As a system, capitalism is around 200 to 250 years old, depends who you are ask and of course that system incorporates

technological institutional even geological elements you have the

discovery of fossil fuels like coal and oil, their mass adoption, you have the arrival of the steam engine,

you have a new legal order around property, private property, markets, you have all these different things coming together in combination to create a new world fundamentally.

One aspect that is almost never mentioned, however, is demographics, because at the same time as the emergence of the

Industrial Revolution and Britain colonizing various continents around the world was

a demographic take-off. Demographics actually underpin so many major shifts,

whether that's more recently, like Thatcherism, or if it's more deeply in history like the rise of Christianity.

And yet we never, ever talk about it.

That is with the exception of today's guest.

Paul Morland is a demographer, and he is ready and willing to tell anybody who's

there to listen that one of the biggest challenges we face in the 21st century are falling.

Fertility rates, Paul Morland, welcome to Downstream.

Thank you.

I have enjoyed all of your books.

There are several of them now. We were talking a

moment ago that your first book was actually your PhD thesis. It was. But most

people are going to know you for a book called The Human Tide. When did that come out?

2019. called the human tide. When did that come out?

Uh, 2019. Nice idea that most people would know me at all for anything.

But the human tide was a history of the last 200 years. The basic premise was until about 1800 in the British Isles.

Tomography was a bit of a random walk as described by Malefers. You'd have a few good seasons, good harvest, maybe a bit of technological

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