The process of cultural decay is front of mind for those engaged in the pronatalist movement. The question of how it happens was raised by Robin Hanson in his recent appearance at NatalCon. His goal is to discover what cultural elements have contributed to fertility decline, which he contends will accelerate movement towards a self-destructive way of life. Conversely, he looks to the positive developments that have come before us and they are evidence that “culture is humanity’s superpower.” From his standpoint, this ability has come about because of natural selection and that humans have proven themselves capable of cultural evolution, and now, perhaps, cultural devolution.

Another claim he lays out is that one of the drivers of cultural evolution is the importance of status recognition. The idea goes that humans tend to mimic the behaviors of those perceived to hold lofty stature. For Hanson, one of the most powerful modern status markers is educational attainment. When it comes to marriage formation, he’s onto something here. Indeed, as others have pointed out, this is a primary driver of mate selection in the modern West. Charles Murray has demonstrated that this is, in fact, one of the most important parameters in mate selection since the mid-twentieth century.

For Hanson, this is a poor marker for mate selection, especially if one values a growing population. Just as wealth had been a highly important status marker for marriage in the past, which in his view has previously led to fertility decline—education as a status marker has done the same. If this selection mechanism leads to lower overall fertility, it then arguably turns into cultural decline (something that Hanson doesn’t thoroughly define). …

However, this anthropological claim stands in stark contrast to Mises’s methodological dualism. Early in Human Action, he noted that,

Reason and experience show us two separate realms: the external world of physical, chemical, and physiological phenomena and the internal world of thought, feeling, valuation, and purposeful action. No bridge connects—as far as we can see today—these two spheres.

For Misesians, human action and its outcome—culture—originate with the human mind, not from merely materialistic processes.

Ultimately, Hanson’s thesis on the degenerative trend in culture and fertility needs to be rejected on anthropological grounds. His perception of men and women as merely physical entities—without real thoughts and ideas—can’t account for the differing fertility choices made among couples. Further, it’s the Misesian anthropology and economics that provides the best explanation of the drivers behind fertility decline. Indeed, as couples have different ideas about the value of children, the experiences that are most important in their lives, their views on how to deal with scarcity and even inflation they seek differing solutions. However, when an external force like central bank-imposed fiat inflation is foisted upon all, there tends to be a “massification” of attitudes that is more short-sighted than it otherwise would be. To be sure, raising children is no short-run matter and neither are long-run cultural investments that stand the test of time. When this set of ideas takes hold, cultural degeneration is sure to follow.