Marketable Parenting Licenses

[Nick]

An off-hand comment in the 'Spare the Rod' thread reminded me of an idea I saw in a sci-fi novel (one of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels, if I recall correctly). I'll put the idea here, and then put my thoughts on some of the consequences in a different post.

Marketable Parenting Licenses:

1. Every citizen (birth or naturalised) is granted the right to bear a certain number of children.
2. The magnitude of this number will vary depending on the desired birth rate. (i.e. < 1 to reduce population size, = 1 to maintain it, > 1 to increase it)
3. Licenses are transferable - i.e. they may be bought and sold as commodities.

(The specific example in the novel set the rate at 3/4 of a child per person)

[salm]

Licenses are transferable - i.e. they may be bought and sold as commodities.

so poor people will sell their kiddie licence and only the rich will reproduce?

[Nick]

I actually like this idea, because it neatly avoids the big problem I have with most other population control schemes - that the decision on _who_ gets to have children gets centralised. And there is absolutely nobody (myself included) that I would trust with that sort of responsibility. In this one, the enforcement is centralised (i.e. some agency still has to police the scheme) but the decision making is not. To some degree, I have also been influenced by the sulfur emission licenses organised by the US EPA.

Some of the interesting ramifications of the idea:

• People who do not wish to have children (for whatever reason), can either give away their licenses (for example, to siblings who want more children), or sell them for money.
• People who want more than the specified number of children may purchase more licenses
• Organisations such as the Catholic Church may subsidise licenses to allow their members to procreate more freely
• Other organisations who think the allowed birth rate is too high may purchase licenses and hold them out of circulation.
• Adopted children would use the birth licenses of the adoptees, not the biological parents
• Charity organisations (or even the government) may hold birth licenses in reserve for use in special cases.
• People may sell their birth licenses (to get money now), with the intention of buying new licenses later.
• A thriving market in birth licenses would come into being, to make it convenient for people to buy and sell them, without every buyer having to find an individual seller.
• Inability to afford the appropriate birth license (beyond the freebies granted by citizenship) may indicate that you couldn't afford to support the extra child, anyway.

Some restrictions that would probably be necessary:

• Parents should NOT be able to sell their children's licenses. Only the children should be allowed to do that, when they come of age.

Some issues worth considering:

• What would be the consequences of an unlicensed birth? Forced adoption is one possibility, but probably not a good one. Another might be the availability of low-interest or interest-free loans from the government for the purpose of acquiring the relevant birth license at the current market value.
• How would unlicensed births be policed? Creating an atmosphere where a women bearing an unlicensed child is unwilling to go see a real doctor is obviously undesirable.

Anyway, like I said above, it's the only population control concept I've ever seen which decentralises the decision making process - which means it's the only one I've ever seen which has any hope in hell of being remotely feasible.

[Nick]

Licenses are transferable - i.e. they may be bought and sold as commodities.

so poor people will sell their kiddie licence and only the rich will reproduce?

Possibly. But if you only want one or two children, having more licenses isn't going to do you any good, is it?

The thing with these licenses is that they are a pure commodity - each one is perfectly interchangeable with any other one. This means that the price should be driven as low as supply and demand allow.

After all, the implicit assumption here is that it has been decided that some form of control of the population growth rate is necessary. Given that situation, what sort of scheme is going to have the least amount of corruption and rorting?

(To paraphrase an economist who was paraphrasing Winston Churchill:
"A regulated free market is the worst possible mechanism to use for an economy, except for the other mechanisms that have been tried from time to time")

[Kelly Antilles]

It sounds like a good idea.

But, there are religions that are going to oppose it for many reasons. And we all know what happens when the Church gets involved in anything.

Also, the black market would love it. Such a money making opportunity.

[Colonel Olrik]

What the scheme fails to adress is the reality in the first world countries

The problem is not people having to many kids.
It is having less than they should.

In the E.U the population is recessing and getting old. I think the situation is slightly better in the U.S, but not much better.

Once a society reaches a developed status, the will for having more than one or two kids greatly diminishes [and an average of about 2.4 kids/couple is needed only to regenerate the population].

The scheme would only be of use in African and some Asian countries. And those are exactly the places where it would be hardest/impossible to implement, due to excessive corruption and the lack of free markets/societies.

[Mr Bean]

The main good thing about this is the fact we can start a nice undercover breeding program

What do I mean? Its rather simple, Idiots are outbreeding the smart people today and thats frankly is not a good thing

If we can add a minium IQ required for parents plus some general answearing idoting weeding out questions

To quote Dogbert
In the old days to make kids all you needed was a few body parts, Now then think of how many idiots you run into on a daily bases, Frankly its obvious this is not a very good system...

[salm]

what happens if you have only one licence but still get another kid on purpous or accidently? you could be forced to buy a second one of course. but what if you´re too poor to pay the second one. you´d go to jail for having a kid???

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

what happens if you have only one licence but still get another kid on purpous or accidently? you could be forced to buy a second one of course. but what if you´re too poor to pay the second one. you´d go to jail for having a kid???

No, no point imprisoning people for having unlicensed children. That would consume a fair number of resources. If one wanted to be draconian about it, if a woman had an unlicensed child, she and her mate should be sterilized. Maybe sterilize the child too, when it comes of age, or force them to purchase their initial license (since they were born illegally, we could say that they paid for their life with their reproduction license.)

[cabal_88]

I LOVE MY DONKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[HemlockGrey]

Of course, there woul have to be a 'black list' - people banned from producing offspring.


Cabal is a case in point.

[Colonel Olrik]

Now, alien. Stop that.

Go straight to bed without super, you bad boy

And don't even think of disturbing your sister donkey tonight

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

An off-hand comment in the 'Spare the Rod' thread reminded me of an idea I saw in a sci-fi novel (one of Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars novels, if I recall correctly). I'll put the idea here, and then put my thoughts on some of the consequences in a different post.

Marketable Parenting Licenses:

1. Every citizen (birth or naturalised) is granted the right to bear a certain number of children.
2. The magnitude of this number will vary depending on the desired birth rate. (i.e. < 1 to reduce population size, = 1 to maintain it, > 1 to increase it)
3. Licenses are transferable - i.e. they may be bought and sold as commodities.

(The specific example in the novel set the rate at 3/4 of a child per person)

Actually, it might be smarter to force the citizens to purchase their first license. And, create a centralized pool of licenses that they can purchase. Ideally the situation would look like this:

A citizen has just achieved his or her 25th birthday. (We want to set the minimum age to be reasonably high. This way, the purchasers of the license have had time to demonstrate that they might be able to afford a child.) The citizen can purchase a license from the pool at some fixed price. They can either use it, hoard it, or try to resell it.

We would hope that by say, 25, people have gained enough of a financial and educational base to be able to raise children . . . or at least, have gained enough money to purchase their initial license. People who have not yet purchased their first license must do so through the government, but after that, the license could be bought and sold on the open market.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Of course, there woul have to be a 'black list' - people banned from producing offspring.


Cabal is a case in point.

An official black-list could potentially be a bad idea. However, you could concievably stop people like him from reproducing by either

A) Offering to buy his license for an incredibly large sum of money.

B) Getting together with others to collectively refuse to sell him, and people like him, a license. (A sort of anti-reproduction cartel.)

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Licenses are transferable - i.e. they may be bought and sold as commodities.

so poor people will sell their kiddie licence and only the rich will reproduce?

Possibly. But if you only want one or two children, having more licenses isn't going to do you any good, is it?

The thing with these licenses is that they are a pure commodity - each one is perfectly interchangeable with any other one. This means that the price should be driven as low as supply and demand allow.

After all, the implicit assumption here is that it has been decided that some form of control of the population growth rate is necessary. Given that situation, what sort of scheme is going to have the least amount of corruption and rorting?

(To paraphrase an economist who was paraphrasing Winston Churchill:
"A regulated free market is the worst possible mechanism to use for an economy, except for the other mechanisms that have been tried from time to time")

Actually, you absolutely have to have some sort of contols set in a scheme like this. Otherwise, you could have people banding together to try to deny others the privilege of reproducing at the expense of some other group. (Could be a good thing if the group were say, the sane denizens of SD.net . . . but imagine what would happen if the group were the WCOTC?)

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

How much would one of these parenting liscences cost? I tihnk it's a better idea to give all idiots a vasectamine.

Such a thing could also lead to forced abortion, like in China.

[aerius]

Seeing that the licenses are commodities and fully transferable as well, it would be quite open to forgery and counterfeiting. Security measures only go so far, no security invented to date is completely secure, and it's only a matter of time before the criminal element figures out a way to get rich selling fake parenting licenses. What happens then?

[XPViking]

I think some folks here believe that if you have some kind of licensing program that it will automatically reduce the amount of stupid people upon the earth as a result of controlling the population.

I think that if you set up a society of "licensed" and "unlicensed" births, then you are merely creating another inequality within society. That is, the licensed birth people will quite possibly treat the unlicensed birth people as lesser, or not even human.

XPViking

[RayCav of ASVS]

Ok, I know I'm one to talk, but this whole fucking thread scares me

[Nick]

Ok, I know I'm one to talk, but this whole fucking thread scares me

When it happens on a BBS, it is merely an interesting hypothetical discussion. When it happens in the Parliament House, then we get very worried!

On the need for regulation, open to rorting, how do you get it started, what are the penalties for breaking the rules, etc - well, those are issues with any market. The idea is to make sure it is easier and more convenient to do things 'right' than to try and circumvent the system. (After all, currency can technically be forged too, and there is corruption all up and down the chain - but the system rolls on regardless, even if it shudders now and again).

Colonel Olrik is right that the countries where such a scheme is most likely to work are also the ones with the least need for population control :<

XPViking is right that there is a great danger of creating an 'underclass' of unlicensed births. Any such scheme would have to be expressly designed to avoid that situation - ensuring that the child does not suffer for the 'sins of the father' (or mother, as the case may be).

On black lists/forced sterilisation/etc - a question for the proponents of such a viewpoint: Exactly who would you be willing to entrust with that kind of responsibility?

On China: the problem with China was (is?) that it had (has?) a strict one family/one child policy. There was (is?) no way to acquire more licenses to have additional children. When you have a society which is almost entirely patrilineal, and the first born turns out to be a girl. . . you weren't getting forced abortions. You were getting infanticide occuring simply because the child was female.

[TheDarkOne]

In the book (green mars, I think), this whole system was proposed as a solution to the population problems that "imortality" was creating on earth.

Another system from the same books that I wonder if it would work, is that eco-economics thing. The whole idea is the economy should be based on energy. So you'd get paid based on how many joules you put into society.

[Newtonian Fury]

I believe China's policy is a good one. With such a huge population, the government must ensure that there is adequate food for its citizen. One could only acquire food through ration tickets only two decades ago. With a One Child Per Family policy, this ensures that the population is decreasing enough resources for its children. There are certain exemptions from this rule, however. Rural areas and farming communities are generally exempt. In my opinion, though, I believe this exemption sucks. Those ignorant fools are consuming too much resources by having extremely large families(4-10 children). So far, the penalty for violating this rule is purely financial. But it will undoubtedly change is there is a major scarce of natural resources.

[White Cat]

I believe China's policy is a good one.

Forced abortions and infanticide?

So far, the penalty for violating this rule is purely financial.

Wrong.

[XPViking]

Although China managed to control their population, there are still unapproved births going on, expecially in the rural areas. I'll try and track down the relevant magazine article that I was recently reading relating to this issue.

XPViking

[Nick]

Although China managed to control their population, there are still unapproved births going on, expecially in the rural areas. I'll try and track down the relevant magazine article that I was recently reading relating to this issue.

XPViking

The goal of such a system isn't to achieve 0 unlicensed births. Any designer worth their salt would factor in a 'viable degree of rorting' and make sure their system could tolerate it.

Same way as it happens with all markets - so long as enough people follow the rules, the system can cope with a certain number of people breaking them (although some markets cope better than others, naturally - extremists on either end of the economic spectrum tend to promote systems with no robustness against the influence short-sighted immoral assholes)