There is a town in Chad called Béré. Young trees dot the sidewalk of the town center, and the rusted buildings blend in with the soil. Multicolored clothing is hung to dry on empty land. New buildings are always being constructed, steel beams and tarps act as walls. In the town hospital with a total of 70 beds, an infant dies from tuberculosis while their mother can do nothing but wail. About 19000 people live here, with the median age being 15. A woman here will give birth to an average of six children. 1 out of 20 infants here do not live until their first birthday, and 1 out of 10 children here do not live beyond the age of five.
5500 miles away, there is a city in Vermont called Rutland. The streets are paved and flags fly high. Its buildings have stood since the 18th century and are constructed with red brick and crown molding. In the city’s hospital, there are 144 beds, well-staffed and well-equipped. Of the 8000 women living here, 300 of them give birth in this hospital every year. Most women here will have one or two children.
In general, women in the global south have a higher birth rate. This is due to many factors. Culture, infant mortality, economic security, labor, rape, etc. At the same time, women in the global north tend to have a lower birthrate. Again, many factors influence the number of children a woman will have: Career, economic uncertainty, social uncertainty, DINK-ism. It is therefore interesting when people cite concern about the world’s lowering birthrate, while only referring to the birthrate in the global north.
In an an article published in The Atlantic last week, Marc Novicoff, a self proclaimed “lonely conservative pronatalist”, bitches and moans about the fall in “global” fertility for a grueling 1513 words. So, why is he upset? The economy. That’s why. He complains that due to declining birth rates, we can expect our economic growth to decline as well, into a “smaller, sadder, poorer future”.
I have a lot of issues with this article, especially with its Western centrism. It basically boils down to a concern of core states having fewer workers to support their economies, semi-periphery states having less workers to be exploited by core states, and no mention of periphery states because obviously, they are not human, and they only exist for core states to exploit them for natural resources. There is almost no mention of states where the birthrate is positive because that is not what Novicoff is concerned about. He does not care that mothers in sub-Saharan Africa lose more children to disease, malnutrition, and poor quality of life than in the US, leading them to have more children in hopes some survive. He does not care about the prevalence of rape and child brides in South Asia which leads to girls becoming mothers at 15 or younger. He does not care for people in periphery states as they would never be as valuable as people from core states.
So why is it that people care about the declining birthrate of Western countries, but not about the population of non-Western countries? Because some people should live, and some shouldn’t.
Take life and let live — Foucault
In the 1700s, states began to exercise what Foucault calls “biopolitics” — the political power over life. This was, and still is, done through taking census data, birth rates, death rates, etc. This is done to quantify a population and to better understand the biological conditions of the state, to create accurate provisions to allow state apparatus to properly support and protect its people. This is contrasted by those whom the state would have the right to kill. Such as those who trespass against the state and would face capital punishment. And those who trespass against the safety of others would be sent to die.
Mbembe expands upon this through his conception of “necropolitics” — the political power over death. One must assume that the protection of a population results in the disenfranchisement of another. One population is always less desirable than the other. One population is less valuable than the other. A state has the power to decide who can live and who cannot. Notoriously, this is done through violence. In Nazi Germany, aryan families are encouraged and incentivized to have more children through economic and social benefits. On the other hand, non-aryans and disabled people were banned from procreating with aryans or sterilized, while also experiencing social death and genocide a few years later. Rape was used as a mechanism for genocide in Rwanda by the majority Hutu to destroy the reproductive capabilities of Tutsi women. Violence, as Arendt describes, is systematic and precise. It understands who has to die. It is traditionally understood that such cases happen in “states of exemption”— temporal suspensions of the state of law, such as when martial law is declared. However, it can happen anytime in any condition. People are sentenced to death by the state every day. Necropolitics is not simply a right to kill; it is not always exerted through violence, it can also be done through law. It is the political power that some people will simply have to die simply because they are less favorable to the state and its agenda. It matters not how, when, and why. This can happen in social death, ie., dehumanization. Or economic death, ie., slavery. The forced sterilization of native women in the US in the 1970s. It is being used today in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill to kill those who cannot afford healthcare. It is being used today to sentence immigrants to death.
Most of these ideas are closely linked with decolonization theory, racism, and totalitarianism. For centuries, biopolitics and necropolitics have been used by the state to dictate who can live and who should die. Almost always used to enforce an existing power structure. And with western hegemony, more often than not, used to uphold white supremacy. With time, these ideas have woven their way through the fabric of society.
Currently, the “great replacement” conspiracy theory is as prevalent as ever — the irrational fear that white people will soon be replaced by people of color (I’m
dead serious, look it up). It informs white supremacist ideals we see in the media today. It informs most of the rhetoric surrounding immigration and nationalism in politics today. With the only mention of states with increasing birthrates as “desperately poor” (and who set that system up?), I can only assume Novicoff worries that the white people might not be able to stay in power as the population of the non-Western world increases. I worry that there will be a day when immigrants and people of color will no longer be seen as human by white people, but it seems to me that day has already come. Next time you think that an immigrant may be taking your job, think about how that immigrant might get kidnapped to a detention center in Florida that is surrounded by alligators to ensure those who manage to escape will get mauled to death, saving DHS a body bag, and helping to purify America; One immigrant at a time.
Author’s Note —
Thank you to Dr. Jewkes for finally getting me through Necropolitics. I’ve been trying to understand it for 3 years now. Please do read the books I mentioned in this article, they are truly some of the most thought provoking pieces I have ever read, my summaries do not do them justice.
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