It's embarrassing to be a stay-at-home mom; A Response

A Conservative Policy Wishlist is Not The Solution To The Fertility Crisis

Recently fellow Substacker

Johann Kurtz

wrote a piece about the fertility crisis. It garnered a lot of attention, and a lot of controversy. The controversy was mostly to do with the proposed solution to the problem, which in my view amounted to a wishlist of conservative policies that will likely have either no, or an extremely small impact on overall fertility, while coming with their own host of new problems. The post went viral for a reason though, and I think it’s because Kurtz did identify a potential cause of the fertility crisis that I haven’t seen talked about much elsewhere.

He ended his recent essay with; “I look forward to your comments as always.” Well, here’s my hell of a comment.

In this essay I’ll try to accurately summarize the cultural cause of The Fertility Crisis as identified by Kurtz, consider whether I agree with him, then criticize his proposed solutions. It may be a good idea to read my previous essay where I go over the history and explanation of the fertility crisis.

Ultimately, while I’ll end this article with some strong disagreement, I respect anyone who tries to intellectually grapple with difficult problems. This response is made in good faith.

I. The Illiberal Fertility Thesis

1. Kurtz’s thesis goes something like ;

1. Getting pregnant and raising a child is a very costly thing with far more negatives than positives.

2. There is no easy way to justify having children on material terms in western society (look at the attempts by Hungary and South Korea for spectacular failures).

3. Thus; The only way high or replacement rate fertility can be had is through immaterial forces (Culture & Status).

…in a modern liberal paradigm, having children provides a lower status payoff than competing pursuits. - Johann Kurtz

2. The proposed solution looks like;

1. Liberal society, with it’s emphasis on meritocracy, individualism and equality has reduced the status-incentive of motherhood.

2. Pre-liberal society, with its limited options for women and status-rewards for motherhood had a high fertility rate.

3. We should bring back, or at least set aside room for this sort of high-fertility pre-liberal culture.

4. Fertility Crisis solved. Amen!

Or something like that anyway.

For a more complete explanation of this, I encourage you to go read his article; Liberal Societies Don’t Have Children where Kurtz goes into great detail as to his justifications and implications.

Now, I actually agree with Kurtz here. The insistence on equality liberal society holds as valuable, certainly has a negative effect on fertility. After all, if a woman has few career options, strong social pressure to have children, and holds personal religious values that support this state of affairs, it’s no surprise if they end up having many more children. If that same woman lives in New York City, where there’s no social pressure to have children and there’s ample alternate opportunities that in a materialistic sense are far superior, a rational agent will prefer to have few children. Thus; The Fertility Crisis.

Kurtz gets quite philosophical in his response, and while I certainly enjoy some good philosophical debate, when it comes to real world problems it seems like a sort of mental masturbation. I am more concerned with practical societal problems, and practical societal solutions for those problem. If a higher-fertility worldview exists out there, I’m less concerned with whether this worldview is ultimately true, more so what are the positives of adopting that view, what are the negatives, and what are the end-results for the problem being discussed?

II. The Proposed Solutions

Now we get to the fun part. The whole point of writing this essay wasn’t to talk about how I agreed with the analysis, as that could be silently and covertly placed in one of my next essays, but to offer criticism of the solutions. As in, I believe the proposed solutions don’t actually accomplish the goals they claim are important, or are just irrelevant.

My concern with The Fertility Crisis isn’t from the same reasons as Kurtz. While Kurtz sees western civilization in decline, and longs for pre-liberal values, the whole reason I’m concerned about low fertility is because it will inevitably lead to the decline of liberal society. The baby is sick, and rather than throwing it out with the bathwater, I want a new medicine to make it better.

Anyway here we go dissecting Kurtz’s 18 point plan as found in his viral post. Remember that these solutions are characterized as;

…none of the solutions require impositions on liberals - governments just need to ease restrictions on those who wish to pursue alternatives. Most of the obvious interventions would actually save the state money, even while raising the birthrate. - Johann Kurtz

1. Not forcing their young to undergo a liberal education;

Fortunately this is already the case in the United States. Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) & Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) have essentially both enshrined the right for homeschooling and private schooling. While some states like New York and Pennsylvania have some oversight on curriculum, most states do not. If you want to teach your children the bible and pull them out of school at 8th grade, you’re free to do so.

2. Supporting religious and home schooling;

I personally am in favor of some sort of school voucher system. If parents relieve the state of some burden by homeschooling their children or sending them to a privately funded institution (religious or otherwise) they should be reimbursed for that.

If Kurtz wants to start a movement to create a school voucher system, and also believes it will help the fertility crisis, I think I can get onboard on two accounts.

3. Ending universal mandatory examinations;

Hopefully Kurtz, who apparently has worked at a top tech and/or financial institution would recognize the value of an education. I’d hope that having some standard of education is a good idea. Even so, considering that the Amish, who largely stop non-religious education after 8th grade are able to survive in our current examination system, I am not sure this is actually an issue.

4. Ending mandatory sex education which condemns teen pregnancy;

This is more like an endorsement of teen pregnancy than anything else, but still a non-issue. The amish receive literally no sex-education.

5. Allowing children to work from a young age at local businesses;

Again, look at the Amish. No barriers there. Maybe it’s a little less efficient than it would be under a free market, but in reality there’s little stopping people under 18 from working at a local business. I got my first job (for a multi-million dollar company) at 15, so I am not convinced this is actually a burden.

6. Equalizing state support for religious colleges;

Do we want state oversight, or state support for schooling? It seems unreasonable to expect the state to collect taxes, and pay them out, for programs it has no control over.

7. Ending programs which promote universal tertiary education;

Less than half of people in the United States completes tertiary education. This is certainly not universal.

I do agree somewhat with this one. While university is a good thing, in that higher educated people are more productive, not all degrees are made equal. The German System provides paths for people who aren’t going to be Wall Street Brokers or Philosophers to get a trade education that’s actually valuable for an eventual career. We could definitely have something similar in the US, leading to more productive adults, and less time/money spent on pointless degrees. Not everyone should be studying in university, as for most it’s a waste of time.

8. Ending universal state incentives for women’s further education;

I also somewhat agree with this one. Women continue to outpace men in college enrollment, and the gap is only widening. Whatever justification there originally was, women are now more than equal to men when it comes to higher education.

Perhaps there’s still some room for these sort of incentives in male-dominated programs if your goal is an equal split in every degree, but universal incentives for higher education seemed to have achieved their purpose, and are overshooting. It’s time for them to go.

9. Not forcing communities to elevate women professionally;

I am not clear on what forces women to elevate women professionally. Hard to respond on this.

10. Not forcing communities to take migrants (domestic or foreign);

Migrants almost always have a higher fertility rates than western societies. If our whole idea is to increase fertility, I’m not sure how this one wouldn’t have the opposite effect.

11. Not forcing communities to cultivate diversity;

Same as number 9.

12. Allowing hiring discrimination; & 13. Allowing business discrimination;

12 & 13 are basically the same. We’ll probably have to change the constitution to allow these, so maybe it’s a better idea to restrict our hopes to what can be effected with social pressure.

14. Ending state messaging championing women’s professional success;

As women are already achieving high rates of professional success, and higher rates than men in higher education, I agree that this message can be toned down or eliminated. If the goal is professional equality, it looks like we’ve gotten there or will do so soon.

15. Ending state funding to national liberal media outlets;

I am not sure this actually happens? I tried doing some research on this one and couldn’t find any evidence that the state funds national liberal media outlets. Maybe you’d find this concern on Breitbart, but I can’t respond if it seems it’s not actually happening. Please be more specific.

16. Removing hate speech laws that de facto mandate particular sexual ethics;

I am not clear as to what this means. I suppose it’s saying we should allow language that would currently be considered hate speech in an attempt to enforce a particular sexual ethic on women?

17. Ending inheritance taxes that force property sales;

The estate tax only applies when you stand to inherit $13.61 Million or more. Only a few states have actual inheritance taxes, and many are being phased out over time. This seems like a non issue.

18. Removing taxes (gas, cars) that raise the cost of children.

This is the policy equivalent of wanting to knock down an abandoned building in Manhattan, so you drop a nuclear bomb. What percent of US vehicle and gas spending goes towards child rearing? 1%? 5% at most? Policy should be targeted to accomplish its actual goal, not have 95% of its effect do something completely unrelated.

III. My Response

Ultimately, the reason I’m concerned about the fertility crisis is because it’s the decline of western liberal society. Humanity as a whole has absolutely no fertility crisis as the Anti-Natalists will be happy to remind you. Global populations are still growing, and while I’m usually very skeptical of people claiming we’re at the world’s carrying capacity, Nigeria will have more people than the United States within the next few decades, Considering it’s about the size of Texas, there’s probably a legitimate claim of overpopulation.

If the proposed solution involves a scaling back or elimination of the liberal values we’re worried about preserving, then this problem isn’t actually a problem in my view. High fertility subgroups in the west like the Amish, Haredim and Mormons are here to keep the world alive and populated, if leaving it more religious and conservative. Even Muslims, although not largely western, represent a lot of the values that are supported by Kurtz, If we’re comfortable with returning to these illiberal values, why not just allow these groups that already hold illiberal values and seem immune to the anti-fertility forces of liberalism do their thing? That looks like what will happen naturally anyways, and this way we can at least take the money that would go into fixing the Fertility Crisis, and use it to mitigate the problem instead.

Ultimately I think the existence of the Haredim and Amish (and probably other smaller groups I’m less familiar with) invalidates all the complaints Kurtz has. Extremely religious, misogynistic subgroups with complete control of their children’s education already exist quite happily and comfortably in the West, and by the demographers standard are flourishing.

Ultimately my question for Kurtz is;

What is preventing you from doing exactly what these other high fertility subgroups have done under the current system?

If the solution involves an abandonment of liberal values, then personally, I’m no longer interested in the problem.

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