Between 2003 and 2023, British aggregate prosperity increased by just 3.4%, whilst population numbers expanded by 14%, leaving the average person worse off by 9.5%.

This is what ive been telling the people jawboning about population decline as bad for the economy and being an imminent disaster. They like to point out japan but with a tiny economic “growth rate” and shrinking population they can still achieve higher standard of living than a country with a higher “economic growth” but expanding population. The truth is expanding population creates labor competition and drives down labors power and compensation, along with increasing rent-extraction percentages for parasite capitalists. The truth is population reduction doesnt reduce standard of living it increases it as long as growth or even degrowth is divided among smaller population (of course distribution being a factor).

Even in the plague population crashes standard of living shot up so much it added inches to the populations skeletons and massive increases in standard of living along with substantially reducing ownership class’s rent extraction capability.