First of all, no one really reproduces to strengthen the economy. People reproduce because they want children for personal reasons. And if people really want to strengthen the economy, it makes more sense on their part to establish a public enterprise that will serve the needs of the existing public, not a domestic private enterprise that will serve the needs of a “public” that does not yet exist and has no reason, need or desire to exist before being created by the decision of others.
But if we ignore the fact that this is probably not really anyone’s reason to reproduce, this argument is probably the most explicit form of creating someone as a means to the ends of others, because it is creating people so that there will be more consumers and more producers. This is reproduction in the name of economic progress, reproduction in the name of capitalism. This excuse is really explicitly treating children as tools in a game they did not choose to participate in.
And if you think about it in more specific and practical terms, since the world is very capitalistic, reproduction means condemning people to a life of work for almost their entire adult lives. There are indeed people who derive pleasure or satisfaction from their source of livelihood, but very many do not, probably the majority. In any case, regardless of whether work is good or bad for humans, forcing people to work for their existence which they did not choose is certainly not good. No one chose to come into the world, not in general, and certainly not the specifics of who s/he is, where s/he is, when s/he is, and to whom s/he was born, and yet, they all have to find ways to support themselves. So not only is existence imposed on everyone, they are also constantly forced to maintain it.
Also in the context of capitalism, this argument rests on erroneous, outdated and dangerous notions about unceasing growth, notions that have long ago proven themselves to be destructive to humans, to other species, and to everyone’s living environment.
Humanity is dealing with – or at least should be dealing with – a climate crisis, probably one of the biggest crises it has ever faced, precisely thanks to this approach of constant economic growth: incessant production, and incessant consumption, seemingly without noticing that the incessant increase of the cake does not really raise everyone’s standard of living but rather deteriorates the lives of the majority in a kind of race to the bottom, and along the way takes away resources necessary for the lives of all the inhabitants of the planet for the sake of the cake that never stops growing, probably until it blows up in everyone’s face. Therefore, the constant production of products that requires the constant creation of consumers, and the severe moral consequences of this approach, is if anything a good reason to avoid reproduction, not the other way around.
And finally, this argument is also very chauvinistic because it assumes that for the economic needs of society, women should function as wombs for rent for the national economy. As it is, a multitude of pressures and expectations are exerted on women in the context of reproduction, and they are already a significant victim of a pro-natalist society even without the economic aspect, but when combined, then there really is a strong assumption that women should function as potential wombs, breast-feeders and primary caregivers for most of life. By this argument, in the name of economics, women should serve as the national bank of consumers and producers.