Maybe those couples who want more than two babies should pay for it. After all, each extra baby consumes more carbon emissions – and thus resources – during a lifetime, right?
Associate Professor Barry Walters thinks so. He believes that families should pay a $5000-plus “baby levy” at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 per child. His proposal appears in a current edition of the Medical Journal of Australia. He also suggests that population controls like those used in China and India aren’t such a bad thing.
In the US, we would shudder at such a thought. In fact, we actually subsidize birth in the form of extra deductions and exemptions (though, as a mother of three kids, I can attest that it hardly offsets the extra costs to us). But maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe, as Earth gets a little bit more crowded each year, we should consider incentives to keep the population low. After all, money talks, does it not?
I know that this is not a novel idea. In fact, there are social programs in place that have suggested paying young moms not to have more children. Hmm. Maybe that’s the wrong way to go about it? Maybe instead of paying folks not to have children, we should have those who do have lots of children pay us?
I know, it’s not necessarily polite conversation. This idea of what is essentially government regulation of our private lives isn’t something we like to talk about in public. But doctors like Garry Egger wonder why that is. In response to Professor Walters’ idea, he queries, “One must wonder why population control is spoken of today only in whispers.”
What do you think?
I read in a recent newspaper article that Mother Earth has enough resources to feed all its creatures without any artificial population control –if only the affluent shared with the needy.
I come from a family of 9 children, my wife from a family of 10. Without any discussion or decision on the issue, we limited our children. We have two boys and one girl. I would say that the fact that we both came from large families influenced our decision to have only three. I would guess that this would be the case in many next generation families who came from large families.
This is not to say that we (my wife & I) did not enjoy our growing up in our large families. We had a lot of fun and –while growing up– even felt sorry for the families with only one child.
Ren –
That’s really an interesting comment. It made me think… My mother was one of eight children and none of her siblings had more than four children (and that was from a blended marriage).
As to your comment about the affluent sharing, I think that’s what’s driving this idea of a tax. In the US, having kids is sort of a sign of affluence once again – you know, to prove that you can afford them. I’ve seen it and heard it. One of my friends has joked that kids are the new diamonds – meaning that they are to show off.
There are a lot of religions that will fight this sort of thing tooth and nail — ‘be fruitful and multiply’, etc.
But a tax wouldn’t force you to stop having children in theory, right?
And many religions also believe that taking care of the Earth is important.
Jonathan Swift’s 18th-century “proposal” (see http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html) may provide an economically better solution than a tax. Since the birth rate in low-income countries is as much as 3 to 5 times that in developed countries, the real population growth problem (so-called) lies in places where a birth penalty tax would do no good: you can’t collect taxes from people who have no money.
Instead, as Swift proposed, the poor could provide their children as a food resource to the wealthy. Swift’s argument was limited to solving the population problem of the poor in Ireland. Today’s modern transportation and food processing technologies, however, could enable a worldwide trade in child flesh. This would provide the poor with needed income while at the same time reducing the birth rate–everyone wins!
[Note: This is intended to be absurd, as was Jonathan Swift’s original essay. The idea of a birth tax is similarly ridiculous and denies the unique value of each person.]
Absurd to the point of being unmanagable as one responder pointer out, the economies of poverty nations would not nor does it, stop population growth. Yes we need to conserve and be vigorous caretakers of Planet Earth. What over classes of people would be considered. As my mother so boldly declares ” What have you done that benefits society?’. First check the hospitals for the weak and infirm? The mental institutions, and if that isn’t enough, the personal flies for medications that keeps some folks civil and out of the institutions? Or we could relinquish that decision to persons like the “Great Decider”? LOL
I offer what makes the wealthy the whole target? According to the majority of the world’s population, all Americans are wealthy. We all would be a potential target for solving what is a planet problem.
I didn’t even hear about this but this whole situation is rather interesting. It would be interesting to see what would happen if it was even proposed around here.
I’m surprised how many people see a birth tax as so ridiculous. To be completely honest, I’d support one.
On “kids as diamonds”
In the rural / agricultural Philippine countryside, farming families go for as many children as they can have. They are not thinking of the many mouths to feed, rather the more hands to farm the land.
For more coverage, see TaxProf Blog:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/22255/24096094
Oops, I meant:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2007/12/tax-a-baby-save.html
Baby tax eh? honestly I can see why people shutter at the thought, its a little crude but I would rather see this than infanticide and abortions. Or like Ren said we could just share with needy…
For a nice discussion and insightful posts check out the issue we ran on this topic…
http://theissue.com/issue/5818.html
of Population growth, not specifically baby tax.
lemme know what you think!
Cheers,
Nick
The Issue