Too Many
The most common theme in Jared Diamond's tales of societal collapse is overpopulation. The universal theme in societies that have successfully dealt with their environmental challenges is population control. The means of population control have been war, starvation, endemic disease, infanticide, abortion, and birth control. Before quite recent times the last has been too unreliable to be adequate. An examination of the population growth rates by country shows that almost every rich country, except in the oil rich Middle East, population growth is slow or negative. Conversely, the countries where population is growing fastest are nearly all economic disasters.
China has been the fastest growing economy over the past twenty years, and has, by dint of drastic measures, simultaneously lowered its population growth rate drastically. India, the other rapidly progressing Asian giant, still has a moderately high population growth rate of about 1.4% (vs. 3.77% for the Gaza Strip, 0.58% for China, and -0.05% for Czechia), but its population growth rate has been declining by about 0.1% per year.
This population growth rate/economic well being correllation is one of the most obvious facts in developmental economics, but one of the least acknowledged. In part that is no doubt do to the baleful influence of the worlds two largest religions, Catholicism and Islam. If this country were not ruled by idiots, we would shout this fact from the rooftops.
Many nations, like the US, subsidize having children through tax deductions and other means. A progressive tax on each child after the second would be a better idea. Technology has given us the capability to control population growth without the use of the more odious methods (war, infanticide, and, to a lesser degree, abortion). Let's do it.
China has been the fastest growing economy over the past twenty years, and has, by dint of drastic measures, simultaneously lowered its population growth rate drastically. India, the other rapidly progressing Asian giant, still has a moderately high population growth rate of about 1.4% (vs. 3.77% for the Gaza Strip, 0.58% for China, and -0.05% for Czechia), but its population growth rate has been declining by about 0.1% per year.
This population growth rate/economic well being correllation is one of the most obvious facts in developmental economics, but one of the least acknowledged. In part that is no doubt do to the baleful influence of the worlds two largest religions, Catholicism and Islam. If this country were not ruled by idiots, we would shout this fact from the rooftops.
Many nations, like the US, subsidize having children through tax deductions and other means. A progressive tax on each child after the second would be a better idea. Technology has given us the capability to control population growth without the use of the more odious methods (war, infanticide, and, to a lesser degree, abortion). Let's do it.
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