Population decline as the crisis of capitalism: The Japanese experience

Takashi Nakazawa (中澤高志)

Professor, School of Business Administration, Meiji University, Tokyo

The long-term stable reproduction of the labor power is an indispensable condition for the persistence of capitalism. However, the state and capital cannot create labor power, and its reproduction is left to individual decisions of humans. The freedom of reproduction, which lies at the core of human nature, holds the key to the persistence of capitalism. This paper positions the population decline due to low birth rates, faced by most developed countries, as the crisis of capitalism. Furthermore, it critically examines population policies in Japan and develops normative discussions on population policy.

The state is always conscious of the fact that population issues can become obstacles to economic development. This paper pays particular attention to the series of policies called “regional revitalization,” initiated in Japan since 2014. Regional revitalization is obsessed by the recognition that sustaining growth of the national economy and Japan's international presence are impossible without maintaining the population size. However, raising the birth rate in metropolitan areas to meet this end is an extremely difficult task. Therefore, efforts have been made to curb the population decline by reallocating the population to rural areas where the birth rate is relatively high.

Despite ten years having passed since the start of regional revitalization, the birth rate has declined even more compared to ten years ago, and the concentration of population in Tokyo has progressed. The state expected that more young people would reside in rural areas, where they would give birth to and raise children, resulting in the maintenance of the population. However, contrary to this expectation, the people of reproductive age have boycotted. Population policies to combat the declining birth rate have been justified by the logic of removing obstacles to the realization of marriage and child-rearing desires of the people. However, in recent years in Japan, the desire for marriage and child-rearing among the young generation has declined: Removing obstacles alone is no longer sufficient to halt the population decline.

Currently, it is the immobile state that has a strong sense of apprehension about population decline, while highly mobile capital is not as concerned. However, if the prediction that the world population will start to decline by the middle of this century comes true, the foundation of capital accumulation in the real world will be lost. If capital then identifies population decline as the culprit of crisis, it may try to subsume the reproduction of population/labor power. It is difficult to envision the specific form this would take, but this subsumption carries a different level of violence than the commodification of labor power that occurred at the establishment of capitalism. This is because human existence itself, which should never be subject to exchange as a general equivalent, would be commodified.

Humans do not live for the sake of the state or capitalism. Therefore, the most important thing is to protect the externality of human life against the state and capital, and to safeguard freedom. The cycle of human life shaped by generational reproduction essentially exists outside the circuit of capitalism and lies in the realm of ultimate freedom entrusted to individual free will. While the state and capital can influence decision-making related to generational reproduction, they have not yet crossed the vital line. In other words, the phenomenon of declining birth rates is proof that the state and capital have not yet crossed the vital line to trample on humanity, and the freedom of decision-making regarding generational reproduction remains in our hands.