Chapter 290: Population explosion

The end of World War III, and the 150 years from the beginning of the 23rd century, was definitely the most glorious 150 years in the history of human civilization. For those who are fortunate to be born in this era and go through the entire journey of their lives in this era, this is definitely a heavenly era.

In this era, life has become the least worrying thing.

In a sense, this is also the only era in the history of human civilization where you don’t need to worry about life. You should know that whether before or after this, what ordinary people need to worry about the most is not the destruction of the world or the arrival of war, but how to make life go on.

The foundation of this era is highly developed technology.

With the unlimited free supply of electricity, the development speed of productivity is beyond everyone's imagination.

In the 1980s, China's industrial production efficiency reached an extremely amazing level. The value generated by a person was more than 10,000 times higher than that of thirty years ago, before the outbreak of World War III, and the social value brought by far exceeded that of any other country. To give a very simple example, more than 80% of China's high-tech industries achieved unmanned manufacturing at that time, that is, all work related to industrial production was completed by robots or automatic production lines, and even maintenance work was completed under the control of computers. "Workers" became almost a historic term. At that time, there were two main tasks of the Chinese, one was to complete designs that could not be completed by computers, and the other was to serve others.

Such developed productivity gives China an unparalleled advantage in international trade competition.

It can be said that at that time, China almost dominated the global high-end commodity market. Even if the United States had a large share, American products were still produced by Chinese companies. To be precise, they were produced by Chinese companies in the United States and then sold to all parts of the world in the name of American goods.

Interestingly, Chinese companies go to the United States to open factories mainly because the labor prices in the United States are cheaper.

You should know that by the end of the 21st century, China's labor prices were so high that many companies could not afford it, so they moved their factories overseas, especially in the United States.

In a sense, this is also one of the basic conditions for the commonalization between China and the United States.

Of course, many problems have been caused by the explosion of productivity.

The first is the issue of labor prices. By the end of the 21st century, China's labor prices had been more than a thousand times that before World War III, and excluding price factors and inflation. During the same period, labor prices in neighboring China rose by about five hundred times, labor prices in the United States rose by three hundred times, labor prices in the European Union rose by two hundred times, and labor prices in even the relatively backward Russia rose by one hundred times. You should know that there was no such a large increase in any period of time.

There are many factors that lead to the rise in labor prices, such as the increase in production efficiency, which greatly increases the social output value of unit labor. For example, the increase in education level leads to a decrease in the overall labor time, which leads to a decrease in the overall labor force in disguise. In addition, the increase in social welfare is also one of the factors that increase in labor force. However, there is a factor that many people ignore. This is that the large-scale development of the universe occupies a large amount of labor force, and this comprehensive development was almost pure input and very little output in the first fifty years. Therefore, as the dominant country, China transferred the labor cost of cosmic development to other industries through political regulation and other means, thus leading to the increase in labor costs in other industries, and thus also led to the increase in labor costs in other countries.

The second impact is the outbreak of population.

In a sense, the outbreak of population is also the result of rising labor prices.

Although China has been implementing policies to encourage childbirth, for example, after World War III, China's political affairs began to provide five to ten years of social security for couples who raise two children, ensuring that one party does not have to work, and the other party can provide the necessary financial resources for the family. In addition, some other policies of China's political affairs are also in disguise to encourage childbirth, such as expanding the scope of universal medical insurance to the natural lifespan of all citizens (at that time, medical technology has already appeared to extend lifespan by replacing major organs, so universal medical insurance does not include the stage of delaying natural death by replacing major organs), and for example, it has expanded compulsory education to the university stage and began to encourage more students to receive quality education.

Later, almost all developed countries introduced policies to encourage childbirth in accordance with China's standards. At that time, the United States' policy to encourage childbirth was the most active, mainly because during the war, the United States lost the most population, so citizens needed to raise more offspring.

However, these policies are not the most fundamental, because by this period, whether to raise descendants and how many offspring are raised is largely determined by the personal will of both the couple. The encouraging policies issued by the state can only produce some auxiliary effects at most.

What can truly make citizens decide to raise more children is a new value concept, that is, as citizens, they should bear responsibilities and obligations for the country and society. Among them, raising descendants is the most important and the obligation that requires citizens to fulfill their duties the most.

At that time, labor shortage had already caused many social problems.

As citizens' quality is generally improved, more and more citizens realize that it is precisely because of insufficient offspring that has caused so many social problems.

The result is that after citizens have conscious awareness, a large population outbreak comes.

How big is this big explosion?

According to official Chinese records, China's population doubled in the twenty years after the end of the war. After reducing factors such as life expectancy, basically every Chinese couple raised three to four children, exceeding the normal value of raising two to three children.

At that time, many people were very worried about this, believing that the rapid population expansion would lead to catastrophic consequences.

You should know that similar things happened in China about a hundred years ago, and the population disaster caused China to encounter many difficult social problems in the following fifty years.

However, today is different from the past, and things that happened a hundred years ago will never happen again.

The most important thing is that the increase in social average productivity is far exceeding the growth rate of national consumption, and the accumulation of social wealth exceeds the growth rate of population. In other words, even if the population explodes, the social wealth produced by China is still enough to support everyone.

By the end of the 21st century, China's total population had exceeded 5 billion.

What is this concept?

This is equivalent to that in the more than 40 years after the war, China's population has grown by almost five times!

In fact, China's population growth rate is not the fastest.

At the end of the war, the U.S. population dropped from 700 million to 600 million. By the end of the 21st century, the U.S. population had reached nearly 5 billion, becoming the second largest population country after China. Its growth rate was more than seven times, and the growth rate was 40% faster than China.

You should know that when the Third World War broke out, the global population was less than 5 billion. Even before the global natural disasters broke out, the global population was about 10 billion. As a result, by the end of the 21st century, the total population of China and the United States alone reached 10 billion.

What was the global population at that time?

The third place is India, with 4 billion people, the fourth place is the European Federation, with 3.2 billion people, the third place is Australia, with 2.8 billion people, the fourth place is Mexico, with 2.2 billion people, the fifth place is Brazil, with 1.8 billion people, the sixth place is Russia, with 1.7 billion people, the seventh place is Pakistan, with 1.6 billion people, the eighth place is Indonesia, with 1.5 billion people, the ninth place is South Africa, with 1.3 billion people, the tenth place is Argentina, with 1.2 billion people, the eleventh place is Malaysia, with 1.2 billion people, the twelfth place is Vietnam, with 1.2 billion people, and the thirteenth place is North Korea, with 1 billion people. That is to say, the population of the top 15 countries in the world at that time exceeded one billion, and a fraction was saved when counting. If other countries are included, the total global population exceeded three hundred billion.

In other words, the total population of the earth has increased by more than five times in the last few years of the 21st century.

It can be seen that China's population growth rate is actually lower than the global average growth rate.

Of course, the large population outbreak basically occurred in developed countries, especially the G20 led by China. In some underdeveloped countries, the population growth rate is not very fast, while some extremely backward countries have seen a population decrease. For example, in Africa, the population of the five most backward countries has not increased, but has decreased by about 20% in more than 40 years. Of course, it is not a pure decrease, but a large number of residents of these countries flow into neighboring countries, driving a significant increase in the population of other countries.

Obviously, the main reason for the large population outbreak is that productivity has increased significantly and the social wealth produced can support more people.

In a sense, the explosion of population is also the basis for the great development of the universe.

You should know that in the era of great development of the universe, the most lacking is manpower. According to unofficial statistics, by the last few years of the 21st century, almost two-thirds of the world's labor force was engaged in work related to the development of the universe, or indirectly supporting the aerospace industry.

Without huge human resources, human aerospace industry would definitely not have developed so rapidly.

To put it simply, if there were no such many people, the age of the universe would not have arrived in the early 22nd century, and humans would not have ushered in the era of technological explosion.

However, population growth has both benefits and disadvantages.

The biggest disadvantage is that after the population surge, a large number of problems related to social resources have been triggered, and many internal conflicts have arisen.
Chapter completed!