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Page added on March 17, 2014
The Short Logic of Population Proponents Ignore Real Consequences
Desperately poor Africans have developed a new tactic to break into Western Europe. They are rushing the border of Spain in groups of 1,000 or more, overwhelming Spanish border agents. Italy, meanwhile, has asked for help in dealing with the hordes of illegal immigrants washing up on the shores of Sicily. Australia, under continuous invasion by Asia’s poor, is arresting these foreign trespassers as they arrive and shipping them to concentration camps in New Guinea.
The United States has absorbed millions of foreign trespassers who are trying to escape Latin America’s pervasive poverty. In Brazil, 20 percent of the population lives in shantytowns and barely ekes out an existence. Despite its explosive economic growth, most of China’s vast population lives in dire poverty as do much of the populations of Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia.
Worldwide poverty is often blamed on faulty economic models that perpetuate misallocation of wealth and resources. A recent Oxfam report that 85 billionaires now have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population is submitted as stark evidence of this misallocation. But, if these 85 billionaires were divested of all their wealth, estimated at $1.7 trillion, and it was distributed to the earth’s 3.5 billion impoverished people, the poor would each get only $484 — a one-time boon that would only momentarily interrupt their perpetual poverty.
Redistribution schemes are not the solution to pandemic poverty. Nor is the likelihood that the economies of all nations can become vibrant enough to provide acceptable levels of affluence for ever-increasing populations. The natural and financial resources for such economic vibrancy are limited, and becoming more limited with every additional mouth to feed.
Nevertheless, there are those who believe that human ingenuity, advanced technology harnessed by entrepreneurialism, will solve the problem of pandemic poverty. But, not only has the spectacular growth in technology not provided sufficient employment for the Earth’s burgeoning population, there are also cogent arguments that advanced technology, especially digital robotics, will actually decrease the need for human labor.
That possibility means that even the economies of highly advanced technological societies will not provide full employment at their current population levels, let alone at greater population levels.
A surplus of available labor, rather than entrepreneurial lethargy, onerous tax policies or reluctant capital, may explain the jobless economic recovery in the United States and much of the advanced Western nations. It may be that there are not enough new jobs being created because there is simply no need for them.
The argument that an economy cannot remain vibrant without a continual increase in population is invalid. While an increasing population may increase the wealth of insatiable individuals in a volume business, an economy can remain vibrant at a constant level of population because so much economic activity is repeated, so much of what we need and want must be replaced periodically — a sustainable economy.
It is more likely that at some point a vibrant economy is diminished by an excess of human population. Imagine how much wealth redistribution would be demanded by hundreds of millions of chronically unemployed Americans. A similar situation nearly destroyed the U.S. auto industry. Although labor was eliminated by technology, idle union workers continued to receive full pay and benefits for doing nothing but playing cards at the factories.
Imagine millions of idle Americans permanently on the dole. Anyone who opposes socialism should be among the most ardent supporters of birth control and population stabilization.
The proponents for increasing human population consider fewer births an economic threat or a theological transgression. Their short logic is as spectacular as it is irresponsible. The number of people who can inhabit this planet is limited by resources and space.
Well before every square foot of the planet is occupied by people standing cheek to jowl, natural forces will mercilessly intervene to cull the herds of humans. Those forces are affecting us now; climate change, depleted fresh water, exhausted arable land, vanishing pollinators and re-emerging diseases.
Meanwhile, anyone who believes that the world’s economies can end the poverty of 3.5+ billion people is delusional. It will be difficult just to feed these people. The miracles of agricultural technology have limits and the oceans are being rapidly over-harvested.
However, a significant reduction in human population growth eventually solves or considerably mitigates nearly all the problems plaguing Earth. Imagine how much less critical and threatening the current California drought would be if the state’s population was 18 million rather than 38 million. Imagine how much less air pollution there would be if the highways were half as crowded. Imagine how much smaller government could be with considerably fewer people to police and provide for. The positives of lower human population go on and on.
The first step in solving a problem is realizing that there is one. It is simply irresponsible and self-destructive for the human species to continue overpopulating.
14 Comments on "The Short Logic of Population Proponents Ignore Real Consequences"
paulo1 on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 1:48 pm
This will go over well with the right wing Christian fundamentals. They will go berserk. Oh wait a minute, it’s okay if they spit out huge families, its those dam _________ that need to stop having so many kids. Right?
paulo1 on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 1:52 pm
I meant fundamentalists….not fundamentals. As an aside, last week I was in town and was surprised to see marchers with placards picketing our local hospital about abortion. This is quite surprising to see in Canada. Although in our local city of 35,000, we have a few hand waving tongue talkin congregations about. No snake handlers, though.
Paulo
steveo on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 2:53 pm
“Imagine millions of idle Americans permanently on the dole.”
I don’t have to imagine it. All I have to do is look. My step daughter has fallen into poverty and she is surrounded by “friends” who are wards of the state.
noobtube on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 4:22 pm
I think its the United States and Europe that eat like locusts.
They are like a plague on the Earth.
Nothing is safe. Not forests. Not rivers. Not virgin lands.
Saying birth rates are declining in the United States and Europe does nothing to stop the plague of vermin that wipe out resources everywhere on this planet.
European and American swarms cover the Middle East, Africa, South America, and even trying to get into the Arctic!
The population problems are with the United States and Europe. They are determined to destroy the planet with their useless eaters.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 4:22 pm
steveo — In a contracting economy where there are fewer and fewer jobs available, and where what jobs are available are “nailed down” by long term more experienced and generally much older employees on average, you should be GLAD that the government has a program to take care of your step daughter. There are many thousands and probably millions of young people unemployed these days — not because they can’t or don’t want to work, but because there IS no work. Don’t forget that hundreds of thousands of jobs were sent over to China and other countries where healthcare isn’t a requirement, there are minimal to no anti-pollution laws and people are willing to work for slave wages. That’s probably where your step-daughter’s job went.
Boat on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 4:36 pm
Lets blame the US and Europe for eating? Isn’t the US a huge Net exporter of food? I would admit both political parties are on the wrong side of immigration and population. We provide tax breaks for having children and allow immigration. In a world of stretched resources this isn’t prudent.
noobtube on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 4:49 pm
Saying the United States exports food is like saying the United States is energy independent.
Europe is a net food importer.
Europe is a net energy importer.
The United States is a net energy AND food importer.
The population problem is in the United States and Europe because they take far more from the rest of the world than they ever give back.
The rich in the United States and Europe claim wealth greater than the entire population of Africa.
How do they do this? With the violence and brutality of the United States military. And, the United States military requires the materials and fuel coming from places like Libya, Algeria, Angola, the Sudan, and Nigeria.
What exactly are these people getting in return other than hell from Americans and Europeans, dictators, and tyranny?
The United States and Europe are destroying the Earth, as we know it (and for generations to come, if the Americans and Europeans don’t make it completely uninhabitable).
J-Gav on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 5:14 pm
Noob – “Nothing is safe, not forests, not rivers, not virgin lands” (from the rapacious US and Europeans). Not untrue but you haven’t been looking very closely have you? Otherwise you would have noticed that China has been doing its share of devastating as well: killing 100s of rivers, destroying ag land and polluting its own cities’ populations, land grabs in Africa, etc
noobtube on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 5:29 pm
I know China is destroying ITS OWN LANDS in pursuit of the European and (especially) Amercian lifestyles.
These lifestyles are dead-ends that China is seeing firsthand and that Americans and Europeans don’t seem willing to accept.
At least the Chinese aren’t indulging in fantasies of genocide against other people under some guise of a population “problem” without looking at themselves first.
It just amazes me that an American, with his BIG MAC, suburban tract house, daily car commute, television, sports stadiums, indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and mall shopping has the gall to call some poor villager having a baby a problem, because they get their water from a well, and eat rice and beans.
A typical American spends more energy each day than a typical African spends in a month. Then, the American has the nerve to say everyone else is the problem but them.
Without the United States, the world could support 30 Africas. Without Europe, the world could support 15 Africas.
Of course, the world can’t support China AND Europe AND America. But, the problem is certainly not because the poor are having babies.
More poor having babies is a lot better than the rich having babies.
It’s crazy, but Americans have clearly lost touch with reality.
Boat on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 9:08 pm
So the rich are showing the way to sustainable living by having less children. If every country didn’t allow immigration and had like America a 1.9 birth rate per couple and it needed a 2.1 birth rate to break even. The population would shrink. This is why i support no immigration. To do our part to shrink the world. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee
noobtube on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 9:19 pm
Well, if you support no immigration, understand that is a two way street.
Europe and the United States out of Venezuela, out of Iraq, out of Libya, out of Afghanistan, out of everywhere.
All US and European corporations out of South Africa, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia.
No more Dutch Shell in Nigeria, or DeBeers in South Africa, or Chevron, in the Ukraine.
Setting an example is giving up your jet, not saying you aren’t going to buy another one.
Africa has set the example that the United States and Europe refuse to follow. But, they will because Africa is the future and the United States and Europe are losers (and they will lose it all).
Kenz300 on Mon, 17th Mar 2014 11:55 pm
Endless population growth is not sustainable.
The worlds poorest people are having the most children. They have not figured out the connection between their poverty and family size. If you can not provide for yourself you can not provide for a child.
Access to family planning services needs to be available to all that want it.
rollin on Tue, 18th Mar 2014 2:26 am
If these proponents of population reduction are honest in their intentions, they should line up for euthanasia right now. Wonder how many have had children.
This article in particular hints strongly at population reduction to continue a form of developed BAU. I guess they want to preserve the good life while they take away other lives.
FriedrichKling on Tue, 18th Mar 2014 5:41 am
“I know china is destroying ITS OWN LANDS….”
China and South Korea are buying-up land in Africa and South America. South Korea just penned a deal with the military junta in Madagascar to raze the last remaining forests to make way for agriculture, which spells doom for Madagascar’s indigenous wildlife.
http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1119-madagascar.html