Why must our economic success depend upon an ever increasing population? Our labor participation rate is about 63%. We have 60 million adults between 18 and 64 out of the labor market. We bring in 1.1 million legal permanent immigrants annually. This doesn’t include the roughly 2 million guest workers here at any one time.
The US population has increased by 100 million since 1980 to our current 330 million. Automation will continue to have a greater and greater impact on worker productivity and requirements.
China has a much lower fertility rate than the US as does Iran.
The last black plague killed of HALF the Euro population and some how they survived.
It shouldn't have to. Economic systems that depend on ever-growing populations by definition are pyramid schemes. Do we really want to label capitalism writ large as a pyramid scheme? Unfortunately, I think that many supporters of free markets, if pushed, would admit they think capitalism is a pyramid scheme.
Japan is struggling but still succeeding. Some rural cities are emptying out, but that means lower demand for education, health care, etc. from those areas.