Little brothers always have to operate in the shadows of their big brothers, but this is ridiculous.
Phillip Longman is the most important man you’ve never heard of in Washington.
A senior fellow at the liberal New America Foundation, Longman specializes in demography. If you’re a romantic, demography is the science of love, writ large. If you’re a cynic, it is the sausage factory of civilization. Whatever your disposition, demography is, if not destiny, then a subject of paramount importance. In the long run, no weapon, no technology, no economic system is more powerful.
Longman has spent many years studying demographic trends, and the conclusions are unsettling. As he writes in his 2004 book, The Empty Cradle, birthrates in America and around the world are declining beneath sustainability; population growth is slowing and, unless the trends of the last 200 years change, will soon bring about population decline – and with it, potential shifts in global prosperity and power.
Forget domestic politics and international relations: Fertility is the thing. As Longman explains, it’s the grand unified theory of everything. As fertility rates decline, populations, then economies, then military power, then world influence, diminish.
“[T]he most important man you’ve never heard of in Washington”? How am I supposed to compete with that? I had a way too long discussion about Phil’s work last night at Drinking Liberally. I don’t want to rehash it. I have to go widen my doors so my brother’s head can fit inside my house.
