This strategy works as long as there are more places (by volume) experiencing growth than decline. Since the trend is slower growth overall, there will be a point where global growth stops, and clearly then the strategy will start to fail.
Frankly, from a planet point of view I'd hope that point comes sooner than later.
This will play out in obvious ways (lifting retirement age etc) but ultimately the quality of life will increase overall until some sort of stable population number emerges.
Granted, all of this is due to historically extraordinary events playing out. But still, less population doesn’t necessarily imply no or negative growth. There’s an interplay of factors affecting if growth is possible, and population is just one parameter of those.
You're basically leaching off goods and services provided by those in high growth areas.
I think the idea is we might reach a point where globalization itself is hard to maintain and then things start to unwind, dramatically fast.
Exactly. Extolling the virtues of low population growth because it enables a higher quality of life is misguided. Your life is higher quality because billions in China are toiling away in inhuman conditions, making goods for you, and unable to move to your location.
Before you yell at me consider that China lifted an unprecedented amount of people out of even more inhumane conditions as a result of this process.