Here's my new essay debunking the myth of so-called "overpopulation."

The purpose of this essay is to counter the claim that third world poverty is caused by "overpopulation."

I am not attempting to present myself as being "caring" or as having "feelings," or as being "smarter" than or "morally superior" to anyone. I have no desire to make fun of people who disagree with me, or to call anyone nasty names. Instead, my goal here is to present facts and evidence to support my argument.

This is a list of countries ranked in order of per capita gross domestic product:

Japan and India have approximately the same population density as each other. Japan is very rich, and India is very poor.

Switzerland and North Korea have approximately the same population density as each other. Switzerland is very rich, and North Korea is very poor.

Ireland and Ethiopia have approximately the same population density as each other. Ireland is very rich, and Ethiopais is very poor.

In each of these pairings, one country is very rich, while the other is very poor, even though the two coutries have the same population density as each other. Clearly, it's lot logical to blame poverty on "overpopulation."

Every year, the Wall St. Journal and the Heritage Foundation get together and publish their annual "Index of Economic Freedom." This list ranks all the countries of the world in order, based on how much economic freedom they have. Each country is given a grade between 1 and 5, in 10 different categories. 1 is the best possible grade. 5 is the worst possible grade. Then the 10 grades are averaged for a final score for the country. Then the countries are listed in order based on the final score.

You can see the list here. When you go to the link, click on the gray box that says "View Scores" and it will take you to a list of all the countries ranked in order of how much economic freedom they have. You can click on each indivividual country to read information about it.

Please note that the countries at the top of the list tend to be rich, first world countries where people have a high standard of living. The countries toward the bottom of the list tend to be poor, third world countires with a very low standard of living.

Economic freedom means that each individual person is free to make his own choices about what he does with his property, his money, and his labor, and it means that economic activity is based on voluntary, consentual activity.

Countries that adopt strong protections of private property rights, freedom of contract, free market pricing, and free trade, and hold on to these policies for a long period of time, will become rich. Every time a poor country adopted these policies, and held on to them, it became rich. There are no exceptions.

Please note that Estonia is ranked very high on the "Index of Economic Freedom," but it's not a rich country. That's because Estonia has only had a strong level of economic freedom for a very short period of time. Estonia was part of the U.S.S.R., and so it was very poor. However, very recently, Estonina adopted a very strong amount of economic freedom. If Estonia holds on to these policies over the next few decades, then Estonia will end up becmong very rich. This is based on past real world observation of other countries. Every time a poor country adopted a strong amount of economic freedom, and held on to those policies, the country ended up becoming rich. There are no exceptions.

Estonia has adopted the very economic policies that are necessary for turning a poor country into a rich country. Estonia has auctioned off most of its government owned businesses. The government got rid of its wage and price controls. The government got rid of most of its trade barriers. The government adopted a court/legal system that protects property rights, and enforces contracts. These are the very policies that are necessary for the creation of large amounts of wealth. These are the policies that will turn a poor country into a rich country. Every time a poor country adopted these policies, and held on to them, it became wealthy. There are no exceptions.

During the 1960s and 1970s, tens of millions of people in China starved to death. Left wing environmentalists blamed this on "overpopulation."

However, around 1980, China swithced from collective farming, to private farming. As a result, their food production skyrocketed.

Today, China's population is much bigger than it was in the 1960s. However, today, China is able to grow enough food to feed it's people. Today, the people of China are much better fed than they were in the 1960s.

Clearly, this real world evidence shows that China's famines of the 1960s and 1970s were caused by bad economic polices, not by "overpopulation."

Three years ago in Zimbabwe, private farmers were growing large amounts of food. Since then, private property rights on farmland in Zimbabwe have been abolished. This has caused a tremendous decline in Zimbabwe's food production. Bad economic policies, not "overpopulation," are the cause of these problems.

Ethiopia has more fertile land, per person, than England. During the 1960s, Ethiopia had a large number of private farms that were very productive, and during that time, Ethiopia was a net exporter of food. But during the 1970s, there was a Marxist revolution in Ethiopia, and the farms were nationalized. Furthermore, the government set price caps on the prices that farmers could charge for food. Because of these policies, there were major drops in farm productivity. Today, Ethiopia has many large tracts of very fertile land that are not being used to grow crops. Bad economic policies, not "overpopulation," are the cause of Ethiopian famine. The people who blame Ethiopian famine on "overpopulation" are in error.

During the 1960s, environmentalists blamed third world famine on "overpopulation." They predicted that as the world's population increased, the problem of famine would become worse and worse.

By the year 2000, the world's population had doubled. And here's what really happened regarding famine:

"According to the United Nations, agricultural production in the developing world has increased by 52% per person since 1961. The daily food intake in poor countries has increased from 1,932 calories, barely enough for survival, in 1961 to 2,650 calories in 1998. Likewise, the proportion of people in developing countries who are starving has dropped from 45% in 1949 to 18% today."

Clearly, those statistics are the complete opposite of what "overpopulation" theory had predicted.

Overpopulation can certainly be a real problem for animals that live in the wild, such as butterflies and rabbits. If the population of these wild animals exceeds the available food supply, then the result will indeed be death from starvation.

But, human beings are not butterflies or rabbits. What makes human beings different is that human beings have the ability to invent and build and use technology to increase food production many factors over.

People have the ability to do wonderful things to increase their standard of living. People have the ability to invent and build and use many different kinds of wonderful technologies to greatly improve their standard of living. But in order to best encourage and enable these kinds of things, people must be free. Free people living in a free society will be able to do far more to improve their standard of living than will oppressed people who live under excessive amounts of government control.

Every country in the world that has strong protections of private property rights, free market pricing of food, and free trade, has an abundant supply of food. There are no exceptions.

Africa's famine is not caused by "overpopulation." Instead, the famine is caused by lack of private property rights regarding farmland, by government price controls on food that discourage farmers from growing the food, and by trade barriers that made it more expensive to import food.

Countries that have strong protections of private property rights, free market pricing, and free trade, have enough food. Even countries like Hong Kong and Singapore, which don't grow much food, don't have a shortage of food. Because these countries have a large amount of economic freedom, they are able to create huge amounts of wealth, so they have plenty of money to buy food from other countries.

Every country in the world that has strong protections of private property rights, free market pricing, and free trade, has an abundant supply of food. There are no exceptions.

Going back to the list of countries ranked by population density. Take a look at the 10 most densely populated countries. Then, take a look at their per capita incomes on the other list. Please note that most of the 10 most densely populated countries are rich, first world countries. This is the exact opposite of what "overpopulation" theory claims.

Hong Kong's population density is much higher than India's. But Hong Kong's per capita income is much higher than India's. Clearly, it's not logical to blame India's poverty on "overpopulation."

Try to start a business in Hong Kong. You only have to fill out one government form, and it only takes only one day to get approval.

But try to start a business in India. You need to fill out dozens of governemnt forms, and it can takes years to get approval.

People in Hong Kong are free to make their own economic choices, so they create lots of wealth.

But in India, people are bogged down by huge amounts of excessive government regulation, red tape, and bureacracy, and this prevents them from creating huge amounts of wealth.

Going back to the list of countries ranked by population density. Please note that many of the poor, third world countries in Africa have very, very low population densities. Thus, blaming Africa's poverty on "overpopulation" is not logical.

Some people blame Africa's poverty on a "lack of natrual resources." However, this is not logical. Any geology textbook will show you that Africa is very, very rich in many valuable natural resources.

The real reason why most African countries are so poor is because they don't have economic freedom.

Hong Kong and Singapore don't have many natural resources. However, their policies of economic freedom allow them to create large amounts of wealth, so that they can buy any resources that they want from other countries.

Economic freedom allows people to create wealth. For example, in countries that have economic freedom, people take worthless sand, and they turn it into computer chips that are worth trillions of dollars.

Environmentalists blame water shortages on "overpopulation." I would like to explain why that claim is not true.

In countries that have economic freedom, people can afford to pay for the technology that allows them to turn dirty water into clean water. Using desalinization, sewage treatment, and other technologies, rich countries can make as much clean drinking water as they want.

It's true that some areas in the U.S. do occasionally have a shortage of water. However, these problems are caused by bad governemnt pricing policies that encourage people to waste water, such as subsidies to farmers who grow crops in the desert, and price controls that prevent water prices from rising during times of drought. These problems can be solved by adopting a more rational pricing policy, so that people who use water have to pay the full cost of it. Getting rid of water subsidies for farmers, and raising household water rates by 50% during times of drought, would be two good ways to deal with this situation.

It's true that water tables in some areas have gone down a lot. But a rich country can afford desalinization and pipes, so local communities can get their water from very far away. The technoloogy for this already exists. It's just a question of adopting the necessary economic inentives to use the technology, such as allowing a modest increase in the price of water, so the technoogy can be properly funded.

Given that the 75% of the world is covered in water to an average depth of 2 miles, and given that we have the technology for desalinzation, sewage treatment, and pipes, it's not logical to blame water shortages on "overpopulation."

Poor countries have water shortages because they are poor, not because of overpopulation.

In a poor African country, a poor woman may have to spend half a day walking with a bucket to get enough drinking water for her family for one day's supply of water. But in a rich country, a woman who works in an office only has to work for a few minutes at her computer keyboard to earn enough money to pay for her family's water for a day. Poverty, not "overpopulation," is the cause of water shortages in third world countries.

Well, since the 1960s, world population has doubled. However, since that time, world food production has more than doubled. In fact, all throughout the 20th century, food production grew faster than population. Today, the number of calories available, per person, is higher than ever before. And today, the percentage of people in the world who are malnourished is lower than ever before. Thus, to blame hunger on "overpopulation" is not logical.

The growing and selling of food is a business. In a society that has economic freedom, the businesses that grow and sell food will take the necesary steps to provide the customers with the products that the customers want. Even if it meant that they had to build skyscrapers, and use hydroponic farming on every floor, they would do it. The food indsutry is just like any other industry. Business make money by supplying customers with the products that the customers want.

The business of making and selling food, is no different than the business of making and selling VCRs. In a society that has economic freedom, wherever there are customers with money, who are willing to buy the product, there will be buisnesses willing to make and sell the product.

Blaming famine on "overpopulation" is not logical. Instead, famine is caused by bad economic policies that make it hard for buisnesses to exist and operate. Price controls, barriers to trade, and lack of property rights are the real causes of famine. There is not a single country in the world where famine can be truthfully blamed on "overpopulation."

Every country in the world that has strong protections of property rights, free market pricing, and free trade, has an abudnant supply of food. There are no exceptions.

Well, there's a real world trend that is happening all over the world. In the early stages of inudstrialization, there's a lot of pollution, and a lot of damage to the environment. However, once a country's per capita income reaches about $4,000, then, the people can afford to begin worrying about protecting the environment. And the more money they have, the more they can do to protect the environment. A rich country will have a much better environment than a poor country.

I live in a city that has a very, very high population density. But, since my city is in a rich, first world country, the air and water here are very clean.

Well, in a poor country, they use primitive farming methods. So, the crop yield, per acre, is very low. So, they have to chop down lots of trees to make room for farmland. This results in the destruction of forest.

But, in a rich country, they use high tech methods of farming. They use mechanzied farm equpment, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, biotech, and genetic engineering. These things allow a huge amount of food to be grown on a small amount of land. Using modern technology, farmers grow more food on less land. So past farmland is taken out of production, and gets converted back into forest.

Overfishing is certainly a big problem. Some commerical fishing boats use nets that are 50 miles long. Because of overfishing, a number of species of fish have become endangered. However, overfisihing only happens in public bodies of water, where the fish are free to any person who wants to take them. On private fish farms, overfishing never happens. On private fish farms, fish populations have been getting bigger.

Likewise, overlogging is a problem only on public land, where the trees are either free, or governemnt subsidized, to anyone who wants to take them. On private tree farms, the owner cares about the future value of his tree farm, so he always plants new trees after he cuts the old ones down. On private tree farms, land owners plant more trees than they cut down.

Overhunting and poaching of animals is a big problems that can lead to endangerment and extinction. Overhunting and poaching is a serious problem that needds to be dealt with. However, on modern, private farms, where the animals are privately owned, and secure property rights exist, there has never been a single case of an animal being hunted or poached to the point of becoming endangered or going extinct.

Overfishing, overlogging, overhunting, and poaching, are caused by lack of private property rights, not by "overpopulation."

Well, only poor countries have a serious problem getting rid of their garbage. In poor countries, people live with garbage all around them.

A rich country can afford to build high tech landfills, and can afford to transport the garbage to the landfills.

It's estimated that if we took all the garbage that the U.S. would produce over the next 100 years, it would all fit into a square landfill that is less than 20 miles on each side. As a percentage of land area in the U.S., this is insignificant.

Poor countries have garbage problems because they can't afford to build high tech landfills, and because they can't afford to transport the garbage to the landfills. But a rich country can afford to do these things.

Are we running out of natural resources, such as oil, copper, aluminum, etc? Well, the best way way to tell is to look at the price. Adjsuted for inflation, the prices of all of these things has been falling for decades. This means that known reserves of these things are bigger than ever before. Better and better technology makes it easier and easier to find and extract these resources. For example, known reserves of oil are bigger now than they have ever been.

If a resource really did start to run out, then its price would rise. People would respond to this rise in price by cutting back on their use of the resource, and switch to a cheaper substitute. As a result, the resource would never run out.

A great example of this is gold. Gold is a very useful resource. Gold has excellent conductivity properties that make it ideal for use in electrical wiring. However, gold is very scarce. This scarcity is relfected in the high price of gold. So, most people who use wires don't use gold. Instead, they use copper. That's because copper is way cheaper than gold. This is a great example of how the pricing mechanism of the free market prevents us from running out of a valuable resource.

Here's another great example of how the free market encourages efficient use of natural resources. 50 years ago, telephone calls were carried by copper wire. Today, we use fiber optics. Compared to the copper wires, the fiber optic cable carries more information, but uses fewer resources.

The only reason that we use oil and gasoline today is because these are among the cheapest of all availble possible fuels. But there are alternatives to oil. If the world's supply of oil started to run out, then the price of oil would start to go up, and it would get higher and higher over a period of many years. As this happened over many years, more and more people would swicth to a cheaper substitute. Automobile manufacturers would gradually adjust their factories to meet the demands of their paying customers. Long before the world ever ran out of oil, people would have stopped using it, and switched to a cheaper substitute.

It's not my place to say what this substitute should be. There are many possibilities. However, the choice as to what substitute should be used should be left to free consumers, acting on their own free will, and making their own decisions. And the job of businesses is to respond to the demands of their customers. I have no desire to tell people what kinds of fuels to use, or to tell car makers what kinds of fuel their cars should run on. The free market policies that I favor are based on individual, voluntary choice, so I will not try to dictate what kinds of energy sources people should use.

Petroleum itself was worthless, until a human being with a brain found a way to use it. For thousands of years, petroleum had no value whatsoever. It was only after a human being with a brain found a way to use the petroleum that the petroleum acquired any value.

Today, human beings take worthless sand, and turn it into computer chips worth trillions of dollars. The most important resource here here is the human mind, not the sand.

Has the U.S. really been overpaved, and overrun by urban sprawl? No. In order to verify this, all you have to do is to get in an airplane, and fly accross the country, and spend the entire time looking out the window.

If the goal is to protect the environment, to have cleaner air and water, to have more forest, to be able to feed all the people, to have enough clean drinking water for all the people, to save animals from extinction, and to save people from being overrun by garbage, the best way to accomplish all of these goals is by having a rich society. And the best way to create a rich society is by having strong protections of private property rights, freedom of contract, free market pricing, and free trade.

I have no desire to force my ideas on anyone else. I have no desire to tell anyone else how to live. I favor a society of individual freedom, and individual choice. I favor a system where each person is free to live his life as he pleases, and where interaction between people occurs on a consentual, voluntary basis. I have no desire to tell people how to live their lives, or how many children they should have, or how much energy they should use, or how to spend their money, or what kinds of products to buy, or how much natural resources they should use.

I do understand the function of prices in a free market economy. Prices go up and down based on supply and demand. Based on these prices, producers can decide what kinds of products to make, and what materials to use in making them. And consumers can use these prices as a guide to see if a resource is scarce or abundant, and to see if conservstion really is necessary. No one ever throws gold in the garbage, because gold is expensive. All throughout human history, people have voluntarily recycled, whenever they believed that such recycling passed a cost/benefit analysis. Recent government policies of government mandated recycling of paper, glass, and plastic, usually fail a cost/benefit analysis, which means that this governemnt mandated recycling wastes more resources than it saves. The environment would be better off if these kinds of governemnt controls on people's lives were eliminated.

Don't you know that you are not supposed to use facts or logic when discussing poverty? It is forbidden. You are only to use emotion on this subject. Using emotion you get the correct conclusion; that we must re-distribute income and wealth to make everyone equal (ie. poor, ignorant and oppressed). This is the only politically correct way to address this subject. You sound like one of those "trators" to the black race; Thomas Sowell. Shame on you!

Great post, and good research. I'm willing to be you have had some real Economic education.

MARK A SITY
http://www.logic101.net/

You don't think there is a water shortage?

There is no water shortage on the planet. There may be a shortage of inexpensive water, but there is plenty of water. Government interference in pricing has led to the shortage of inexpensive water. Drop the price, demand increases, increase the price, demand declines. It's basic economics.

/john

People will move to new areas when resources are strained. This has happened throughout human history, barring govenrment policies that restrict movement. The Mexican government found this out the hard way when they centralized EVERYTHING, including the highly regulated economy, in Mexico City.

There is a sh-tload of land in this country and we are far from overpopulated. I think LA has reached the limit of its growth. Unless they go Manhattan and start building upward, I don't think there will be a population timebomb in the LA area.

I am NOT speaking of you personally, scruffdog, but it has appeared to me that there are too many conservatives who are at one with the Left on the issue of "population control" who tend to forget the convenient fact that population growth has been DECLINING in many parts of the underdeveloped world, particularly in Latin America. You have the EXTREME in Europe where it appears that NOBODY is having children. I think the population control freaks are a residue of the old Country Club types who complained that people like my great-gradparents and grandparents had "too many children." I am with Ronald Reagan on this issue: let couples make their own choices.

"I'm willing to be you have had some real Economic education."

I have never taken an economics class in my life.

I did attend a Montessori school as a child. And I do have a B.S. in mathematics.

Reading books by Thomas Sowell and Julian Simon also helps, too.

THANK YOU GRUNDLE. TOO MANY on this site seem to think that we have "too many people" on this planet and that we will be in a Soylent Green type situation because "immigrants are having too many babies." If one is going to make an argument against immigration, they will NOT win my symphathies if they justify it on the grounds of "overpopulation."

Overpopulation is not just a matter of people per square acre, it's a matter of people per unit of economic development. Don't forget that while China has indeed improved it's standard of living while its dense pouplation continued to grow, 1) there was a drastic reduction in the rate of population growth, which enabled economic development to catch up with the population, and 2) both the reduction in population growth rate and the increase in the rate of economic development were accomplished by brutal force and an absolute elimination of personal freedoms.

Some of us are not eager to see more and more countries breed themselves into such a horrible situation that their desperate people won't put up any serious resistance to a Maoist-style regime. Promoters of socialism and communism, however, are eager to see this happen, as it will more quickly bring about the realization of their ultimate goals.

"North Dakota and Washington DC have similar numbers of inhabitants. One has nearly the highest, and the other nearly the lowest crime rates. Is this due to density, or the inhabitants?"

It's the inhabitants. Washington D.C. has an illegitimacy rate of about 70%, and that is a major factor in their crime rate.

Tokyo has a very dense population, but the crime rate there is very low.

Indeed. The socialist/communists are eager to replace "wild" (read "free") populations of people with "people farms". Easiest way to get people to accept this is to encourage them to breed their way to near starvation and absolute despair -- then the life of a farm animal begins to look good to them.

The other piece of the puzzle is to convince them that all the methods which result in robust economic growth are "evil" or "oppressive" and so mustn't be practiced. This brings about the absolute despair point even sooner. They've arranged for middle class college students from Western countries to lead the charge on this program, as it lends credibility to the claim, when the obvious beneficiaries of the system are out in the streets rioting about how evil and oppressive it is. IMHO, the anti-abortion/anti-contraception/anti-sterilization movements are also pawns in this master plan.

Well, there is one place in India where 240,000 people live in an area comprising about 40 acres. That's 1320 feet on a side. About 7 square feet for each person. They are overpopulated beyond belief.

I have to ask: Why?

It's too bad that they don't have the economic freedom to allow them to relocate. I think a better term for this situation is 'overcrowded' rather than 'overpopulated'.

"This is very true in the US"

Yes, it is. But, it is much, much worse in India. A person in India may spend many years trying to start a business, and he can't do it. But then he moves to the U.S., and within a relatively short period of time, his business is up and running. Eventually, he's a millionaire, and his business employs hundreds of people in good paying jobs. He had tried to do that in India, but the government didn't let him.

"Well, there is one place in India where 240,000 people live in an area comprising about 40 acres. That's 1320 feet on a side. About 7 square feet for each person. They are overpopulated beyond belief."

I'd call that "crowded," but I wouldn't call it "overpopulated." I think a grouping of several 50 story apartment buildings in Japan would probably have a similar population density.

Actually, that also sounds like the conditions at the annual "Earth Day" celebration. Next time the environmentalists want to show a picture of what they call "overpopulation," instead of showing India, why not show a picture of the "Earth Day" celebration? Just as good, why not show a picture of the Democratic National Convention, and label it "overpopulation?"

If water is cheap, you are thirsty and if it's expensive you're not?

You have it backwards. If I'm thirsty, my view of what constitutes cheap changes. Ever pay $4 for a bottle of water at a concert? If the price goes up, I quit watering the lawn, leaving water for basic consumption.

The whole water is scarce nonsense is because people won't think, and expect government to provide for them. Even in Texas, with just an average of 44" of rainfall per year, the average family's water needs can be provided by a cistern system that produces a clean, safe, and reliable water supply.

Bottom line is that if you want water, you can have it. You just have to pay for it.

/john

"The California water project was built to handle a population of 20 million. It is now 34 million and climbing and there have been no new dams or storage facilities built since the Oroville Dam in 1965."

How many new supermarkets and shopping centers were built since 1965?

They could easily build desalinization plants and pipes to get all the water they need. The Pacific Ocean is full of water. It's simply a question of having the necessary pricing mechanisms and economic incentives.

My essay addressed these things very clearly. Please read it again.

"So it doesn't matter if the seas are fished till they are empty..as long as there are fish farms?"

It does matter. But, what can be done?

One possible solution is to establish a system of property rights for all ocean wildlife. This would be difficult because of the international nature of the ocean, as well as the fact that the fish move from place to place.

Africa's famine is not caused by "overpopulation." Instead, the famine is caused by lack of private property rights regarding farmland, by government price controls on food that discourage farmers from growing the food, and by trade barriers that made it more expensive to import food.

You're being too kind. Every instance of mass starvation in the last several hundred years can be directly linked to bad economic policies by governments OR deliberately witholding food from people who needed it.

For an eye-opening example, look at the last great potato famine in Ireland. During that period, Ireland was a net exporter of potatoes due to insane government regulations.

"it's a matter of people per unit of economic development"

Actually, it's the other way around. It's a matter of unit of economic development per person.

Economic development comes from people. People create wealth.

"Overpopulation" theory is based on the idea that people are parasites who consume wealth. My claim is that people are creative beings who create wealth. These are two radically different ways of looking at what is happening in the world.

China's economy has been getting better because they privatized their farming, and also because they are strarting to recognize some degree of private property rights for private businesses.

As I explained in my essay, even though China's population is much bigger now than it was in the 1960s, the people in China are much better fed today than they were in the 1960s.

There are plenty of rich countries with population densities that are higher than China's. Please visit the link that I gave that ranked the countries based on population density.

"Some of us are not eager to see more and more countries breed themselves into such a horrible situation"

I don't think there's a single country in the world whose per capita GNP went down while its population doubled.

"Been stuck in traffic in Seattle, LA, NO, KC or DC latley?"

A traffic jam means that on a particular road during a particular time of day, the demand for road space exceeds the supply. That means that the price is too low. This can be solved by using electronic metering devices with radio transmitters (so people don't have to stop at a toll booth), and charging a sufficiently high price on the necessary roads during the times of peak demand. This would encourage people to car pool and use mass transit. Of course, it would also help if it would be legal for private mass transit companies to compete against the government mass transit monopolies.

"So let's see if we have this right. If water is cheap, you are thirsty and if it's expensive you're not? Might work when it comes to watering the lawn or washing the car, but not to basic consumption. Two drought years in a row in California and people would be standing in line for 2 days to get 5 gallons."

I think right now, they can desalinize 1,000 gallons of water for less than $10. So the price increase for water wouldn't be anywhere nearly as big as what you seem to think. A 50% price increase for residential water users during times of drought would likley be enough.

Of course, getting rid of the subsidies for farmers who grow crops in the desert would likely mean a price increase for them of about 1,000%, because the government currenly pays more than 90% of the cost. Of course, if those subsidies were eliminated, then farmers would stop growing crops in the desert, and there would be more water available for residential use in places like L.A.

The function of prices in a free market economy is to communicate information about supply and demand. It's just basic economics. It applies to water, just like it applies to anything else.

I can't believe that some folks on this site are arguing the case of the social engineering totalitarians!

This is an excellent post! Sometimes the obvious has to be stated. You know, "Freedom is Good".

I'm surprised that some here don't really believe that. :-(

Okay, I'm not really surprised; I pretend to be surprised just to be polite.

Smarten up, morons! LOL!

Economic development comes from people. People create wealth.

Not in all circumstances. When there are abundant resources of one sort or another accessible to people, they tend to create wealth. However, when people are barely subsisting and have no access to resources (including time) to undertake economic development, they do nothing but reproduce and exacerbate the problem. If rapid population growth automatically translated into rapid economic growth, the third world countries would be rich -- obviously that ain't so. Their economically backward political systems are the result, not the cause, of ever-growing hordes of uneducated and nearly starving people.

Yes, Freedom is Good. And grundle relies heavily on the example of China to push his point that dense and growing populations can generate economic growth and improved material standards of living. Do you see a conflict here? There sure ain't much freedom in China, and the freedom to reproduce, in particular, is denied by some very ghoulish methods.

Except for the one quote that I gave from the Economist, which I did give credit for, everything is all in my own words. I wasn't looking at anyone else's text when I wrote my essay.

Many of the ideas are influenced from things that I read that were written by other people. For example, Julian Simon has written about the change from copper wires to fiber optics. So, I got the idea from him. But the text itself is mine.

It is the TREND of more regulation in the US that worries me, relatively we are not as bad, I agree.

Ten-Twenty years ago, I use to have farmers brag to me that they applied only half the recommended chemical rates and got good weed control.....and it showed in in their profitability. Today what makes the chemical decision? I know its not profit! It is either the perceived value in the warrenty of the chemical company or the perceived risk of litigation from government or others. The enviromentalists did more harm than good with all their regulations. Only large farms can deal with all the regulations. I fear the concentration of decision making.

Frankly, I don't think you read the posted essay. Or, if you did, you saw only what you wanted to see.

I just reread it, and I noted that 'Hong Kong', not PRC, was his lead example.

It's the FREEDOM, old son, that's what allows folks to build RICH economies.

Government action starves and enslaves people; a negative synergy made more horrific by the monopoly of political power, and the hi-jacking of public discourse by sycophants of the powers-that-be.

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