The Power of Words

By David L. Brown

What a confusing panoply of opinions there are about the issue of population. On the one hand, many scientists warn that human numbers are a threat to the environment, that world population may have exceeded the sustainable ability of the planet to support those already living, and that over-population is leading us inexorably toward economic and social disasters. This is the global warming, resource depletion, environmental viewpoint.

On the other side are pundits who point with horror at declining birthrates in places such as Western Europe and Japan, claiming that aging populations represent a danger that will lead us toward … well, economic and social disasters. This is the viewpoint of many economists, politicians, and sociologists.

As is usually the case when two opposite predictions are posed, it is a fair certainty that both of the conclusions cannot be entirely true (although sometimes neither is.) There are many who might argue in this case that there is a grain of truth in both positions. However, it seems to me that the seriousness of the alternate interpretations represent different levels of concern, and that the economically inclined arguments are subject to being undermined by the application of logic and common sense.

First, taking the environmental side there is mounting evidence that human influences on the Earth’s climate, ecology, and resources are quite real and that the consequences could be considerable, possibly resulting in the breakdown of civilization or even the extinction of the human race. Virtually all scientists in fields related to the subject agree that we are headed toward significant environmental problems and the only area of disagreement is on how serious the end result will be. No less a personage than Stephen Hawking recently suggested that runaway global warming could turn the Earth into another Venus, with temperatures far above the boiling point of water and sulfuric acid rain. That’s pretty extreme, but it does illustrate that messing with Mother Nature could potentially have some nasty repercussions. It remains to be seen what if anything we can do to mitigate these effects.

Now let’s look at human population trends from the economic point of view. Economics, dubbed the “dismal science” by Thomas Carlyle, is not really a science at all but has more in common with astrology and fortune telling. It is a field in which it apparently cannot be conceived that a stable and healthy economy can exist except in conditions of steady population growth. Unlike the environmental viewpoint, which is based on strong scientific evidence, the economists seem to base their conclusions on certain arbitrary assumptions based on past observations. [Keep in mind that when we "assume" we make an "Ass" of "U" and "Me"]. All too many economists cling to visions based on past experience and which presume that an immutable status quo will extend into the future. In my opinion, these assumptions should be subjected to analysis and brought into question.

Here is an example of the kind of statements made by those who believe that falling fertility rates are a dire threat to humanity. Speaking of efforts by advanced nations to reverse declining birth rates, these are the words of David Reher, a population historian at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, as quoted in Science magazine (”The Baby Deficit,” 30 June 2006, pgs. 1894-1897):

“We are in the midst of a cascading fertility decline. Even a TFR [total fertility rate] of 1.7 is not safe; it is a disaster if you look a couple of generations down the line. … Urban areas in regions like Europe could well be filled with empty buildings and crumbling infrastructures as population and tax revenues decline. … [Due to aging and labor shortages] it is not difficult to imagine enclaves of rich, fiercely guarded pockets of well-being surrounded by large areas which look more like what we might see in some science-fiction movies.”

Well, this is a dire prediction indeed - but is it reasonable? We have to raise a few questions here. First, such statements are, as mentioned above, based on the assumption that sound economies must be rooted in a growing population base. But is the only way to build a sound economy to grow the population base which supports it? Cannot economists find new interpretations to support models that do not require ever-growing masses of consumers?

I will make a few observations that I think point toward flaws in this single-minded focus on population growth as a great good and the essential foundation of sound economies:

1 - When the Black Death cut a swath through Europe toward the end of the Medieval period, the devastating event was followed by an economic boom, leading eventually to the Renaissance and development of our present modern world. The boom resulted from a sudden and favorable increase in per-capita resources (i.e., land, food, housing). In other words, there were fewer people to share the resources, which led to higher standards of living and cultural progress.

2 - The 20th Century saw more warfare, death and destruction than any period in history. Much of the conflict was driven by demand for resources by growing populations. In Germany, Hitler launched a program of conquest in the name of obtaining “lebensraum” [literally, "living space"] for the German people. An island nation also teeming with people, Japan, similarly engaged in campaigns of conquest to secure lands and resources. We see similar conflicts today as expanding regional populations squabble over territories and resources. This hardly provides a sound basis for arguments against declining fertility.

3 - The chimera of labor shortages is constantly trumpeted by economists as a serious potential threat to future societies - but is this a valid concern? That viewpoint is based on the assumption that aging societies will have fewer young people to perform work, and a growing cohort of dependent older people mired in retirement. Well, who says that most work should be done by the young and that “retirement” is any natural state for a human being? In fact, retirement is a very recent invention, and one that has been over-used by companies and nations in order to deal with excess labor supplies during the aberrant “baby boom” era that followed World War II. A far more normal lifestyle, one followed through most of history, allows individuals to continue to work as long as they are able to do so. In fact, older members of earlier societies were highly valued for their wisdom and hard-earned skills. Most work today does not involve heavy physical labor as in the past, so many people could easily, profitably, and with pleasure continue to work well into their 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s. (This would be especially true if our medical-food-pharmaceutical industries would focus their efforts on cultivating health and cures rather than seeking short-term profit from pushing cheap and unhealthy junk food and promoting lifelong treatment of chronic diseases through suppression of symptoms - but that is a subject for another day.) It is interesting to note that the very wealthy, those with the least need to continue to work, seldom give up their careers and sink into a meaningless state of uselessness. There are many examples of this. Thus, I suggest that the dreaded labor shortages imagined by economists could easily be mitigated simply by reversing the trend to warehousing our seniors in retirement communities and allowing them to continue to perform meaningful and rewarding work for as long as they are able and willing.

4 - Here is another factor that seems to be overlooked: The idea that more and more production will be required in the future is based on the presumption that there will be an ever-growing pool of new consumers to demand the fruits of that production. This is a circular argument: Because a growing population is assumed, increased production will be required. In an economy grounded on a stable or even declining population there would be no need to constantly chase the tail of a booming population. That would create an opportunity to focus on improving the standards of living for a smaller population, rather than constantly creating more houses, more food, more TVs, cars and clothes … more and more and more “stuff” for more and more people. The result could be societies with increased leisure time and greater comfort for their consumers, and economies that make a smaller impact on global resources.

5 - Even as fertility rates decline, the world’s population continues to grow and it is predicted to reach somewhere between 8 and 11 billion by 2050 (from a present level of about 6.5 billion). There are serious doubts that the Earth can sustain these numbers, and in fact there is strong reason to believe that not only has the tipping point already been reached, but that climate change and other factors will actually reduce the planet’s ability to support human beings. On balance, declining fertility should not be seen as a problem, but as possibly the only hope for the future of our species.

There is another factor that is of concern, and that is that most of the present population increases are taking place in the Third World. As advanced countries reach fertility levels that could, if allowed to continue and barring influxes of immigration, result in declining populations, meantime the numbers in places such as Africa, Asia and Latin America continue to zoom upward. This has created a tempting “solution” for the perceived “problem” of declining birth rates: Bringing in immigrants to make up the difference. This is not a very sound policy in the long run, as nations such as France and Germany are discovering as their lands are being staked out for Islamic conquest by migrants originally invited in as “guest workers” but who have decided to stay and make Europe into a new Muslim homeland. In America, too, we have reached the point where it is no longer politically expedient to allow illegal immigration from Mexico and Latin America to continue on a massive scale.

Two conclusions can be made from the preceding analysis:

First, over-population is creating the prospect of an unprecedented environmental catastrophe and there is little that can be done except to put the brakes on birth rates and strive to adopt more sustainable systems of energy production, transportation, and food production.

Second, the fears of economic “disaster” resulting from reductions in population are over-blown and subject to mitigation through changes in attitudes toward workforce and production policies.

The systemic changes suggested by this analysis are unlikely to be recognized and taken up, as “experts” continue to fuss and fight over the details while powerful natural forces continue to drive our planet inexorably toward an historic climax in the near future. Sometimes I despair at the fact that the true knowledge bases of so many “experts,” the academic “ruts” in which they exist, are so deep and narrow that they cannot see the broad landscape of reality around them. If only economists, social scientists and politicians could see the broad spectrum of facts that are impacting humanity and our planet, how different might be their attitudes and actions.

© 2009 by David L. Brown, Inc. All Rights Reserved.