POV: What Is the “Right” Population for Earth, and Who Should Decide?
What is the “right” population for Earth? And who should decide?
For most of human history, more was always better. “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). All religions and societies, even the innumerate, became experts at multiplication.
So humanity doubled and doubled again, until reaching a staggering eight billion souls.
But is this fruitful in the sense of productive? Is it even wise to subdue the Earth when we are near the limits of the biosphere’s capacity to gainfully nurture a sustainable existence?
Now, there are sound moral and ethical reasons to procreate without interference. Morally, nothing is more fundamental than the right to bear a child. Even threats of global warming cannot transcend this primal instinct to pass on our genes.
Yet, “fundamental” drives are often contingent-and with rising standards of living and access to birth control, fertility rates are spontaneously plunging. Declining birth rates in much of the world have triggered fears of a population implosion, resulting in loud calls for governmental intervention and worries about an end to technological and social progress.
Why is progress viewed as contingent on population? From an unethical perspective, reproduction is merely a self-serving Ponzi scheme, where masses of young people are bred to fill minimum wage jobs and grease the economy to subsidize the aging tip of the demographic pyramid. With no obvious way to jump off this moving population treadmill, the politically expedient solution is for “more” bodies.
More ominously, with declining fertility, some groups fear waning political influence. They imagine population targets are a racist ploy to limit minority democratic power. Not to mention the deeply paranoid delusions of white Christian nationalists and their embrace of the “great replacement” theory.
But sounder minds, like the Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow, have linked population growth to innovation, and innovation to rising standards of living and social freedom. They make an ethical case for growth.
People are the source of new ideas, and the more ideas, the more likely we are to cure cancer or start new businesses employing those entry-level young people. The majority of humankind’s amazing surge in lifespan and wealth can be traced back to science, engineering, and the free exchange of information.
Politically, high productivity is the most critical factor protecting our democracy. By expanding the pie we create options for a better future, avoiding competition over resources that would otherwise set cliques upon cliques. Without economic migrants at our borders, dying communities in the shadow of a rusting industrial base, or underfunded pension plans, culture wars and polarization would fade into memory.
But pronatalists like Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, industrialist Elon Musk (sperm father of 12) and the Heritage Foundation conflate the established link between innovation driving a rising standard of living, and the inevitability of population growth. They promote large families (conveniently, the children of other rich, white pronatalists like themselves) as a prerequisite to maintaining the pace of innovation, lest we enter a death spiral of declining productivity.
But this argument is reductionist and flawed.
Many of the problems confronted by humans are perversely the result of a growing population itself. (Take a moment to reflect on the link between the most pressing problems of today and their origins in the competition over resources and the challenges of managing a large complex society.) We waste precious innovation cycles addressing pollution, hunger, and water shortages, which only arise due to population pressure. When we include the negative externalities of population growth on the demand for innovation, a stable equilibrium is possible.
More importantly, there are billions of innovative people mired in poverty. Unleash their potential first, instead of breeding more people like “ourselves” to carry the burden. Plus, half the population, women, are a vastly underutilized source of good ideas and advice.
And then there is AI, still far from truly self-aware, but more than capable of enhancing human creativity. Processors, not people, will amplify our ability to innovate. And global standards of living will rise in concert.
We reared two children and have numerous nieces and nephews, and love them all. But raising children is hard (if it isn’t, you aren’t doing it right) and expensive. So, there is a natural counterbalance to population growth, providing we can innovate faster than problems arise.
Vibrant innovation is feasible with a smaller population of independent, empowered people. As political ethicist Mahatma Gandhi once remarked:
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
Originally published at https://www.bu.edu. Slightly expanded.
