24A050 Families, in the ZGS by Jim Davies, 12/24/2024

The State, everywhere to one degree or another, likes to control children. It makes it easier to control adults a few years later.

Necessarily, that loosens control of them by parents; that is, it damages family life. Not long ago Hillary even wrote that "it takes a village" to raise kids. Since 1840 when the dreadful idea of tax-funded, State-controlled schooling began to infect the USA, every child is indoctrinated for 12 years with what the State wants him or her to learn. That now includes nonsense about gender options.

During the half-century starting in 1970, the number of single parents tripled, while the number of marriages per 1,000 unmarried adults fell from 86 to 33, in the US. Many factors caused this, but government set most of them in place. It's little stretch to call this a war on the family structure.

After a Zero Government Society has replaced the former State, what will family life be like?

About 2,000 generations of history of homo sapiens suggest that whenever people have the choice, a "nuclear family" of Mom, Dad and a preferred number of children is what's likely to reappear. Nobody will have any power to make anyone choose a different arrangement, so that long precedent is likely to prevail.

And Mom & Dad will be in control, until each child chooses to exercise his or her right of self-ownership; a gradual process as they grow up. No outsider will be entitled to intrude.

Family finances will change dramatically. Taxes will not exist, so at first sight each will see net earnings double; but then there will be some new expenses because government's "free" services won't be there any longer. Businesses will quickly form to take over the few for which a demand exists and will charge a market rate for the services provided. So the net gain will be closer to 50% than 100%. Even so, it will give a powerful relief and incentive for one of the parents - Mom, usually - to stay home and care for children and house.

That in turn will make it easy for the family to run a home school - which will bring enormous benefits in terms of properly-educated children; parents may well purchase some outside help during their teen years when specialized knowledge is needed, but the net result I expect to be that they will graduate at 18 with an education at least as full as is learned today by college grads. That young, they will be well equipped to make a prosperous living on their own. If they wish.

The cycle will then repeat: boys and girls will get together as they always have, and make marriage contracts - on such terms as they agree. They will all have learned (via TOLFA or an equivalent) that no obligations exist unless an uncoerced contract has been entered, but that when one is made, each party is indeed obliged to keep to its terms. The many pleasures of enjoying a lifelong, loving and stable partnership will be rediscovered.

Exceptions? - of course. Sex is a powerful driver, and sometimes girls will get pregnant while the boys disappear. What then? There is an elegant solution for both that problem and a different one: some couples are unable to conceive a baby. Put the two situations together, and we'll see an excellent free-market fix. Nobody will write laws that forbid abortion, or that impede for-fee brokers matching a childless couple to the reluctant mother and quickly arranging an adoption. The abortion rate will fall off a cliff, and babies will go where they are wanted. And the birth-mother will depart the scene with enough money to start over, ready to make better choices.

This free-market fix will incidentally solve a perceived problem now troubling developed countries: fertility is too low to sustain existing populations. The rate of births per female needed for stability is 2.1, but in the US it's only 1.7; in the UK it's 1.6 and in Russia, 1.5. The way this simple "fix" would solve that problem is shown for the Russian case here. Yes, it could be put in place today; but it runs contrary to governments' insane propensity to regulate and control, so it will probably have to await the ZGS. How long, is up to you.

A Merry Christmas to all readers... and your families!