According to a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News on Thursday, the IMF said in its World Economic Outlook Report that advanced nations will be weighed down by aging populations, causing their economies to stagnate in the long run — emerging market economies face similar obstacles.
This way of looking at the aging population as a factor that will lead to economic slowdown, or even treating it as ticking time bomb, is a perfect example of mainstream thought in a techno-capitalist society.
However, from the standpoint of social gerontology, such opinions only disparage the value of the elderly, increase prejudice against old people, cause social concern and are entirely meaningless in a constructive sense.
US sociologist David Harvey has remarked that it is a mistake to rely on some mathematical formula to determine the evolution of human societies. Thomas Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population is one example of that approach.
Two hundred years ago, Malthus worried that population increases exponentially, while food production grows arithmetically. As the food supply becomes increasingly insufficient, people would face famine, poverty, war and pandemics, leading to serious disasters, he argued.
Malthus’ mistake was his failure to foresee the industrialization of agriculture and the multiplication of the global food supply chain as a result of colonial expansion, which turned land that was previously not used for production into farmland.
The question is if today’s argument — that aging populations will bring down nations — is making the same mistake by failing to take into account humans’ flexible adaptation to new environments and their potential to proactive creativity.
In terms of the growth rate of the labor force, India and China have joined the ranks of capitalist nations since 1980, adding 1.2 billion people to the global workforce. However, this kind of scenario is very unlikely to repeat itself.
The global population growth curve shows that growth is gradual at first and then accelerates, before decelerating, hitting a plateau and then even shrinking. Based on this trend, future formats and concepts of production and consumption will surely readjust themselves to the new population demographic.
We must think positively about the possibility that an aging population could contribute to social development. According to classic Keynesian theory, which says that consumption stimulates production, pension funds are not merely something that melt away bit by bit — the consumption associated with the elderly holds great potential business opportunities, which can help to expand production, create career opportunities and stimulate markets.
From a production point of view, jobs are not merely a means to create economic wealth. We must look at the situation positively, draw out the potential power from the “third age” and treat the elderly as both producers and consumers, or “prosumers” — a term coined by futurologist Alvin Toffler — allowing the elderly the opportunity to join the production process, thus creating possibilities for consumption.
Future social development should shift from a capitalism-based economy to the pursuit of humanitarianism. To borrow the wisdom of Peter Buffett, we should free ourselves from a world that places an emphasis on greed, fortune, competition and differentiation, and instead fill the world with respect, tolerance, sympathy, mutual love and mutual help, thereby allowing ourselves the opportunity to lead a joyous, fulfilled and blissful life.
Chiou Tian-juh is a professor of social psychology at Shih Hsin University.
Translated by Ethan Zhan
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