This evening I learned that Scotland is very concerned about its declining population as it reaches the lowest level in 100 years. Now various politicians are proposing radical ideas to increase immigration in the absence of legislation being able to get the Scots to breed like, well... rabbits.
I'm lead to wonder, just where is the problem with decreasing population? Isn't there a big problem for the world if Western economics can only sustain steady or increasing population? Haven't we invested generations of technological innovation to decrease the amount of labour required to do everything and anything? So why can't they just get used to it - fewer kids to teach => fewer teachers, fewer mouths to feed => fewer farmers, etc. etc.
We have to start to plan on a future where populations can go down as well as up, otherwise the entire world is going to have a big problem. If a small place like Scotland of a couple of million people can't deal with decreasing population levels, then what the heck are we to suggest to China and India when they deal with eventual falling population levels?
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