Charles Hugh Smith writes, "Faced with incompetent, unaccountable, corrupt bureaucracies and a culture overflowing with scams, frauds, imposters and get-rich-quick schemes, people give up and drop out. Rather than start a business and accept all the risks just to get dumped on or ripped off, they don’t even try to start a business. Given the financial insecurity that is now the norm, they decide not to get married or have children."

That's not an irrational response. But it is a fear-based response.

What might an integrity-based response look like? Imagine that half a dozen young men in a community started businesses which could be totally depended-on by customers. Imagine that they could all do business with one another without fear of being cheated? Now imagine the half-dozen young women who wanted to marry and have children with these responsible, courageous young men?

All of a sudden there exists the basis of a stable civilization in that small community.