Name: Dr. Science !/sdw8f7Aa6 2007-01-09 0:07
Note the distinction between GDP and GDP per capita. As an economic objective, raising the GDP per capita to it's highest is good, whereas raising the GDP to it's highest may lead to a very low GDP per capita and sufferring. In some cases raising GDP to high levels is needed to complete a civilised task which will help the trillions of people who will exist in the future. Consider this.
People are needed to develop resources and add value to them. However resources are limited and there is only so much that technology can do to increase the output of a resource. This means that there is a certain population size at which the gdp per capita is at it's highest and where further population would cause further strain on resources and people would have to make do with less. At that same point if the population would decrease there would not be enough people to efficiently use those resources, the value of goods and services would decrease, people would pay less and people would earn less.
I will call this population size the peak. Bear in mind that this is a general trend and while there are of course 100s of other important factors, this is a factor also. To a certain degree of accuracy we can predict which range of population the theoretical peak would lie in and thus the population size in which we can be assured people will enjoy a high standard of living. I will call this range the peak range.
Since climates changes, accidents happen, crimes occur, wars start and deposits run dry whilst populations tend to stay stable, it is better to prepare for over-population by keeping populations low in this peak range. This means that resources may not be used to their full efficiency, but when disasters happen it will not cast the economy into turmoil. An insurance policy.
I know some marxists will go crazy when I say this, but the malthusian catastrophe has already occurred in stagnant isolated economies who let their population grow to fit their economy. Of course in most cases this stagnancy s due more to despotism than circumstance, but for 100s of years before the industrial revolution economies have been stagnant due to circumstance aswell as despotism...
Technological growth can be slowed or halted by it reaching a level where we can no longer further advance it, by disasters, crippling wars and by depletion of the resources needed for the technology to function. When this happens the total possible size of the economy will stop growing and population may eventually reach the peak range I was talking about, it may already be in that range. At this point in order to preserve a high gdp per capita population control will need to take place to prevent overpopulation or underpopulation. Before you get paranoid and call me hitler, this can all be done with birth control and family planning.
People are needed to develop resources and add value to them. However resources are limited and there is only so much that technology can do to increase the output of a resource. This means that there is a certain population size at which the gdp per capita is at it's highest and where further population would cause further strain on resources and people would have to make do with less. At that same point if the population would decrease there would not be enough people to efficiently use those resources, the value of goods and services would decrease, people would pay less and people would earn less.
I will call this population size the peak. Bear in mind that this is a general trend and while there are of course 100s of other important factors, this is a factor also. To a certain degree of accuracy we can predict which range of population the theoretical peak would lie in and thus the population size in which we can be assured people will enjoy a high standard of living. I will call this range the peak range.
Since climates changes, accidents happen, crimes occur, wars start and deposits run dry whilst populations tend to stay stable, it is better to prepare for over-population by keeping populations low in this peak range. This means that resources may not be used to their full efficiency, but when disasters happen it will not cast the economy into turmoil. An insurance policy.
I know some marxists will go crazy when I say this, but the malthusian catastrophe has already occurred in stagnant isolated economies who let their population grow to fit their economy. Of course in most cases this stagnancy s due more to despotism than circumstance, but for 100s of years before the industrial revolution economies have been stagnant due to circumstance aswell as despotism...
Technological growth can be slowed or halted by it reaching a level where we can no longer further advance it, by disasters, crippling wars and by depletion of the resources needed for the technology to function. When this happens the total possible size of the economy will stop growing and population may eventually reach the peak range I was talking about, it may already be in that range. At this point in order to preserve a high gdp per capita population control will need to take place to prevent overpopulation or underpopulation. Before you get paranoid and call me hitler, this can all be done with birth control and family planning.