Last week, I had the pleasure of catching an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in which Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew accidentally discover the planet of Aldea, an incredibly advanced civilization known throughout the galaxy only by legend. Suddenly, all the children aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise are kidnapped by the Aldeans, who have mysteriously lost the ability to reproduce their species.
How on earth is this relevant to the real world, you ask? This episode illustrates a devastating phenomenon occurring right now in the West - namely, the slow suicide of diminishing birth rates.
An average fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman is necessary to sustain any given population. The United States is at the head of the developed world with a rate of 2.09, says the CIA World Factbook, just maintaining a "replacement" rate. While our overall population remains steady, U.S. demographics are shifting in significant and shocking ways (and I'm not even referring to the influx of immigrants from Latin America).
According to blogger Steve Sailer, 25 of the 26 states with the highest birth rates voted for President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential elections, while 16 of the states with the lowest voted for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. If this trend continues, conservatives will far outnumber liberals in the United States in 50 years, assuming most children are socialized to vote the same way as their parents. Perhaps we Democrats should consider that "planned parenthood" might actually be killing our party.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Europe is heading toward disaster: the Czech Republic's replacement rate is 1.21, Spain and Italy have a rate of 1.28, Germany's is 1.30 and the entire European Union's is 1.47. In 50 years, the number of Europeans will have dropped precipitously; more importantly, the working-age population will fall by 48 million, says the International Monetary Fund, while the number of those 65 and over will grow by 58 million.
These consequences need to be considered in light of Europe's unique political and cultural characteristics. Since much of Europe's population is heading toward retirement, younger generations will be forced to pick up the tab on Europe's massive welfare system. At the same time, the average age of retirement in Europe is between 55 and 60, while economists say it must be around 80 to support the welfare system.
The welfare system is even more dangerous when you consider that women across the European continent continue to demand their liberal rights: abortion, the designer baby and equal rights in the workplace, for example. Perhaps these are all good things in themselves, but as an aggregate they rule out any form of population growth, making the welfare system simply unaffordable. Admittedly, some European countries are trying to offer economic incentives to have more babies, but such measures aren't likely to rectify such a large deficit in birth rates.
How do you maintain this system when the numbers just don't add up? In America, we prefer massive debt. But if you are European, you import laborers from the developing world. Fortunately for Europe, the Muslim world is ripe for export, and many of these countries sport astronomical birth rates but lack the economic growth to support the new population. Niger's replacement rate is 7.46, Yemen's is 6.58 and Gaza enjoys a rate of 5.78 despite being a congested strip of land 40 kilometers long.
So, European countries import laborers from these and other countries to raise the cash to support elderly and unemployed citizens in a massive welfare and healthcare system. They're not alone: America does is it with immigrants from Latin America as well. The only problem? While the cultural baggage of Hispanics is limited to wholesome imports like Salsa dance and the Gordito Burrito, Muslims have an unfortunate tendency to bring along the nastiest elements of jihadist Islam. Indeed, across the European continent, Muslim immigrants aren't integrating. Through a combination of Europe's own racist tendencies - for example, "an Algerian can never be a Frenchman - and the political mobilization of immigrant communities, radical Muslims are being imported to the hearts of cities across Europe. "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century," says preeminent Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis.
If events during the last year are any indication, Lewis' prediction may happen much sooner. The New York Times Magazine ran a story last February about the crisis in Sweden, where ambulances cannot enter Muslim communities in some cities without police backup. Last year, we all watched as Muslim communities erupted in civil unrest against the French authorities. Expect more of this in the coming years as the demographics swing toward alienated, unassimilated Muslims.
And what is the response of the West? Well, since any politician who tries to scale back the welfare and healthcare system can expect a quick deposal from office, Europe's future seems pretty grim. The decadence of Europe will spell the continent's undoing. It rules out the population growth necessary to sustain European culture and compete with the fertility and immigration rates of Muslim immigrants. In other words, Europe is effectively being handed over to the Muslim population - both the good and the disgruntled. As Mark Strewn put it in the Wall Street Journal last January, only one question remains: "Can a society become increasingly Islamic in its demographic character without becoming increasingly Islamic in its political character?" For Europe's sake, we'd better hope so.
Benjamin Bright '07 is a liberal, pro-choice Democrat from New York. You just wouldn't know it from reading this column.
