Imposing that individuals only have one child per family

The example of China is evocative: the communist government decided in 1979 to ban families from having more than one child per family, with a colossal fine. In rural areas, a second child was allowed in case the first was a girl. The measure was in itself reasonable in the face of the risk of depletion of land, water and energy resources.

What about thirty years later? The number of children per woman increased from 5.8 to 1.8. Murders of female babies have increased, as have forced sterilizations and abortions (500 million). Partial digital success was therefore achieved at the cost of terrible human drama. In a democratic country, the voices of the people would never have tolerated such a measure.

Even more evocative is the unexpected consequence in terms of growth: after the UN, China’s labour resources will fall by 17% by 2050. As a result, it may have to cope with the shortage of young workers, which would cause the pace of economic growth to decline. According to experts, it is necessary to allow two children per family throughout China by 2015. And in five years, all restrictions on births will have to be lifted.

The Chinese did not wait for UN figures to intervene. Experts from China Development Research Foundation, known to be close to the Chinese authorities, called on the government to urgently repeal the birth control programme If not, China would quickly face a labour shortage, an ageing population and, consequently, a decline in economic growth.

We can learn from this: a coercive measure is inevitably accompanied by effet-pervers following the shock with individual aspirations. The result is only very partial: 1.8 children per woman may be sufficient to reduce the population, but not to reduce it to the proportion that would be necessary to restore an acceptable ecological balance. For example, China is one of the most carbon dioxide-emitting countries per person, as a result of intensive coal mining in relation to industrial and social progress.

Worse still: after a generation already, the demands of economic growth push the experts to advocate the abandonment of birth control measures. In this way we see clearly the phenomenon of closing our form of culture, which has now largely gained Asia, in the demands of growth.

The scenario refers us to the very substance of human ecogenetics: what are the functions or dysfunctions of human psychism that cause this dependence on progress and growth? Are our innate psychic structures organized in such a way that we must necessarily lead to this social model? Could we not instead discover in how the human brain functions certain singularities induced by cultural elements that disturb its natural functioning?

Similarly in terms of demographic explosion: are the innate structures of human sexuality organized in such a way as to generate an unbridled proliferation of the species barely living conditions seem to allow it? Or, on the contrary, should we see it as a drift of our psychosexual structures under the influence of cultural factors causing certain disturbances of natural functioning?

These questions are unbearable. We should at least be able to answer it in the negative: “No, everything is fine, our current functioning obeys natural laws, we cannot change anything.” If necessary, further examination could lead us to this conclusion. There would then be only the choice between coercive measures against Chinese, or the descent into hell.

But the opposite is also possible. An objective and exhaustive search for possible deviations from human sexuality could highlight cultural contingencies and other still obscure factors responsible for an abnormal proliferation of coitus. We would therefore have solid elements to understand, and thus to control, the evolution of the population of eco-suicide and its apparently inevitable character…
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