into it in the op but this is part of the argument as well. If we ended funding for imperial extraction of capital and instead worked with other nations to develop their material conditions it would naturally create a synthesis that leads 5o degrowth naturally
This is what the user and China should have done but the Sino Soviet split fucked everything up along with the cold war
Eli Green
genius.
Liam Bennett
Literally read the op you fucking retard. The point isn't wiping out humanity it's using antinatalist attitudes to generate a birth strike that opens a rift for socialists to seize the means
Christian Lopez
It was actually a little over 3.0 before that, and even when it dropped to around 2.0 the total population continued increasing at a general consistent rate regardless.
Brezhnev
Joshua Young
People (both women and men) in developed countries will choose to have less children as a personal lifestyle choice. It is not antinatalism. They are not acting out of a philosophical conviction that we shouldn't bring more people into the world. Having kids just doesn't fit their personal priorities.
Why it doesn't fit their personal priorities has a lot to do with economics. Part of it is consumerism. People have replaced the long-term satisfaction of starting a family with the short-term satisfactions offered by the market. Part of it is instability. People don't settle down as they used to in the past. Reliable employment is harder to find than ever before. This makes it hard to plan for having children.
Also, people in less developed countries don't have good access to contraceptives. If they want to have sex, they'll have to run the risk of getting children. This massively increases birthrates. Most pregnancies have always been happy accidents.
The idea that women are just magically inclined to not have kids is stupid. I don't even know how you think that makes sense.
Wyatt Rogers
peak was 2.22 per women in 1987 based on what I'm reading which is still just barely above replacement level
Xavier Rogers
someone's mad that i didn't read OP's novel and decided to shitpost instead
you are honestly just flat out incorrect. women will not have children unless they are violently compelled to. liberate women and they will not have children. give them a choice and they just won't do it. economics has very little to do with it. just look at lower tier countries where Feminism has taken root.
Julian Richardson
See
Christian Stewart
i was directly responding to someone who made the strawman, or whatever. I was following from their premise, not associating any conclusions with OP's message.
Isaiah Anderson
Just shut the fuck up, so fucking sick of talking to living stereotypes of right-wing niggers
Carter Fisher
First, the peak was around the 1950s with the replacement rate being over 3.0. Second, how is the population exceeding the replacement rate for an already established large population a bad thing in the slightest.
whatever you dumbfuck. keep on ascribing fertility decline to some nebulous bullshit about economics when it's simply women's liberation and free access to abortion 24/7 and the pill. this isn't difficult.
Jordan Barnes
Why? Where did you get this dumb idea? Women are much more interested in having kids going by my experience. Men just tend to go along with them. Neither men or women will tend to do it. Kids have always been accidents resulting from unsafe sex. We have now invented safe sex and made it widely available, hence births have dramatically dropped. What countries?
Colton Young
there was a peak in post 45 Soviet union specifically because stalin pursued natalist policies thanks to the 20 million losses they suffered during the war and women were encouraged to go back into the kitchen and were awarded medals for having lots of children. the absolute peak between 1965 and 1990 for Russia with the graph I'm looking at is 1987 at 2.22
Anthony Lopez
You realize that japan, a very actually reactionary country until recently, experienced a huge fertility drop off in the late 80s and throughout the 90s right? I wonder what,could have possibly contributed to that? Was it perhaps a massive recession and a neoliberals drive to get women to enter the workforce?
Jack Anderson
by looking at fertility rates for countries where women were liberated and finally given a choice in the manner no not really. especially in this day and age. most of them are more than happy with a dog with these days. this honestly isn't true. patriarchal cultures are very directed in their natalism. you are literally not considered a man in patriarchal cultures unless you sire multiple children. Argentina and Brazil come to mind. Iran is a good example of fertility rates significantly dropping the moment abortion becomes free and accessible (2004 for Iran I believe)
what do you consider reactionary about Japan exactly? they have arguably embraced feminism and women's liberation earlier and with more fervor than the west.
Parker Gomez
And? None of this is "violently compelling" women. None of this is taking away women's rights. Woman are still liberated, but if they decide to have a family they are given benefits for it. Your entire argument has been "woman won't have kids unless they are forced to with violence" while the USSR shows that is simply not true.
Nathaniel Turner
yeah whatever ya chucklefuck
Matthew Cooper
So let's be clear in what you're saying. If we were to get rid of consumerism, and we were to give everyone good predictable employment, and living conditions fit for , this would not make them more inclined to start planning families? That's just nebulous economic bullshit?
Sounds like a less developed version of my point on consumerist culture. Well duh. You're conflating things here. Patriarchal cultures =/= cultures that serve men's interests. They're cultures that ascribe a leading role to men. Men have little choice in the matter. Like you say, they don't consider you a man until you sire many children. This implies that men aren't siring many children out of their own volition. Birth control decreasing birth rates is what I've been saying the whole time. Iran is an example of a very patriarchal society showing the same phenomenon. You've disproved your own point. Unless you think Iran, a country that legally mandates women to wear a hijab, is feminist.
Eli Cook
(me) should be
Luis Evans
whether or not people have children isn't your decision to make, christ what a bunch of control freaks.
Jacob Barnes
yes that's exactly what I am saying. the only way to increase fertility rates is to reinstitute the patriarchy and take away abortion rights from women. there is very little patriarchy in practice in Iran if women can elect to get abortions. Iran actually has pretty "progressive" divorce structures as well. Iran is actually very feminist by muslim standards their rate of female enrollment in their universitie system is almost on par with the west.
Joseph Allen
It's almost as if safe, reliable contraception and abortion are more accessible in more developed societies. The association between fertility and economics is extraordinarily strong, trying to brush it under the rug is disingenuous.
You have very clearly never been out of your basement. Most people like children. They want to have them. Women especially. The only people who absolutely don't are freaks on Reddit. That's an utterly arbitrary standard you've made up to suit your point. They realize the necessity of it for economic development.
Elijah Diaz
This isn't even true, as woman were also employed into the workforce wholesale given the loses of men in the war. They just were also provided large benefits for having a family. Abortion was made illegal, yes, but the Soviet policy on abortion was always that is wasn't necessarily a good thing, just something that had to be offered to prevent illegal abortions by "babkis". Eventually the goal was to make such things completely unnecessary as it was seen as an issue intrinsically linked with economics.
birth control and abortion are just another tool feminists use to liberate themselves from childbirth and the patriarchy, the fact that this happens in economically prosperous countries is an after thought, see: parts of South america where feminism has taken root, or see prosperous countries with high fertility rates where feminism has not taken root (Qatar and ksa spring to mind)
Cameron Rivera
meant for
Brayden Reed
i leave my basement on a daily basis and even talk to women all of the time, white women have gone full blown hedonism mode and absolutely recoil at the idea of having children and this is because they are unchained by the patriarchy. women sublimate whatever little maternal instinct they have left by buying dogs and cats or tutoring PoC children in after school programs (barf) it's not arbitrary at all unrestricted access to abortion is the cornerstone of feminism and their number one weapon to liberating themselves from the patriarchy sweaty Iran isn't anti feminist just because they half assedly enforce hijab rules on women, while we're on the subject there is a dress code that is half assedly enforced for males as well.
Kayden Hughes
almost completely true. i never understood the "woman's body" perspective as a broad justification.
Owen Collins
The entirety of capitalism is "full blown hedonism" mode. On that topic, fascism is hedonism cranked up to its absolute conclusive extreme. ? We're getting really down to below bedrock here in regards to what you define as feminist or not.
Logan Price
Not every female is a radical feminist. Leave your house. Outliers don't change the fact that the overall correlation is very consistent.
I live in San Francisco, I honestly try not to. But I assure you I do They're not outliers birth rates are much more strongly correlated to women's liberation and access to abortion than they are to economic development or the lack thereof, even the Soviets understood this when they decided to make abortion illegal
Matthew Gray
Iran isn't anti feminist just because of the hijab rules, you realize how lax the hijab rules are? Iran is arguably feminist on the basis of their divorce rights alone
Isaiah Green
Most of the world is not California. How? Economic development can be quantified, "women's liberation" is arbitrary.
Christian Smith
sweety I'm thinking you are the one who doesn't understand what feminism is supposed to actually be abojt okay sweeyu
Mason Thomas
it's not. not arbitrary at all. and much more strongly correlated than economic development.
I'm getting bored here honestly.
Levi Bennett
The women you've talked to are the exact same people who go on Reddit to complain about how a toddler was loud in a restaurant once. They do not represent the general population.
Kevin Peterson
and? fertility rates for white women even in say rural Arkansas aren't much to write home about
Leo Anderson
You understand this would make a large portion of patriarchal protestant societies "feminist", right?
Aiden Adams
Then post actual numbers, you mong. The economic association has actual research backing it up, not some seething incel hunch.
Hudson Cruz
The point is that women don't dislike having children. It's nonsense. Our society just doesn't provide good opportunities to do it in a responsible way. If it did, we'd maintain a very comfortable birth rate around replacement level. Pumping out children in the way we did under patriarchal societies isn't sustainable today.
Michael Collins
you understand how hard it was to ACTUALLY get a divorce in Anglo protestant countries up until recently? it was a difficult ordeal all the way up into the Reagan adminstration when he finally let people get no fault divorces
Camden Morgan
I'm riding the Bart rn but you can pull up fertility rates of countries very easily and it is a perfect correlation to women's liberation and feminism and access to abortion I assure you it's not a hunch
there are plenty of opportunities it's arguably never been easier. i don't buy that argument not for a second. the birth rates are pretty much a consequence of the destruction of the patriarchy and women's liberation. women no longer need to have children and are no longer compelled or forced to. therefore they do not.
Gavin Bell
Bullshit. Maybe in absolute material terms we've never been wealthier or something (I honestly doubt it), but providing your child with everything required by modern society, while also having enough free time to take care of their emotional needs, that's never been harder. You can't do it.
Isaac Gonzalez
I hope you've all realised that boonposter is actually a communist but has continued with this persona for fun and so that we can practice arguing with nazis online. Boonposter is a good guy, be thankful for him and his shitposting.
Dylan Reyes
Good, we should be pumping as much money as we can into designer babies, cloning and artificial wombs anyway. Death to biology.
Parker Bell
WRONG! ABSOLUTELY FUCKING WRONG! Porky thinks a massive nationalist movement mobbing immigrants is awesome. Better that societies dupes target immigrants than porky with legitimate economic grievances. Porky has been using ethnonationalists to entrench the ruling class into their place at the top of the power heirarchy since time immemorial. What do you think the inquisition and German fascism was about? It wasn't about the Pope and Hitler being ideological zealots. It was porky giving them a slush fund to use their talent distracting dupes while porky used their public treasuries to increase their profits while decreasing their risks.
Nicholas Bennett
If you were poor? Pretty difficult. If you were rich? Historically, not very difficult at all. When Marx and Engels made reference to prostitution and marriage, they were being very literal at the time. It was common practice for "shopkeepers" to prostitute their wives to acquire side income even against their will as they were unable to leave the relationship in any capacity. Even well-off families had their wives engage in prostitution so supplement the family income.
