Overpopulation: A century of debate that deserves re-examining

Abstract

Civilisation is endangered by interlinked factors discussed in this book. This chapter focuses on the role of human overpopulation, as a risk for civilisation collapse, including the suppression of concern about it, since the heyday of anxiety, once expressed at the highest political levels, particularly from the birth of the United Nations (1945) until the late-1970s. The chapter argues that an overlooked cause for this suppression was the growth of “neoliberalism”, the globally influential doctrine that posits that untrammelled market forces generate the greatest level of public goods, including in low-income settings. The chapter also stresses the importance of the rate of population growth in low-income, resource-poor settings, as a factor that contributes to development and escape from poverty, or to the converse. This understanding, also once commonplace among elites, has also been suppressed. Re-examination of the issue of human population growth (absolute and proportional) is vital and urgent.