It was a person with some similar beliefs by the name of Mao who returned his society to such levels of poverty in a deliberate effort to create a sustainable society and rid the society of some 30 million human beings in the bloodbath of the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural Revolution.
This next time...Even 300 million dead, will be a low ball estimate.
I think Mao was a little more pragmatic than this university professor, unfortunately for 30 million Chinese.