May 31, 2017
PITY THE POOR MALTHUSIANS:
'Overpopulation' Fears Are a Hoax. Here's Why Higher Populations Are Actually a Good Thing. (Walter E. Williams, 5/31/17, Daily Signal)
The overpopulation hoax has led to horrible population control programs. The United Nations Population Fund has helped governments deny women the right to choose the number and spacing of their children.Overpopulation concerns led China to enact a brutal one-child policy. Forced sterilization is a method of population control in some countries. Nearly a quarter-million Peruvian women were sterilized.Our government, through the U.N. Population Fund, is involved in "population moderation" programs around the world, including in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Thailand, Egypt, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Colombia.The entire premise behind population control is based on the faulty logic that humans are not valuable resources.
The fact of business is that humans are what the late Julian L. Simon called the ultimate resource.That fact becomes apparent by pondering this question: Why is it that Gen. George Washington did not have cellphones to communicate with his troops and rocket launchers to sink British ships anchored in New York Harbor?Surely, all of the physical resources--such as aluminum alloys, copper, iron ore, and chemical propellants--necessary to build cellphones and rocket launchers were around during Washington's time. In fact, they were around at the time of the caveman.There is only one answer for why cellphones, rocket launchers, and millions of other things are around today but were not around yesteryear.The growth in human knowledge, human ingenuity, job specialization, and trade led to industrialization, which, coupled with personal liberty and private property rights, made it possible.Human beings are valuable resources, and the more we have of them the better.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 31, 2017 6:31 AM