Overpopulation and the Cheapening of Human Life

The consequences of overpopulation are many, ranging from wars for diminishing resources to environmental depredation. One consequence that is seldom discussed and represents a direct contradiction of the tenants of major religions, which declare their concern for human life, is the cheapening of human life and the consequences of that fact. For example the Christian Bible tells the faithful to be fruitful and multiply. This dictum springs from a tribal concern to maintain and increase its population as a protection against tribal extinction and a tool for tribal domination.

We ooh and ahh over a newborn infant.  We manufacture plastic fetuses for young girls to cherish as a doll. We denounce abortion as murdering a fetus and oppose anti-abortion forces in terms of a woman’s right to govern her own body, but not as a threat to the infant’s future.

Perhaps the most impressive demonstration of overpopulation’s cheapening of human life and its consequences is to be seen in what happens when human populations are suddenly underpopulated.

In the latter part of the 14^th century and the early part of the 15^th century Europe was ravaged by the Black Plague. It lost about an estimated 45 to 50% of Europe’s population. As a result the value of labor rose astronomically. This led to greatly increased job opportunities and labor mobility. In consequence serfdom began to disappear, primogeniture of inheritance diminished and according to Branko Milanovica”s article titled Can Black Death Explain the Industrial Revolution?, it even played a significant role in the development  of the Industrial Revolution In England some 400 years later. In brief, scarcity, as it so frequently does, breeds value.

But how does this play out in the 21^st century?

·      War – Life is cheap, especially that of the young who have accumulated no wealth or status. Notice the prevalence of conflict in Africa. In addition to its current overpopulation it is projected to provide the majority of the population increase in the 21^st century.

A scholarly paper I read a number of years ago found that the U.S. military devoted more recruiting resources to the Southern states because recruitment was more successful. In this country, as in the rest of the world, poverty produces soldiers.

·      Destruction of democracy

Overpopulation by cheapening human life increases poverty. The split between the haves and have nots grows wider and wider thus destroying the equality of power that democracy requires. We have seen this happening in the United States. The cheap labor of Asia destroyed jobs in this country and forced workers to accept considerably more menial jobs at lower wages. This has contributed strongly to the migration of increasing wealth to the economic elite, thus destroying our democracy by turning it into an oligarchy of wealth. The lesson many Americans have to learn here is that democracy is absolutely dependent upon an equality of wealth and to the extent this is not the case democracy is imperiled and begins to lose its hold on the body politic. All the rhetoric about voting is just that- rhetoric. We see the results daily in our national and local politics.

·      Job loss

We hear it from all points of the political spectrum because it is having such a serious impact on so many Americans. As population increases and the cost of labor continues to decline, the loss rate will increase until humanity rethinks the “job.”

The basic function of the job in a democracy is to distribute society’s gross domestic product among the populace. As jobs are imperiled by overpopulation, automation, longer work lives, etc., the job increasingly fails in its role of distributing the gross domestic product to a society’s citizens. Eventually, if the human forebrain continues to devise labor saving devices, we will have to develop a method other than the job to distribute society’s productivity. Some of you may remember the feather-bedding of railroad firemen as diesel engines replaced coal-fired steam engines. For a while firemen remained on diesel-drawn trains where they did nothing. Technology has been a major driver in producing unemployment and its attendant miseries. It has allowed corporations to export jobs and robotize our own manufacturing plants and commercial activity. Some thoughtful investigators, such as Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, fear that computer technology will eventually replace us unless we are very careful in how, or whether, we implement this technology.

In sum, all those anti-abortion, anti-birth control forces have a lot to answer for. Every little girl taught to carry a fetus doll, faces a world of over population and increasingly a distraught life. The emotion of joy at a child’s birth must be  tempered by human reason if our species is to protect and restore planet Earth, our only home. Let us not cheapen human life, let us value it, but understand that said values are totally dependent upon limiting the number of humans on our planet.

Bob Newhard