How many people does it take to run a civilization?
Lots.
And the more things you are doing — the more productive and wealthier you want your civilization to be — the more people it can use.
It’s people who do things. Without people, the things won’t get done. People aren’t the problem, they’re the solution.
But the non-problem of “too many” people bothers Jonathan Porritt, a “green” advisor to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Porritt says if Britain is to feed its population “sustainably,” her population will have to be reduced to 30 million. Britain’s current population is about 61 million, twice that. So … do we have 31 million volunteers?
Porritt says “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.” That terrible pressure of making it easier and easier to survive.
Industrialized, capitalistic countries are often slammed for consuming a disproportionate share of the world’s economic output.
Less often mentioned is that these countries also produce the lion’s share of the output. They can do so to the extent that people with brains and initiative are free to function. Free to work, keep what they earn, benefit from planning ahead. Let people be free, and they’ll feed themselves fine. They will expand resources.
You want to “sustain” economic development, Mr. Government Official? Get out of the way.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
9 replies on “People Power”
There is no real “choice” between capitalism and socialism. Socialism is a pipe dream that has failed at every opportunity because it has always been used as a means to empower the few and enslave the many.
George Orwell, a socialist, saw this and wrote the greatest anti-socialist book ever, “1984.” We’re on our way there right now. Back to the future? Or the past?
Capitalism made America great, although this involved some unsavory exploitation and abuse in some/many instances. Lillian Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” description of a small town Southern businessman who is held in high esteem by town folk whom he pays a pittance in wages. Not a fave writer, but right in this instance.
The best idea can be trashed by the caliber of person who uses it to deny the rights of others. Ever worked a job where the owner’s relatives got the easiest, highest paying positions? Where you gave 110%, but were taken for granted, perhaps assigned to train an idiot son-in-law so he could become your boss?
Now imagine that same owner is a politician with power, eg, ex-Sen Ted Stevens (Pork-Alaska).
He’s guilty as hell (and everyone who follows the news knows it), but he’s “too big to fail.” Read up on this guy for a really heart-breaking story of the American Dream as nightmare. A study in corruption and megalomania.
Obama, however, makes Stevens look like a selfless server of the good.
This illogical myth comes around all the time.
The industrialized world has less than half the birth rate it had at the turn of the 20th century, not to mention the millions of aborted pregnancies.
It’s the good health and protection we enjoy, making everybody live so long, that is making the population grow.
These foreigners to reason contend that the population growth is robbing us of good health and protection!
I say, for the good of civilization, that everyone who claims to believe this drivel be the first pruned.
How to get rid of 31 million excess people? Not to worry. The UK’s socialized health care will take care of this problem in short order.
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Another Malthusian idiot speaks up-this time in GB, thank god, and not here.
Jonathan Swift in the 18th century had the answer to over population and Malthus’s theory. No birth control,feed babies until they are about two years old and then eat them. They are unusually tender and tasty baked broiled or fried. Thereby Mr. Brown and Obama could solve two problems and avoid wasteful abortion, why kill a baby and throw it away when you could eat it? W
Paul, as always you have hit the nail on the head with this one. We just need to figure out a way to get the government out of our way. Term limits are the foundation to smaller government and a more respondsibile government.
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The key to Mr. Jonathan Porritt’s statement was his use of the specific word, “sustainably.” What he means to say is, the population cannot be fed or housed, under the enviro plans for sustainable communities. Enviro’s limit what is produced, who produces, when there is production, where there is production, & who benefits from that which is produced.
(Note to all.… enviro’s will automatically be beneficiaries since “they & they alone” know what is best for all, then there will be others they will permit to survive).
The end of the world, according to these enviro or alarmist types, has been happening for the past two millennia. Too many people, too few people, too many or few in the wrong places, not enough of specific products or too much of specific products, its too cold or its too hot or its too dry or its too wet, or whatever calamity they can invent & exploit.
We have allowed our media, who survive on the concept of “blood leads,” for their livings, along w/ the alarmists, to create or foment the mob mentality along us. They threaten, they make horrific claims, they predict appalling disasters. In short, “the sky is falling” has been used to scare the h*** out of many. Yet these same alarmists always shrink back into the shadows once the due date fort the end comes & goes. They come out later w/ new doomsday scenario’s & begin their alarmism anew.
Each time we allow “do-gooders” to justify their control over us w/ words that bait us into unreasonable responses, “we” end up those who are screwed. Its time the alarmists took their end of the world predictions & their limitations on mankind, and told their stories to the other inmates at the asylum’s they belong in!
These people want wealth & power over others. They are the despots of the world’s history & of the world’s possible future if we allow ourselves & fellow human beings to be lead astray by their outrageous calumnies.
Mankind can solve any problem & if we come to the problem we cannot solve, that only means it may finally be time for our Creator to recall his experiment. Just let us alone, let us keep the bounty of our labors, let us live free, & let us believe as our hearts dictate. Go away socialist, you are the problem, not the solution!