But we already did the growth. We didn't shrink back. So we should still be able to get those results.
World population:
1960: ~3B
2025: ~8.3B
It was a VERY different world. That growth might not have gone anywhere but it’s not a very significant amount of wealth in today’s terms.
People are very worried about birth rates because for a while it will mean that there will be too few people of working age, which will be a disaster. But big picture, perhaps a correction is overdue, we cannot make people’s lives better if we keep adding people faster than we are growing the world economy.
You always need to put history in the context that the world was pretty empty. Less value was created but there was less competition for resources and it was easier for certain groups to stand out or dominate.
1900: ~1.6B
1750: ~750M
1500: ~450M
1000: ~350M
1: ~250M
Land is the main thing that's limited, but getting a smaller yard doesn't fix much.
In the 1930s, it wasn't possible so what's your point? (History time: What happened on October 24, 1929?) Choosing the 1960s as a baseline is artificially cherry-picking an era of economic growth (at the expense of the rest of post-WW2 Europe and Asia who were rebuilding) instead of an era of decline or normalcy.