Real Patriots Go Bareback
In a heroically incoherent column in today's Wall Street Journal, German politico Silvana Koch-Mehrin complains that her country is caught between falling birth rates and an "expensive social welfare system." The solution, she argues, is to expand that social welfare system and introduce "country-wide day-care infrastructure," thus encouraging women to get knocked up at a pace Germans can be proud of. But there is a catch:
…the current passionate debate about how to raise the birth rate reveals a rather conservative streak in Germany's society. The focus is solely on why women fail to deliver the next generation of tax payers.
That does sound creepily sexist. Should a progressive nation be treating its women as factories for taxpayers? Sure, explains Koch-Mehrin, as long as we remember that men are people-producers too:
There is usually no mention at all of the (lacking) contribution from men. Luckily for them, they are not accused of being childless. In 21st century Germany, childbearing has become a women-exclusive topic.
Problem solved! When society is careful to "accuse" both men and women of daring to be childless, we'll be well on our way to the ideal state. (Like France, according to Koch-Mehrin.) And as Will Wilkinson has pointed out, why should natalist policy makers restrict their concerns to quantity and not quality? If making sure appropriate numbers of children are produced is an excuse for government intervention, what aspect of a child's development is not? They'll have to be good revenue producers, after all, to pay for all of that daycare.
