A Smaller Population Is Better

We all know that population growth can't continue forever. American women reached replacement level fertility (2.1 children per woman) in 1972, yet mass immigration is driving our population to double within the lifetimes of children born today.

We live in a culture that reveres economic and physical growth - for example, new housing developments and new shopping centers. The Chamber of Commerce-style "growth is good" mantra is a smokescreen which hides the deleterious consequences of unending physical growth within the borders of our finite country.

Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

While most of us generally have a vague idea that unending population growth will not turn out well, few of us consider the question: how many Americans can we actually support ecologically?

The following article from Church and State reflects upon the advantages of a smaller population: A Dozen Ways A Smaller Population Is Better, by Valerie Tarico, May 26, 2021:

... Human population ballooned in the 20th Century and is projected to grow by billions more in coming decades. But sometime late in this century, or early in the next, it likely will flatten and begin to curve back. Over time, fewer births and longer lives will slim the bulge and create a “grayer” populace, one with fewer babies and more elders. This will require societies to adapt and innovate....

A stable or declining population may be good for the environment, they say, and less unsought pregnancy may be good for women, but economic wellbeing depends on an ever-swelling population of human innovators, producers and consumers.

Does it?

... here are 12 ways a smaller and older populace may be better.

1. Better educated young people...

2. Higher wages... fewer workers competing for more jobs is a positive. It means their labor, all other things being equal, is more valuable...

3. Lower price of goods... less competition for goods and commodities is a bonus for the people doing the purchasing. ...

4. Longer productive lives ... The nature of work is changing, and there is no reason to assume that future generations of people – either men or women – in their 60s, 70s or even 80s will be worn out and “dependent” rather than generative, creative, contributing members of society....

5. More intergenerational caretaking within families...

6. Retirees building community ...

7. More inheritance per capita ...

8. Bigger per-person shares of the commons...

9. More bountiful, beautiful housing ...

10. Shorter commutes ...

11. Breathing room ...

12. More and better leisure time...

The challenge is that quality of life is shaped by factors that standard economic indicators fail to capture. When it comes to population questions, that can create a disconnect between economists and ordinary people....

In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy expressed the problem clearly:

Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Our growth-centric society is generally oblivious to long-term consequences of our current immigration-driven population policy as mandated by Congress. Al Bartlet aptly questions our myopia:

Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"

Watch Arithmetic, Population and Energy - a celebrated talk by Prof. Al Bartlett.

Watch Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs, by Roy Beck, NumbersUSA.

Here are more selected short videos on the impact of mass immigration and population growth.