I am beginning to seriously think that the world population is
self-correcting. At first sight this seems to be absurd -- we're already
vastly over-populated -- but the facts speak otherwise. Since 1962/3 the
global growth rate has been steadily declining year to year from 2.2% to
1.1% today. What was previously an exponential (geometric) growth rate has
already become a parabola -- the curve now dipping over into an exponential
decline.
If this continues, then replacement rate will be less than one per adult
individual within a year or two and, of the three United Nations
projections (High, Medium and Low), it is the Medium projection that is
appropriate. On this basis the present world population of over 7 billion
will reach almost 10 billion as we approach 2100 and then either stabilize
or start to decline as steeply as it previously rose.
The change in growth rate at around 1962/3 was dramatic. Are we to suppose
that this was due to the availability of contraception or (well-meaning)
propaganda from the advanced world? I think not. During the 1960s, '70s and
'80s both of these could only have been affecting the margins of the excess
peasant populations of the world.
Besides, these suggestions bespeak a very patronizing view of the Third
World -- as though parents didn't already know how to limit their fecundity
if necessary. (Here I exclude some agricultural minority cultures where the
oppression of women by men was -- and still is -- so great that family
limitation is difficult.) By means of abortion, filicide (the killing of
children at birth), premature withdrawal (coitus interruptus -- up to 95%
effective, depending on the male), the sharing wives by brothers (common in
many agricultural regions -- e.g. Tibet, China, Ireland, etc, even
occurring in Victorian England!), dispersal of excess males into
monasteries, etc, different agricultural cultures arrived at stable
populations (within their existing circumstances) according to the
available food.
So where did the enormous pre-1960s rise come from? It came, quite simply,
from the constant application of technical improvements enabling the
extension of agriculture into almost every square metre of cultivable soil
around the world. Where did the steady post-1960s fall in growth rate come
from? Quite simply, it came from the steady urbanization (now becoming an
avalanche!) of the peasantry as they poured into the cities, pulled in by a
slightly better standard of living (if they keep their families small) and
pushed out of the countryside by increased mechanization and land enclosure.
We are probably now at maximum world food production. Whatever the wonders
that genetic modification (GM) enthusiasts may rave about, food production
is still limited by available freshwater. This is just about at its limit
now. Without making light of likely social disturbances in many of the
world grossly over-populated cities, repeated bouts of mass starvation that
will undoubtedly continue, and possible ecological disasters, then the
food-population ratio ought to become more positive from now onwards.
But what about the further future? If, for example, world population
reduces sufficiently in the next few decades so that everybody can have the
same standard of living as the average person in the West, what will be the
world population then? Will it have stabilized, or will it still be
declining? The evidence from Western Europe and white America is that the
average family size is already less than the requisite two for replacement
purposes. This has been going on for a few decades already in Europe and
more recently in America.
It would seem that the average couple in the West can't afford a house, all
the status goods and services that they feel that their social standing
requires and two or more children. Even without the additional expense of
huge government debts that have to be repaid over the coming decade by
taxpayers in the West, it is hardly likely that the present birth rate is
going to improve. In that case, we are now on the road to extinction even
though it might be a century yet before steep declines in population
becomes apparent to all.
But what about what I'm increasingly calling the "meta-class" -- the
internationalist network expansion of what used to be the traditional
professional middle-classes confined to their own territories in the
industrial era? The Global Business Policy Council estimated the number of
these to be about 20 million in 2000 (of which 40% were American). But
these are the practical globe-trotting business part of what I call the
meta-class. There are also scientific networks and many others (sports,
culture, interest groups, etc) which no longer have any particular loyalty
to their own country but regard themselves as world players.
I would put my defined meta-class at about 20% of the population of
advanced countries, and also, say 5-10%, of the fast-growing countries such
as China, India and Brazil. So I would estimate the present meta-class as
about 200 million so far and probably growing slightly as technologies
become more complex. Now these people, distinctly better-off than the
average in the West, could, in fact, afford two or more children as well as
house and goods and taxation.
Furthermore, I detect from what I read in the newspapers, magazines and the
Internet, that meta-class women are beginning to give much more importance
to having children. Under the immense peer pressure from the women's rights
movement in the West in the last few decades these meta-class women have
tended to have fewer children that the majority. But I think that this
cultural trend is fast turning round and that the meta-class will turn out
to be self-sustaining even if the majority of Western populations continue
to decline.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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