Comment by nathan_compton

My personal guess about this is that wealthy people tend to lock wealth away in unproductive but safe ventures instead of value production. When there is a large labor population decrease and labor can demand more of the wealth of a society, they tend to use that wealth in a more productive way for the average person and that leads to social flourishing. Hence, I am not at all worried about the decrease in population - that will increase the power of labor and unlock a lot of horded wealth towards actually productive ends, not whatever dumb or safe shit rich people think is smart.