Population as a resource, not a bomb [Paul Ehrlich was wrong. Julian Simon was right.]

WASHINGTON -- Today's most widely accepted view on the growth of population worldwide and the effects of this population growth on human wealth and well-being and on the environment owes a lot to the work of Thomas Robert Malthus (1776-1834).

In 1798 the first edition of Malthus's work that has come to be known as the "Essay on Population" was published. As one website puts it, "In this famous work, Malthus posited his hypothesis that (unchecked) population growth always exceeds the growth of means of subsistence. Actual (checked) population growth is kept in line with food supply growth by 'positive checks' (starvation, disease and the like, elevating the death rate) and 'preventive checks' (i.e. postponement of marriage, etc. that keep down the birthrate), both of which are characterized by 'misery and vice.' Malthus's hypothesis implied that actual population always has a tendency to push above the food supply. Because of this tendency, any attempt to ameliorate the condition of the lower classes by increasing their incomes or improving agricultural productivity would be fruitless, as the extra means of subsistence would be completely absorbed by an induced boost in population." (cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/malthus.htm) This essay made Malthus into a celebrity, and his ideas were ridiculed by some and championed by others.

Move forward to the second half of the twentieth century. In 1968 the best-selling book "The Population Bomb" by Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich was published. In it Ehrlich predicted that in the 1970s hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation, because population growth would outpace the world's ability to supply food. Ehrlich's predictions were accepted as gospel by many and he became a media darling. In 1974 "The End of Affluence" appeared, a book Ehrlich had co-written with his wife Anne. Here the Ehrlichs increased their death-toll predictions, saying that by the middle of the 1980s a billion or more people could die of starvation and that the world would enter an era of scarcity by 1985.

In April 1968, a group known as The Club of Rome was founded by Italian scholar and industrialist Aurelio Peccei and Scottish scientist Alexander King. This group issued numerous warnings and dire predictions about the future of mankind based on the view that economic and technological growth and resource use could not be sustained and that food and resource shortages and environmental degradation were inevitable unless human attitudes and governmental policies were changed. The Club's most influential work was a book, "The Limits to Growth," subtitled "A report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind" and published in London in 1972. It was full of complex graphs that predicted, if global policy changes weren't changed by 2000, "Population and industrial capital reach levels high enough to create food and resource shortages before the year 2100." The book "stated that if the world's consumption patterns and population growth continued at the same high rates of the time, the earth would strike its limits within a century." It got enormous attention, selling some thirty million copies in more than thirty languages.

No one did a more thorough, sustained, and effective study and refutation of the neo-Malthusians such as Ehrlich and the Club of Rome than the late Julian Simon (1932-1998), a professor of business administration at the University of Maryland in College Park. As he reported in his book "The Ultimate Resource 2" (1996), which is the second edition of "The Ultimate Resource" (1981), Simon began by "assuming that the accepted view was sound. I aimed to help the world contain its 'exploding' population, which I believed to be one of the two main threats to humankind (war being the other). But my reading and research led me into confusion. Though the then-standard economic theory of population (...hardly changed since Malthus) asserted that a higher population growth implies a lower standard of living, the available empirical data did not support this theory."

The real population and resource problems, Simon wrote, "is not that there are too many people or that too many babies are being born. The problem is that others must support each additional person before that person contributes in turn to the well-being of others." A few lines later he wrote, "From the economic point of view an additional child is like a laying chicken, a cacao tree, a computer factory, or a new house. A baby is a durable good in which someone must invest heavily long before the grown adult begins to provide returns on the investment. But whereas 'Travel now, pay later' is inherently attractive because the pleasure is immediate and the piper will wait, 'Pay now, benefit from the child later' is inherently problematic because the sacrifice comes first."

Simon presented a great deal of data and evidence to show that his conclusions, rather than those of the Malthusians, were the correct ones. We do have resource problems, as we always did; these resources "are scarce, in the sense that it costs us labor and capital to get them, though we would prefer to get them for free." Instead of our entering an age of scarcity, the data show that "natural resources have been becoming less scarce over the long run, right up to the present." In terms of pollution, there is a problem as there always has been because people have to dispose of their waste products, "but we now live in a more healthy and less dirty environment than in earlier centuries."

Is there a population problem? Yes, just as always, because when a couple is about to have a child, they must prepare a place for it, and then after it is born they must feed and clothe it; it must also be educated - all of which require expense and effort, not just from the parents alone. "When a baby is born or a migrant arrives, the community must increase its municipal services - schooling, fire and police protection, and garbage collection. None of these are free." These costs and others are born by the parents, siblings, neighbors, community, and taxpayers. In addition, when this child "grows up and first goes to work, jobs are squeezed a bit, and the output and pay per working person go down. All this clearly is an economic loss for other people."

The upside, however, is that "an additional person is also a boon. The child or immigrant will pay taxes later on, contribute energy and resources to the community, produce goods and services for the consumption of others, and make efforts to beautify the environment. Perhaps most significant for the more-developed countries is the contribution that the average person makes to increasing the efficiency of production through new ideas and improved methods."

This comment about new ideas and improved methods is the key to Simon's view. He understood that human ingenuity, creativity, and the ever-increasing stock of useful knowledge - knowledge that is created and discovered and held by humans - is the greatest resource of all. He wrote, "Minds matter economically as much as, or more than, hands or mouths. Progress is limited largely by the availability of trained workers." A bit later he wrote, "Wealth is far more than assets such as houses and cars. The essence of wealth is the capacity to control the forces of nature, and the extent of wealth depends on the level of technology and the ability to create new knowledge."

Simon's view of technology was cornucopian; he thought that human problems of scarcity, resource depletion, disease, and environmental pollution would be solved by new technology. Moreover, new technology is created through human inventiveness and ingenuity and the growing stock of useful knowledge.

Simon showed through analysis of many historical examples that the optimistic cornucopian view he advocated is true, whereas the Malthusian view and the gloomy predictions of Ehrlich and the Club of Rome have not come true. He looked at a whole range of human concerns - food, land, natural resources, energy, pollution, the standard of living, human fertility, immigration, and others -- and showed that things are, in fact, getting better. There is in the world today more food, more agricultural land, more natural resources, more energy, less pollution, and a worldwide rising standard of living. He favored immigration: "The migration of people from poor to rich countries is as close to an everybody-wins government policy as can be." This happens because through receiving immigrants, countries in North America and Western Europe gain higher productivity, a higher standard of living, and "an easing of the heavy social burdens caused by growing proportions of aged dependents."

Simon wrote numerous other books, including one on immigration, and one entitled "The Great Breakthrough and Its Cause," published posthumously in 2000. In that book he investigated the question, "What was the rock-bottom root cause of the sharp break in living standards that occurred in the richer countries starting about 1750 or 1800?" The answer he offered was that "the total quantity of humanity (and the nexus of human numbers with technology) has been the main driving force." As usual, he presented a great deal of empirical evidence to support this claim.

Simon did not overlook or neglect other important factors: population growth and immigration require education of the new people in order for things to do well, and immigrants need to be integrated into the new country -- the failure to carry out the necessary education and integration explain the present rioting by children of immigrants in France. In addition, there must be the right political and social infrastructure so that human imagination, inventiveness, and knowledge can flourish and have their good effects -- present famine in Africa, for a most important example, is due almost entirely to political failures, including war and forced land reallocation.

Besides Simon, numerous other people have questioned the methods, conclusions, and predictions of the Malthusian doomsayers such as Ehrlich, and many have pointed out that the gloomy predictions of Ehrlich and the Club of Rome have not come true. It has been noted that, though world population has grown by more 50 percent since 1968, food production has grown at an even faster rate due to technological advances. But, for his effort and pains, Simon received a great deal of ad hominem attacks, epithets, and ridicule, as well as attacks on his integrity. Paul Ehrlich especially directed a lot of such language at him; among other things he accused Simon of a combination of stupidity and scientific ignorance.

In 1980 Simon did get Ehrlich to agree to a celebrated bet. Based on his Malthusian views, Ehrlich had "been predicting massive shortages in various natural resources for decades, while Simon claimed natural resources were infinite. Simon offered Ehrlich a bet centered on the market price of metals. Ehrlich would pick a quantity of any five metals he liked worth $1,000 in 1980. If the 1990 price of the metals, after adjusting for inflation, was more than $1,000 (i.e. the metals became more scarce), Ehrlich would win. If, however, the value of the metals after inflation was less than $1,000 (i.e. the metals became less scare), Simon would win. The loser would mail the winner a check for the change in price.

Ehrlich agreed to the bet, and chose copper, chrome, nickel, tin and tungsten. By 1990, all five metal were below their inflation-adjusted price level in 1980. Ehrlich lost the bet and sent Simon a check for $576.07. Prices of the metals chosen by Ehrlich fell so much that Simon would have won the bet even if the prices hadn't been adjusted for inflation." (www.overpopulation.com/faq/People/julian_simon.html)

Simon offered the bet to Ehrlich and any other takers again, with the proceeds if he won to go to charity. No one else accepted the bet, and, although Ehrlich claimed that he had made a good bet and the outcome didn't prove that Simon was right, Ehrlich too declined the new bet. It seems clear that his decline of any further bets was a strong signal that, whatever he said or wrote to the contrary, Ehrlich knew that his Malthusian pessimism does not fit the empirical facts, while Simon's optimism, cornucopianism, and belief that humans are the ultimate resource are supported by the actual empirical facts and data, and that predictions of coming doom, resource depletion, and environmental degradation are mistaken.

Lloyd Eby teaches business and professional ethics at the George Washington University in Washington, DC.

I like to think of it as Humanity, going out further and further on the limb, until it's too late to scurry back before the branch breaks. Things like Just In Time Inventory, global disease transmission vectors, the vagaries of climate change and, of course, the proclivity of Humans for self destruction to mention just a few of the dangers confronting civilization as it moves forward make a calamity just a matter of time IMO.

I'll take that bet. My choices are silver, gold, platimun, palladium and copper. Each are at or near 20 year highs, so I don't get the advantage of picking them at lows. Copper is at an all time high I believe. They will be much higher in 2015, barring worldwide recession. Mark my words.

By 1990, all five metal were below their inflation-adjusted price level in 1980. Ehrlich lost the bet and sent Simon a check for $576.07. Prices of the metals chosen by Ehrlich fell so much that Simon would have won the bet even if the prices hadn't been adjusted for inflation."

That is cited often, but doesn't really prove anything one way or the other.

What the MSM seems to ignore is the fact that population winds up, in the long run, as being the strongest indicator of a nation's ultimate strength.

Right now the US and Russia hold that title due to our nukes. But China, with its huge population, is gaining so quick that they will likely overtake us by 2020. India is a bit further back, maybe overtaking us by 2050. But population will be the deciding factor, and I dread the day that we're no longer number one.

Given all of that, it's obvious why these academic America-haters would bash having a large population - for if we're populous, we are strong, which cannot be allowed.

The troubles of the world are not caused by people who are trying to improve themselves and working to improve their quality of life. It's caused by people who dream up new excuses and new ways to control everyone else, especially the ones who adhere to various doomsday philosophies. Their cause is aided by people, both apathetic and zealous ones, who think that prosperity and prestige is a zero-sum game. The people who think they can make things better by making personal sacrifices for others deserve respect, but so do the people who want to play with their own bag of marbles the way they see fit. If you think that you're surrounded by the enemy in a war against "global warming", economic growth, George Bush, the latest new plague, Mexico, Islam, China, the devil, or any other fatal disease of civilization, you're dead wrong, you're wasting precious time (your own), and chances are that you're being used by somebody else.

Social criticism is great, but it's precisely because humans for the most part aren't unredeemably evil, aren't emotionally off-balance, aren't stupid, and can't be lead like cattle to the slaughter. It's no accident that people who think differently tend to range from mass murdering tyrants to those who are content to drink themselves to death, never once questioning the nobility and selflessness of their own actions. Humanity has lasted countless lifetimes because quiet optimism trumps loud, often reactionary pessimism.

If this sounds suspiciously like the lyrics to that cheezy Michael Jackson song "Man in the mirror", it's because even Michael Jackson was essentially right on that count.

Odd.

I did a search at http://www.wired.com/wired/ on both Simon and Ehrlich and came up empty.

Yet, I know I first read about the bet between the two in Wired Magazine. I've subscribed for almost 10 years.

Hmmmmm.

Interesting. When I googled "Simon Ehrlich wired", I got the article. So much for the Lycos Search engine on Wired!

The Doomslayer

By Ed Regis

The environment is going to hell, and human life is doomed to only get worse, right? Wrong. Conventional wisdom, meet Julian Simon, the Doomslayer.

This is the litany : Our resources are running out. The air is bad, the water worse. The planet's species are dying off - more exactly, we're killing them -at the staggering rate of 100,000 peryear, a figure that works out to almost 2,000 species per week, 300 per day, 10 perhour, another dead species every six minutes. We're trashing the planet, washing away the topsoil, paving over our farmlands, systematically deforesting our wildernesses, decimating the biota, and ultimately killing ourselves.

How strong exactly are countries like Indonesia (242M), Brazil (190M), Pakistan (143M), Nigeria (129M), Vietnam (83M), Egypt (78M), Ethiopia (73M), Sudan (40M), or Afghanistan (30M)?

The last time prolificness of the underclass was any kind of strength in the modern world was when Eastern Europe was repopulating itself after the second world war. Strength in the information age is not measured by number of ranks of fertile peasants.

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