[This is Chapter
Twelve of Murphey’s book The Emerging Crisis of Economic Displacement.]
Chapter Twelve
THE BURGEONING WORLD POPULATION
The population of the earth has been growing
to levels, and at a speed, unheard of in human history. There were approximately one billion people
in 1825. This doubled to two billion by
1925, but it took only 51 years, to 1976, for it to double again, to four
billion. In 1996, it was 5.8 billion and
it is expected to be 6 billion by 2000.
Estimates differ has to future growth, but a "middle range" of
the projections is said to be 8.5 billion by the year 2025. The World Bank thinks it will eventually
stabilize at between 10 and 11 billion, while some demographers put the
estimate as high as 14.5 billion. In the
eighteenth century, humanity was increasing by one-quarter billion people every
75 years; now it is every three years.[1]
The increase is due to the very
forces we are focusing on in this book--science, technology, and the
market. Instead of Malthus's predictions
coming true about mass starvation, the revolution in agriculture has fed the
growing billions and is capable of feeding a great many more. Western medical science has developed into a
marvel compared to anything known before and has spread throughout the world,
with a resulting diminution of disease and infant mortality and a dramatic rise
in average life expectancy. Paul Kennedy
refers especially to "immunization and antibiotics, as well as the use of
DDT to reduce mosquito-borne malaria."[2]
Even though there is still far to go
in improving living conditions, nutrition, health care and life expectancy even
up to currently-possible levels, what has happened so far has been, subject to
such caveats as we will note, a success story to match the best that could
possibly have been mentioned in the earlier chapter on the utopian
possibilities of the new technology.
Most of us in the present generation, and certainly in future
generations, owe our very existence to this phenomenon. For us it is an existential good of
incalculable value. The author Julian
Simon even sees it as virtually an unmitigated good, and welcomes the future
increases (although he sees them moderating considerably as populations become
more affluent).[3]
There are two principal reasons a
review of this population growth is pertinent to the theme of this book, beyond
the obvious one that it is a further elaboration of the impact of the major
forces that are at work.
First, it is important to
note how totally dependent these billions of people are upon two things.
.
Their continued existence and well-being depend upon the science,
technique and market -- indeed, upon the very foundations of civilization --
that have brought them into existence in the first place. A destruction or decay of that civilized base
will ineluctably bring death and misery to billions, just as though they were
the cards in a house of cards that is falling.
This heightens enormously the stake we all have, everywhere on earth, in
the civilization that gave rise to and supports modern science and
technique.
.
In the context of the impending "crisis of the market" arising
out of the displacement of labor due to non-labor-intensive technology, it is
important to note that the billions of human beings are dependent in a second
way: upon the continued presence, without interruption, of a system of economic
distribution in which they can all participate.
The competitive market is ideal for this so long as it is works
inclusively and is healthy. If technology,
however, is now making greater affluence abundantly possible at the very time
it is removing the possibility of participation-through-work, we are confronted
with the set of issues I am discussing in this book. We see now that the well-being and very
existence of billions of people depend upon our keeping science, technology and
a competitive market flourishing in full health, but in the future necessarily
based mainly on a principle of participation other than work.
Second, we will want to notice
the extent to which the global market and the exploding population threaten the
existence of specific cultures in their particularity. The impact of "Coca-Cola" and
"Kentucky Fried Chicken" (mass commoditization) and of economic and
social mobility on established cultures is deeply felt in many parts of the
world, such as is apparent within Islam.
This is of the utmost seriousness to the hundreds of millions, even
billions, who cherish those cultures.
What most directly concerns me,
because I am a part of it and cherish it, is the impact on western
civilization. (This is something that
everybody everywhere must also consider relevant to themselves because of all
peoples' fundamental dependency upon the forces at work in the world today, and
because there is reason to suspect that the vital milieu that has long been
provided by western civilization for those forces is important to their
continuation.) As noted by cultural
conservatives, the commoditization and mobility, though essential parts of a
commercial society and fully supported by classical liberal philosophy, have
long served as cultural acids within the West itself, even though today we
mostly think of their effect on non-western cultures. The threat to western civilization mostly
takes the form, however, of an on-going (and accelerating) demographic
invasion--the peaceful migration of non-European peoples, both legally and
without authorization, into
The points just mentioned are the ones that
are important to the thesis of this book.
The advantage of a book-length discussion, though, is that I can go
beyond the bare-bones case to share the information I've gathered. The reader may find the following specifics
valuable:
.
World workforce growth. If
the working-age population is defined as people between the ages of 15 and 64,
the world's potential workforce more than doubled between 1950 and 1990 -- from
1.5 to 3.3 billion people. That
workforce is expected to exceed four billion by the year 2005.[4] This last figure will include more than a
billion who will have been added just during the decade between 1995 and 2005.[5]
.
Where most of the growth is occurring. A striking fact is that the less developed
countries are expected to "contribute about 97 percent of new entrants to
the global labor force between 1990 and 2025," according to a Federal
Reserve panelist. As recently as 1950,
only 65 percent of the world's workforce lived in the developing economies; by
1990, it was 75 percent.[6] The total population of Africa was half the
size of Europe's in 1950, but had become equal to it, at 480 million each, by
1985. It is expected to be three times
larger than Europe's by 2025: 1.58 billion people in Africa compared to
Europe's 512 million.[7] The population of Kenya doubles every 17
years.[8] Sub-Saharan Africa's population as a whole is
growing 2.8 percent per year, doubling every 25 years, compared to 1.2 percent
and every 58 years for the United States.[9] Outside Africa, a similar pattern prevails:
the population of Mexico, say, was only 34 million in 1960, but went to 72
million by 1980.[10]
.
Growth of China. China had
a population of 1.13 billion in 1993, which went to 1.22 billion by 1997. It is expected to increase to 1.5 billion by
2025.[11]
.
Growth of India. Compared
to China, India's growth is much faster.
Kennedy says it had 853 million people in 1993, but by 2025 will match
China at a then-1.5 billion.[12]
.
Growth of cities. In
Chapter 6, I spoke of the "peasant pressure" that has been important
since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. People have migrated in vast numbers from rural
areas into towns and cities, often creating a revolutionary situation such as
in Russia before the Revolution of 1905 and in Iran before the overthrow of the
Shah. The same process continues
today. "Hundreds of millions of new
workers [are] flooding into the cities of the developing world," according
to the Hudson Institute.[13] Greider speaks of "a seemingly
inexhaustible supply" of "peasants leaving the bleak circumstances of
rural subsistence for the cash incomes offered by factory work," and even
says that there are a reported 100 million rural migrants "roaming China's
countryside in search of jobs."[14] In Chapter 6, I told the story of American
blacks' migration from the South to the cities of the North and the West when
they were displaced from the southern cotton fields by technology after World
War II.
Kennedy cites estimates of the
following populations for the cities listed in the year 2000: Mexico City, 24.4
million; Sao Paulo, 23.6 million; Calcutta, 16 million; Bombay, 15.4 million;
Shanghai, 14.7 million. Compared to New
York City's density of 11,400 per square mile, Lagos, Nigeria had 143,000 per
square mile in 1993, while Djakarta, Indonesia, had 130,000 per square mile
that same year.[15]
.
Migration into the advanced economies. A 1994 news report said 880,000 lawful
immigrants had come to the United States in the prior year, while 300,000
illegal immigrants stayed (out of 2.5 million who entered). Almost 3,000 people come into the United
States every day.[16] Figures from the Census Bureau show a
continuing increase in the percentage of the American population composed of
minorities. It was 13.1 percent at the
beginning of the twentieth century, and this had increased to only 14.9 percent
by 1960. But by 1980, it was 20.2
percent; by 1992, 25.2 percent. The
expectation is that by 2050 47.0 percent will be minority.[17] A Los Angeles Times/Washington Post Service
article in early 1993 said that "an estimated 100,000 Asians are illegally
entering the United States each year."[18] At the same time, visitors to Europe report
that the face of Europe is changing, with mosques a common sight now in London
and large minority enclaves in the major cities. Great Britain's influx prompted Winston
Churchill's grandson in mid-1993 to cry out against the "relentless flow
of immigrants."[19]
What has occurred so far is nothing
compared to what is almost certainly coming.
Peter Drucker says that unless there is rapid development in the Third
World "the developed countries will be inundated by a human flood of Third
World immigrants far beyond their economic, social, or cultural capacity to
absorb."[20] Paul Kennedy says that "in view of the
imbalances in demographic trends between ‘have' and ‘have-not' societies, it
seems unlikely that there will not be great waves of migration in the
twenty-first century." One
"pull-factor" will be the decline in population in the advanced
economies. Immigration controls will
prove ineffectual, he predicts, since "desperate immigrants are not likely
to be deterred."[21]
.
The birthrate is, however, declining in many developing countries. Population experts speak of a process known
as "demographic transition," in which birthrates decline as people
get better off because of education, contraception and a need for fewer babies
in order for some to survive. Julian
Simon tells us that this has led to a lower-than-replacement birthrate in
several of Europe's largest countries, and that "fertility has been
falling in many developing countries as well." He cites the following drops in birthrates
per thousand people between 1965 and 1975: Cuba, 40 percent; Singapore, 40
percent; Hong Kong, 36 percent; South Korea, 32 percent; Costa Rica, 29
percent; Taiwan, 20 percent; China, 24 percent; India, 16 percent.[22] This has happened in China with increased
prosperity there even though the official restrictions on reproduction have
been loosened.[23]
.
Europe's population.
Europe, including Russia, had approximately 100 million people in 1650
and about 170 million in 1750. According
to Paul Kennedy, this was "well past" 200 million by 1800. We have seen how it was 480 million in 1985
and is expected to grow to 512 million by 2025.[24]
.
The aging population in the advanced countries. In the wealthier countries, the average age
of the population has been rising, leading to an ever-higher percentage of
elderly people. Kennedy tells how
"in the poorest African countries only 2 or 3 percent of the population
are over sixty-five, [whereas] in the rich and healthy nations the proportion
is far higher -- Norway has 16.4 percent, for example, and Sweden 18.3
percent."[25] Robert Reich says that in the United States
the number of elderly will have doubled between 1988 and 2035. Kennedy compares 16.6 million 65 or over in
the United States in 1960 with 31 million in 1990; "it is then forecast to
leap to 52 million in 2020 and 65.5 million in 2030."[26] The aging is attributed primarily to the
lessening birthrate producing young people, and improving health care and other
conditions allowing people to live younger.
The aging of the population has
social and economic implications that relate to our thesis. It means there will be more retired people
relative to those working. They will be
unemployed, but in a socially accepted way that won't count in the
statistics. In various ways, they will
plug into the income-stream, living (as, economically speaking, everyone always
does) out of current production (it is hardly worth mentioning such little
stockpiling of consumer goods from the past that a society may do). In other words, they will be part of the
phenomenon of a largely dependent population contingent upon sharing in the
output of the competitive technological economy. As we have seen, many of the younger people
who are "working" will be in marginalized jobs. It all makes for a mix in which the society
must be so organized as to "bring everybody to the table." The well-being of the elderly, the continued
existence of civilized order, and the very existence of the competitive market
all depend upon it.
ENDNOTES
[1]. Paul Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 22, 23,
12; Wichita Eagle,
[2]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 25.
[3]. Julian L. Simon,
Population Matters (New Brunswick, U.S.A.: Transaction Publishers, 1990),
especially chapters 2 and 14-19.
[4]. Michel Hansenne,
"Overview,"
[5]. Jeremy Rifkin, The
End of Work (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995), p. 206.
[6]. Hansenne,
[7]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 24.
[8]. James K.
Patterson, "The Liberal Answer to World Over-Population: The Advanced
Nations Should Stop Reproducing!," Conservative Review, October
1991, p. 6.
[9]. N. Gregory
Mankiw, "Commentary," 1992
[10]. Palmer Stacy,
"The Great Betrayal:
[11]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 25; Wichita Eagle,
[12]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 25.
[13]. Workforce
2000 (Indianapolis: Hudson Institute, 1987), p. 8.
[14]. William Greider,
One World, Ready or Not (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), pp. 70,
405.
[15]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 26.
I assume his figure for "
[16].
[17]. Border Watch,
May 1993, p. 3.
[18].
[19]. Churchill is
quoted in Patrick J. Buchanan, "Immigration, Assimilation: Is It U.S.'s
Turn Next?," Human Events,
[20]. Peter F.
Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993), p.
14.
[21]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, pp. 44, 45.
[22]. Simon, Population
Matters, pp. 164-5.
[23].
[24]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 4.
There are some surface ambiguities in his statistics here, however. He says
[25]. Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 36.
[26]. Robert Reich, The
Work of Nations (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), p. 218; Kennedy, Preparing
for the Twenty-First Century, p. 311.