There’s no better example of what happens when ideologues try to tamper with normal market forces than the coming “demographic winter.” In the decades ahead, the world’s population will peak and begin to shrink. Long before the population peaks, it will dramatically age, throwing 20th century social institutions into disarray. The implications are ominous. Worse yet, the problem has been exacerbated by serious policy errors. And yet, many among the world’s elite still seem oblivious to this reality. How did we get here? What’s ahead for the U.S. and other countries? What can you do to make the best of it as a manager, investor, and citizen? We’ll explain.

How did we get on the trajectory to demographic oblivion? An intellectual elite assumed that central planners could make better decisions than the great mass of people operating in their own self-interest. In much the same way the “population control movement” is collapsing, communism collapsed everywhere except North Korea, Cuba, and a few other failed states. Similarly, the more user-friendly socialism of Western Europe is slowly, but surely, being dismantled. Just as some outdated thinkers still fret about over-population, a growing chorus of American “neo-socialists” wants to turn back the clock to the days of confiscatory taxation, excessive regulation, and proactive income redistribution. What’s really going on? What are the implications? How should we think about this resurgent paradigm? We’ll provide the answers.