Capitalism and aging populations
I was speaking with a young girl here in Taipei today and she told me that her great grandmother had 10 kids, her grandmother had four kids, and her mother had one, her.
Nobody can say for certain whether capitalism will run out of steam, as Karl Marx and Joseph Schumpeter both concluded (but for different reasons). However, one thing that is evident today in developed economies is the problem of aging populations. Nobody seems to have an answer for it, particularly those most in support of laissez-faire capitalism.
So what's the answer?
Robots? Immigration? Tax incentives? Government intervention? Some form of socialism?
Nobody can say for certain whether capitalism will run out of steam, as Karl Marx and Joseph Schumpeter both concluded (but for different reasons). However, one thing that is evident today in developed economies is the problem of aging populations. Nobody seems to have an answer for it, particularly those most in support of laissez-faire capitalism.
So what's the answer?
Robots? Immigration? Tax incentives? Government intervention? Some form of socialism?
Labels: innovation
posted by Gordon Graham at 9:13 AM
3 Comments:
Its an interesting observation, Gordon. Maybe another solution lies in outsourcing?
My personal take is that aging populations will prove to be yet another constraint for individuals and firms seeking to execute business strategies profitably. This would be similar, for example, to the new class of businesses and business strategies that emerged during the world war, to address and even benefit from the changed political and economic realities. So one the one hand existing firms will have to modify their business models (call it class A of changes), and on the other new businesses will emerge to exploit the change in demographics (class B).
An example of a Class B initiative is a project that my non profit- doSomething (www.doSomething.in)- is planning in India. The idea is to develop business models which can use the unutilized talents of old age people in urban india, for tasks such as consulting and education.
An example of a Class A initiative is how a business process outsourcing company in Bombay is using the time of housewifes to carry out simple and mundane data processing work which can not yet be automated.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Amit. Interestingly, "The Economist" today has a pdf file with some interesting projections on how the world/business will change.
http://graphics.eiu.com/files/ad_pdfs/eiu_60years_online.pdf
In terms of aging populations, Japan is miles ahead of every country in Asia, and the rest of the world for that matter. Some products/services that are already being sold in Japan include such things as diapers for dogs (next it will be diapers for robots); larger price tags, and ready-made meals that don't require chewing. But these are all just short-term, normal responses to changes in the environment. The bigger problem for Japan (and Taiwan and South Korea) are the long term-trends of people living longer and women not having as many children. Schumpeter argued that without children, there is less of a desire for entrepreneurs to innovate. According to "The Economist" article, India's population will continue you to grow, though.
Post a Comment
<< Home