Population and prosperity

Endeavour Forum Inc. is a pro-life, pro-family women's NGO which has supporters in all Australian states, links with similar groups overseas, and also has special consultative status with the Economic & Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations. Our representatives attend UN meetings, make submissions and organise NGO workshops (known as "parallel events" in UN-speak) on women's health issues at the annual meeting in New York of the UN's Commission on the Status of Women.

We publish a quarterly newsletter focused on our concerns about social issues such as induced abortion, the Family Law Act which trivialises marriage, and discrimination in child care funding and paid parental leave against mothers not in the paid workforce. Our newsletter is mailed to our supporters and a certain number are sent free to think-tanks. One of those think-tanks, one which supports free market solutions, emailed us recently to suggest we take them off our mailing list as they had no use for our newsletter.

The indifference by free-market and many business associations to social issues is short-sighted, because no matter how successful they are in economic terms in persuading governments to adopt free-market policies, the resultant prosperity for the nation will be very muted indeed if the birth rate collapses well below replacement level as is happening in Japan and some countries in Europe, and if there is major disintegration among families caused by broken marriages - or an absence of marriage. What is the cost to the nation, not just to the individuals, of just one broken marriage, or of children suffering the disadvantages, educational and psychological, of being reared in households where there is no husband, no father. The very real economic costs incurred by these sad situations has to be borne by taxpayers, including businesses.

The Action Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, located in Michigan, USA, is an unusual think-tank because it aims to integrate Judeo-Christian truths with free market principles. Many Christian academic institutions emphasize moral truths while conservative foundations focus on freedom and the benefits of the 'invisible hand' of the market. The Acton Institute combines both these ideals and is animated by principles of respect for the dignity of the person, the social nature of the person and the importance of social institutions, the rule of law, the subsidiary role of government, and economic liberty.

We need an Acton Institute in Australia because Big Business is also indifferent to the high abortion toll, not realizing that killing the young - and their energy and creativity - destroys wealth. Japan, with more people over 65 than under age 15, has been in the economic doldrums since its birth rate plummeted below replacement level. Europe, which has a cradle-to-grave welfare system - and may soon have more graves than cradles- is experiencing economic stress and would have labour shortages if not for immigration from Muslim countries.

Top Italian economist Ettore Gotti Tedeschi said on Vatican Television's Octava Dies, "the true cause of the crisis standing at the heart of the worldwide economic recession is not banking practices, but the low birth rate that has resulted in zero population growth in Western countries.

“With the decline in births, there are fewer young people that enter the working world. At the same time, there are many more elderly people that leave the system of production and become a cost for the collective increasing social welfare costs that a shrinking proportion of taxable young workers will have to sustain."

Tedeschi also explained that young people not forming families “that have a certain number of commitments to children” have adversely impacted the amount of savings necessary for a
healthy economy. Instead of putting away money for the future, young people without families have been opting to liquidate their income rather than save it.

"In practice," Tedeschi contended, "this was the origin of the crisis, which eventually led to the so-called 'sub-prime' excesses. The financial instrument of debt leverage, the expansion of credit, was used to compensate the lack of growth in the economy caused by the low birth rate."

Fr. Robert Sirico, president of Acton Institute, told LifeSiteNews.com that Tedeschi was approaching the global recession with an insight “that comes from a knowledge of how a market functions: the human person is at the base and should be the end of all market activities.

“The economy is essentially human beings making choices based on their subjective knowledge of their circumstances as to what will benefit themselves and their families. To the extent that people are free to produce more than they consume, they enrich themselves, they enrich those with whom they exchange.”

Sirico explained that the Vatican economist's view opposes that of population control groups, who subscribe to a different vision of economic activity, what he called a Marxist or “redistributivist” paradigm: “If there is a pie and there are more people added to the pie then there is more poverty."

But the reality, Sirico says, is that "the pie is dynamic.Mr. Tedeschi is saying isthe human person is himself creative. Human beings are not mouths that consume, but minds that produce."

Sirico added that Pope John Paul II hit on this very point in his social encyclical Centesimus Annus, when he wrote that “Man is man’s greatest resource.”

Because human beings are also creative producers, the excess of what they produce becomes the basis for trade in the economy, and the creation of wealth. "Contrary to population controllers obsessed with overpopulation, it is population dense cities Hong Kong and Singapore that are rich, while sparsely populated areas of the globe such as Angola are very poor".

Sirico pointed out that 1.2 million unborn babies are killed in the United States alone through abortion – approximately 52 million since 1973. “That is all those producers and consumers in the market," he said. “By eliminating younger generations, you are eliminating your future; the superfluous wealth they will produce and all the creativity. Remember that it is creativity that produces wealth.

"So when you eliminate human beings, you eliminate their creativity, you eliminate their discoveries, and you are placing yourself in great jeopardy, because you cannot just stay still. You will go back economically.”

Political leaders unwilling to make hard choices and cut government budgets, Sirico warned, are also likely to "inflate the money supply to continue operating. The resulting devaluation of money would increasingly impoverish the status of the middle class and completely decimate the poor."

In our view there are three basic pillars which underpin a free and prosperous nation: Free enterprise (which includes 'small' government, low taxation and the principle of subsidiarity), traditional moral and family values, and strong defence. Knock out any one of these and the country is endangered, economically, socially and politically. How to harmonise the strategies of libertarian free-marketeers with those of conservative pro-family lobbyists is a perennial question which is exercising minds among Republicans and Tea Party activists in the USA, and is a question which is also relevant to the Australian political scene.

It is a pity that business associatons and free-market think tanks in Australia don't realise that pro-family conservatives are their natural allies.