Eric Kaufmann: evaluation

Transcript context

…With the Amish, could it be there’s a limited number of people who can either work in agriculture or sell to tourists? If we, say, double the number of Amish once again, in essence, they’ll stop making good livings and outmovement will be much higher, or they’ll have fewer kids? I think these world-denying, fundamentalist sects really are not that motivated by economic incentives. One of the reasons their populations have exploded is partly because they reject modern contraception, but also limiting family size. They’re really setting their face against the modern trend toward secularism, liberalism, low fertility. They’re inoculated from a lot of these pressures, and particularly the material pressures, which really drove fertility in the past. Now that we have contraception, you don’t need to have a lot of kids to work the land anymore. The material incentives are no longer the driver. Fertility is cultural and religious. So I think we shouldn’t expect their fertility to come down even if they run out of land. Will the Mormon birth rate crash? Or are they, too, going to take over the world? They have a head start on the Amish, right? Many more Mormons than Amish.…

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