Why is it that mankind enjoys cell phones, computers and airplanes
today but not when King Louis XIV was alive? The necessary physical
resources to make cell phones, computers and airplanes have always been
around, even when caveman walked the Earth. There is only one answer to
why we enjoy these goodies today and not yesteryear. It's the growth in
human knowledge, ingenuity along with specialization and trade that led
to the industrialization, coupled with personal liberty and private
property rights.
For most of mankind's existence, he has been self-sufficient and spent
most of his time simply eking out a living. In pre-industrial
societies, and in some places today, the most optimistic scenario for
the ordinary person was to be able to eke out enough to meet his
physical needs for another day. With the rise of industrialization and
development of markets, and the concomitant rise in human productivity
that yielded seemingly ceaseless economic progress, it was no longer
necessary for mankind to spend his entire day to meet his physical
needs. People became able to satisfy these needs with less and less
time. This made it possible for more people to have the time to read,
become educated in the sciences and liberal arts, gain more knowledge
and become more productive. The resulting wealth also enabled them the
opportunity to develop spiritually and culturally through attending the
arts and participate in other life activities that were formerly within
the purview of the rich.
Contrary to the myths we hear about how overpopulation causes poverty,
poor health, unemployment, malnutrition and overcrowding, human beings
are the most valuable resource and the more of them the better. There
is absolutely no relationship between high populations and economic
despair. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly
Zaire, has a meager population density of 22 people per square
kilometer while Hong Kong has a massive population density of 6,571
people per square kilometer. Hong Kong is 300 times more crowded than
the Congo. If there were any merit to the population control crowd's
hysteria, Hong Kong would be in abject poverty while the Congo
flourishes. Yet Hong Kong's annual per capita income is $28,000 while
the Congo's is $309, making it the world's poorest country.
What are the chances for the United States to become overpopulated? The
population census has us at 304 million. How many more people could we
handle? I don't have an answer, but here are a couple of facts that
suggests we have a ways to go before we have to worry about
overpopulation. All urban areas, any community of at least 2,500
people, cover less than 3 percent of the U.S.'s 2.3 billion acre land
mass. The world's population is 6.7 billion. That means if the entire
world's population were put into the U.S., each person would have about
a third of an acre. Nobody is talking about putting the world's
population in the U.S. It is merely to suggest that neither the U.S.
nor the world is running out of space.
Population controllers have a Malthusian vision of the world that sees
population growth as outpacing the means for people to care for
themselves. Mankind's ingenuity has proven the Malthusians dead wrong.
As a result of mankind's ingenuity, we can grow increasingly larger
quantities of food on less and less land. The energy used, per dollar
of GDP, has been in steep decline, again getting more with less, and
that applies to most other inputs we use for goods and services.
The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government. A recent
example is Zimbabwe's increasing misery. Like our country, Zimbabwe had
a flourishing agriculture sector, so much so it was called the
breadbasket of southern Africa. Today, its people are on the brink of
starvation as a result of its government. It's the same story in many
countries -- government interference with mankind's natural tendency to
engage in wealth-producing activities. Blaming poverty on
overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook; it encourages
the enactment of harmful policies.
