Thanks for another great history lesson Jon. Would note that the Chinese Communist Party estimated that 400 million lives were prevented due to their policies. Imagine all the Mozarts, Einsteins, Jobs, and Musks that never had the opportunity to create value for our world. The ideology of scarcity is the most deadly virus in human history. As Julian Simon noted “People are the ultimate resource.”
I was fortunate in two ways. First in the early 80's i was an economics student, second the department was not run by Marxists. They introduced me to Julian Simon.
I was very unpopular in my (required) philosophy classes that dwelt on scarcity and misery whenever I raised my hand and told people that the future was brigthand prosperous.
Much of the environmental movement was and is motivated by the Malthusian Myth of overpopulation and a misanthropic worldview. This view is prominent among leftist politicians, including the face of the Democratic Party, AOC. Japan, South Korea, and essentially all of Western Europe are all in demographic death spirals. So while China may have led the way with their horrific one child policy, most of the industrialized world has followed in their footsteps without the authoritarian methods.
“If that doesn’t work, then you’ll have the government legislate the size of the family,” Ehrlich calmly continued. “If we don’t get the population under control with voluntary means… the government will simply tell you how many children you can have and throw you in jail if you have too many.”
Well done, Jon, in calling out the China Communist Party’s One Child Policy as a “moral abomination”. But that epithet is far too mild.
Here are a few of the Crimes Against Humanity (born or unborn) committed by the CCP’s with their One Child Policy taken from my very comprehensive post:
MUSEUM OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY BY THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY (CCP) MAO TO XI
Holding Ideologues Aiding and Abetting the CCP Morally Accountable
UNFORTUNATELY, MANY MORE THERE ON THIS HORRIFIC HISTORY.
Similarly for Paul Ehrlich, you can dig even deeper, and show his hubris even more huge, in his obsession to coercively and deceptively control births worlwide; also read the book he did with John Holdren, “Ecoscience” that is a totalitarian environmental control bible.
A STERILITY DRUG IN FOOD IS HINTED; Biologist Stresses Need to Curb Population Growth. The New York Times, Nov 25, 1969
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 24 -A possibility that the Government might have to put sterility drugs in reservoirs and in food shipped to foreign countries to limit human multiplication was envisioned today by a leading crusader on the population problem. The crusader, Dr. Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, among a number of commentators who called attention to the “population crisis" as the United States Commission for Unesco opened it 13th national conference here today.
He [Dr. Ehrlich] urged establishing a Federal Population Commission "with a large budget for propaganda," changing tax laws to discourage reproduction and instituting mandatory birth control instruction in public schools. He also urged "changing the pattern of Federal support of biomedical research so that the majority of it goes into the broad areas of population regulation, environment sciences, behavior sciences and related areas rather than into short-sighted programs on death control." If such steps are unavailing, he continued, the nation might resort to "the addition of a temporary sterilant to staple food, or to the water supply," with limited distribution of antidote chemicals, perhaps by lottery.
Episode 339 – Meet Paul Ehrlich, Pseudoscience Charlatan by Corbett | Jun 5, 2018
INTERVEIWING EHRLICH
ADRIANA ZAJA: Hi. My question is for Paul Ehrlich. Do you have any regrets about urging developed countries to use their political power to coerce vulnerable countries into drastic population control programs, having heard of the atrocities in India and China?
EHRLICH: A good example is we said in one of our publications that it would be one of the things that might be good if you could do it safely and biologically safely would be to add something to the water supply – excuse my laryngitis – add something to the water supply that would make you have to take an antidote before you can have a baby and everybody say, “That’s just terrible. That is ghastly.” Ghastly? It would get rid of the whole abortion problem. It would get rid of the whole unwanted child problem, make people make rational decisions. It is certainly one of the things that every government must pay great attention to is the size and composition of its population. It’s probably the number one thing that should be in government policy. It at least discussed in Australia. In the United States, you can’t even dare discuss it.
CORBETT CONTINUES
In 1969 The New York Times reported how Ehrlich had told the United States Commission for UNESCO that “the Government might have to put sterility drugs in reservoirs and in food shipped to foreign countries to limit human multiplication.”
A 1972 article in the Boca Raton News noting this proposal decried Ehrlich as “worse than Hitler,” and pointed out how he opposed efforts to lift the Chinese out of poverty. It also quoted him as suggesting that some form of world governance was going to be necessary to institute “international policy planning” to “save the globe.”
But most damning of all is Ecoscience, a 1977 textbook co-authored by Paul Ehrlich, his wife, Anne, and John P. Holdren, who would go on to become Obama’s “science czar.” In this book they not only double down on the idea of adding sterilants to the water supply (noting that “No such sterilant exists today” and lamenting that it would have to clear a number of technical hurdles in order to be “acceptable”), but they actually go so far as argue the constitutionality of population control and even forced abortions, concluding that such a practice “could be sustained under the existing Constitution.”
In this book they also greatly elaborate on the type of world governmental body that would be required to enact a truly global population control program. Calling it a “Planetary Regime,” which they describe as “sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment,” they argue that it could “control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist,” including all international trade and all food on the international market.
FROM THE BOOK “ECOSCIENCE” 1977, P.1,203 (my digital copy page number)
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the oposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.
Physiologist Melvin Ketchel, of the Tufts University School of Medicine, suggested that a sterilant could be developed that would have a very specific action -- for example, preventing implantation of the fertilized ovum. 108 He proposed that it be used to reduce fertility levels by adjustable amounts, anywhere from 5 to 75 percent, rather than to sterilize the whole population completely. In this way, fertility could be adjusted from time to time to meet a society's changing needs, and there would be no need to provide an antidote. Contraceptives would still be needed for couples who were highly motivated to have small families.
If effective action is taken promptly against population growth, perhaps the need for the more extreme involuntary or repressive measures can be averted in most countries.”
ECOSCIENCE : POPULATION, RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT. Read here :
The best way to reduce population growth is through economic prosperity, not draconian, tyrannical proposals that spewed from the mouths of Paul Erlich and others. The wealthier a nation is, the lower its birthrate. There are other factors, of course, but the demographic data confirm this. Conversely, keeping a country poor and agrarian dramatically increases the birthrate. Several African nations prove this as well. Reading the Population Bomb reminds me of a favorite movie, Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston.
Thanks for another great history lesson Jon. Would note that the Chinese Communist Party estimated that 400 million lives were prevented due to their policies. Imagine all the Mozarts, Einsteins, Jobs, and Musks that never had the opportunity to create value for our world. The ideology of scarcity is the most deadly virus in human history. As Julian Simon noted “People are the ultimate resource.”
This is a great point, Gale. Simon had it right. Glad you enjoyed the piece!
Central planning based on "scientific" computer models - what could possibly go wrong?
I was fortunate in two ways. First in the early 80's i was an economics student, second the department was not run by Marxists. They introduced me to Julian Simon.
I was very unpopular in my (required) philosophy classes that dwelt on scarcity and misery whenever I raised my hand and told people that the future was brigthand prosperous.
Much of the environmental movement was and is motivated by the Malthusian Myth of overpopulation and a misanthropic worldview. This view is prominent among leftist politicians, including the face of the Democratic Party, AOC. Japan, South Korea, and essentially all of Western Europe are all in demographic death spirals. So while China may have led the way with their horrific one child policy, most of the industrialized world has followed in their footsteps without the authoritarian methods.
Ehrlich is a criminal by libertarian standards:
“If that doesn’t work, then you’ll have the government legislate the size of the family,” Ehrlich calmly continued. “If we don’t get the population under control with voluntary means… the government will simply tell you how many children you can have and throw you in jail if you have too many.”
Well done, Jon, in calling out the China Communist Party’s One Child Policy as a “moral abomination”. But that epithet is far too mild.
Here are a few of the Crimes Against Humanity (born or unborn) committed by the CCP’s with their One Child Policy taken from my very comprehensive post:
MUSEUM OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY BY THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY (CCP) MAO TO XI
Holding Ideologues Aiding and Abetting the CCP Morally Accountable
https://responsiblyfree.substack.com/p/museum-of-crimes-against-humanity,
ONE CHILD NATION - OFFICIAL TRAILER Prime Movies, June 1, 2019. 2:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMcJVoLwyD0&t=111s
HERE IS THE DOCUMENTARY WITH SPOKEN ENGLISH & SUBTITLES
ONE CHILD NATION (2019) [Engsub] diorama, 2022. 1:28:20
https://www.bitchute.com/video/w1l47BRymuaW
CHINA'S ONE-CHILD POLICY WAS ENFORCED THROUGH ABORTION AND STERILIZATION, SAYS DOCUMENTARY DIRECTOR CBC Radio, May 02, 2019
Chinese documentary directors say they were shocked by details they uncovered
Even though Wang and Zhang were born and grew up in China, they said they were shocked to learn of the violence with which the policy was enforced.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-may-2-2019-1.5118724/china-s-one-child-policy-was-enforced-through-abortion-and-sterilization-says-documentary-director-1.5118738
UNFORTUNATELY, MANY MORE THERE ON THIS HORRIFIC HISTORY.
Similarly for Paul Ehrlich, you can dig even deeper, and show his hubris even more huge, in his obsession to coercively and deceptively control births worlwide; also read the book he did with John Holdren, “Ecoscience” that is a totalitarian environmental control bible.
A STERILITY DRUG IN FOOD IS HINTED; Biologist Stresses Need to Curb Population Growth. The New York Times, Nov 25, 1969
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 24 -A possibility that the Government might have to put sterility drugs in reservoirs and in food shipped to foreign countries to limit human multiplication was envisioned today by a leading crusader on the population problem. The crusader, Dr. Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University, among a number of commentators who called attention to the “population crisis" as the United States Commission for Unesco opened it 13th national conference here today.
He [Dr. Ehrlich] urged establishing a Federal Population Commission "with a large budget for propaganda," changing tax laws to discourage reproduction and instituting mandatory birth control instruction in public schools. He also urged "changing the pattern of Federal support of biomedical research so that the majority of it goes into the broad areas of population regulation, environment sciences, behavior sciences and related areas rather than into short-sighted programs on death control." If such steps are unavailing, he continued, the nation might resort to "the addition of a temporary sterilant to staple food, or to the water supply," with limited distribution of antidote chemicals, perhaps by lottery.
https://www.nytimes.com/1969/11/25/archives/a-sterility-drug-in-food-is-hinted-biologist-stresses-need-to-curb.html#
Episode 339 – Meet Paul Ehrlich, Pseudoscience Charlatan by Corbett | Jun 5, 2018
INTERVEIWING EHRLICH
ADRIANA ZAJA: Hi. My question is for Paul Ehrlich. Do you have any regrets about urging developed countries to use their political power to coerce vulnerable countries into drastic population control programs, having heard of the atrocities in India and China?
EHRLICH: A good example is we said in one of our publications that it would be one of the things that might be good if you could do it safely and biologically safely would be to add something to the water supply – excuse my laryngitis – add something to the water supply that would make you have to take an antidote before you can have a baby and everybody say, “That’s just terrible. That is ghastly.” Ghastly? It would get rid of the whole abortion problem. It would get rid of the whole unwanted child problem, make people make rational decisions. It is certainly one of the things that every government must pay great attention to is the size and composition of its population. It’s probably the number one thing that should be in government policy. It at least discussed in Australia. In the United States, you can’t even dare discuss it.
CORBETT CONTINUES
In 1969 The New York Times reported how Ehrlich had told the United States Commission for UNESCO that “the Government might have to put sterility drugs in reservoirs and in food shipped to foreign countries to limit human multiplication.”
A 1972 article in the Boca Raton News noting this proposal decried Ehrlich as “worse than Hitler,” and pointed out how he opposed efforts to lift the Chinese out of poverty. It also quoted him as suggesting that some form of world governance was going to be necessary to institute “international policy planning” to “save the globe.”
But most damning of all is Ecoscience, a 1977 textbook co-authored by Paul Ehrlich, his wife, Anne, and John P. Holdren, who would go on to become Obama’s “science czar.” In this book they not only double down on the idea of adding sterilants to the water supply (noting that “No such sterilant exists today” and lamenting that it would have to clear a number of technical hurdles in order to be “acceptable”), but they actually go so far as argue the constitutionality of population control and even forced abortions, concluding that such a practice “could be sustained under the existing Constitution.”
In this book they also greatly elaborate on the type of world governmental body that would be required to enact a truly global population control program. Calling it a “Planetary Regime,” which they describe as “sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment,” they argue that it could “control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist,” including all international trade and all food on the international market.
https://corbettreport.com/ehrlich/
FROM THE BOOK “ECOSCIENCE” 1977, P.1,203 (my digital copy page number)
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the oposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.
Physiologist Melvin Ketchel, of the Tufts University School of Medicine, suggested that a sterilant could be developed that would have a very specific action -- for example, preventing implantation of the fertilized ovum. 108 He proposed that it be used to reduce fertility levels by adjustable amounts, anywhere from 5 to 75 percent, rather than to sterilize the whole population completely. In this way, fertility could be adjusted from time to time to meet a society's changing needs, and there would be no need to provide an antidote. Contraceptives would still be needed for couples who were highly motivated to have small families.
If effective action is taken promptly against population growth, perhaps the need for the more extreme involuntary or repressive measures can be averted in most countries.”
ECOSCIENCE : POPULATION, RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT. Read here :
https://archive.org/details/ecosciencepopula00ehrl
A new one for me I just found to help Julian Simon along:
The Population Control Holocaust. Robert Zubrin, 2012
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-population-control-holocaust
Get free, stay free.
The best way to reduce population growth is through economic prosperity, not draconian, tyrannical proposals that spewed from the mouths of Paul Erlich and others. The wealthier a nation is, the lower its birthrate. There are other factors, of course, but the demographic data confirm this. Conversely, keeping a country poor and agrarian dramatically increases the birthrate. Several African nations prove this as well. Reading the Population Bomb reminds me of a favorite movie, Soylent Green, starring Charlton Heston.