On a recent panel on Fox Business News, Charles Payne and guests discussed how cultural decisions resulting in declining birth rates worldwide will shape future generations’ political and economic choices. For two generations, China enforced a one-child policy per couple, which led to population growth but recent stabilization at 1.4 billion people. Now that the policy has ended, the nation faces an aging demographic and a rising old-young ratio. One panelist noted that by 2050, there could be one child for every four grandparents in China, with the population potentially shrinking to just 450 million one generation later. The complex consequences for economic demand and supply must be addressed quickly and thoughtfully, or future generations will see dire outcomes.
This is another lesson about command-and-control economies: Political and economic policies disconnected from social culture and basic morality historically lead to famine, morbidity, and mortality at the national level. Such failures are repeatedly seen—consider Mao and Stalin.
Mao’s Great Leap Forward is estimated to have caused the deaths of between 15 and 55 million people, largely from famine and related causes. In comparison, Stalin’s policies, especially during the Ukrainian Holodomor, led to around 5 to 7 million deaths, not counting political purges and deaths in prisons and gulags. Coercive command economies do not work in the long run. Today, similar ideas resurface—a candidate for mayor of New York proposes government-run food markets. Despite a privileged upbringing, he claims to know more about markets than Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” sounding strikingly similar to AOC and Bernie.
Societies have always wrestled with shifting demographics, changing values, and migration’s impact—sometimes increasing, sometimes decreasing population numbers. Ancient histories and myths, especially from Hebrew and Greco-Roman tradition, caution us about the agency of women and communities who endured tyranny, war, and mass migration. These traditions highlight population dynamics and the ethical dilemmas of forced assimilation.
The “Rape of the Sabine Women” is an origin myth for Rome: Romulus and his followers abducted women from another tribe due to a shortage of marriageable women. This myth is often interpreted as a symbolic solution for population crises—showing how integrating outsiders (through negotiation or force) was necessary for survival and growth. Later generations benefited from the union.
Scholars debate the story’s literal truth; many treat it as metaphorical, consistent with Judeo-Christian teaching and the cultural foundation of marriage as a civic institution. Such myths show the link between family and economics—discussed in Aristotle’s “Oeconomica,” which ties property and microeconomics to political macroeconomic issues, and echoed in both Old and New Testament teachings that connect property, stewardship, and liberty.
Today, American society is having an epiphany of sorts—traditional values of faith, family, and freedom are experiencing renewed appeal. Evangelical and Charismatic Catholics, younger Jews, and the conservative movement broadly have embraced these historic values across all demographics. Across races and ethnicities, people are rediscovering the values that have helped societies flourish since the time of the Sabines and Abraham—values which improved standards of living exponentially over the last 120 years and provided resilience over 4,000 years.
Young people increasingly view parenthood as a calling and prioritize family over profession. Their jobs matter, but spouses and children matter more, teaching civic virtue by example and keeping priorities straight.
In my next article, I hope to highlight three remarkable women from the sports world—Chris Evert Lloyd, Mia Hamm, and Annika Sorenstam—who all see their legacy as mothers and wives as their greatest achievement. Their identity is tied to family, not career. Men and women alike could learn from their examples, for the benefit not just of their own families, but of society as a whole.
