On May 8, 2024, viewers of the Belarusian state TV ONT program “ObjectivNo” were shown an excerpt from a speech by Lawrence Fink, where he talks about population decline.
“I would like to be mistaken, but in the speech of the CEO of the powerful Blackrock fund Larry Fink, there are the same old shoots of evil, familiar to us, aren't they?! Listen!” the host comments on the video.
Fink's speech is then shown with translation:
“I can say that developed countries, those in which the population is declining will be the winners. In my conversations with the leadership of these large developed countries that pursue xenophobic immigration policies, they do not allow anyone to come. These countries will rapidly develop robotics, artificial intelligence and technology. So the paradigm of negative population growth will change. And the social problems, that will arise when people are replaced by machines, will be much easier in countries where the population is declining.”
From the above, the presenter concludes: “In order for robots to develop better, the population must be smaller. Does this remind you of anything? The Nazi Ost plan was precisely about extra people. As you know, its goal was to free up living space for a master race.”
This conclusion contradicts the quote. If we use the host's terminology, then Fink is talking about reducing the "master race".
According to Larry Fink, the rapid population growth in developing countries is not a guarantee of economic success, than wouldn’t allow them to narrow the economic gap with developed countries. Primarily due to the rapid development of technology in the latter. According to the financier, robots will fill a significant part of the world economy's need for live labor, which is provided by developing countries.
And to avoid the negative consequences of this, Fink suggests that developing countries not reduce the population, but invest in education. This becomes clear if you look at the financier's full speech:
“So, the paradigm of negative population growth is going to be changing, and the social problems that one will have in substituting humans for machines is going to be far easier in those countries that have declining populations. And so for those countries that have rising populations, the answer will be education and so rapidly develop, you know. For those countries, that do not have a
foundation of rule of law or education, they're going to be left, that's where the divide's going to get more and more extreme, unfortunately,” Fink said.
