Imperialism and the Pill

The Malthusian interlude began in earnest around 1965. For the first time that year the New York Times Index noted below the heading “Population”: “General material on ‘population explosion’ is indexed here, including controversy over proposals to curb it by means of organized birth-control programs sponsored by government or other national or international agencies.” By 1984 the explanatory note had been dropped. That also was the year the Reagan Administration spoke sense at the UN International Conference on Population in Mexico City, pointing out, to general displeasure, that people come equipped with hands as well as mouths, and that there is no evidence that population growth diminishes economic well-being.

The wave of Malthusian hysteria now appears to be over, the “scientific” forecasts of the late Sixties and early Seventies having proved almost wholly incorrect—embarrassingly so in some cases. In 1970 Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University’s renowned specialist in population biology and author of The Population Bomb (1968), predicted that famine would be “directly or indirectly responsible for 65 million American deaths in the decade of 1980-89.” Little did he know that this would be the decade of best-selling diet books and overweight welfare mamas. (Today Ehrlich is to be heard, along with another politicized scientist, Carl Sagan. animadverting upon “nuclear winter”- best taken with several grains of salt.)

TB

About the Author

Tom Bethell

Featured Tags

The Malthusian interlude began in earnest around 1965. For the first time that year the New York Times Index noted below the heading “Population”: “General material on ‘population explosion’ is indexed here, including controversy over proposals to curb it by means of organized birth-control programs sponsored by government or other national or international agencies.” By 1984 the explanatory note had been dropped. That also was the year the Reagan Administration spoke sense at the UN International Conference on Population in Mexico City, pointing out, to general displeasure, that people come equipped with hands as well as mouths, and that there is no evidence that population growth diminishes economic well-being.

The wave of Malthusian hysteria now appears to be over, the “scientific” forecasts of the late Sixties and early Seventies having proved almost wholly incorrect—embarrassingly so in some cases. In 1970 Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University’s renowned specialist in population biology and author of The Population Bomb (1968), predicted that famine would be “directly or indirectly responsible for 65 million American deaths in the decade of 1980-89.” Little did he know that this would be the decade of best-selling diet books and overweight welfare mamas. (Today Ehrlich is to be heard, along with another politicized scientist, Carl Sagan. animadverting upon “nuclear winter”- best taken with several grains of salt.)