Cover story: 'After capitalism' by Geoff Mulgan | Prospect Magazine April 2009 issue 157

Cover story: 'After capitalism' by Geoff Mulgan | Prospect Magazine April 2009 issue 157: "Capitalist materialism has undermined the incentives for people to have children, sacrificing income and pleasure for the hard grind of family life. (And meritocracy further encourages parents to lavish their ambitions for advancement on just one or two children.) Hence the sharply reduced birthrates across Europe and among white Americans. At some point the resulting demographic imbalances threaten to undermine the generational contract which any society depends on, with a growing group of the elderly demanding ever more from a shrinking group of younger workers. The collapse of the savings rate—to around zero by 2007 in the US when it needs to be closer to 30 per cent to cope with ageing, is a stark symptom of a capitalism that has lost the ability to protect its own future."