Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!husc6!seismo!ll-xn!adelie!mirror!gabriel!inmet!janw From: janw@inmet.UUCP Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc Subject: Re: Population control: liberty, la Message-ID: <11700402@inmet> Date: Fri, 12-Sep-86 03:08:00 EDT Article-I.D.: inmet.11700402 Posted: Fri Sep 12 03:08:00 1986 Date-Received: Mon, 15-Sep-86 05:42:17 EDT References: <6414@sun.uucp> Lines: 189 Nf-ID: #R:sun.uucp:-641400:inmet:11700402:000:7165 Nf-From: inmet.UUCP!janw Sep 12 03:08:00 1986 [rdh@sun.UUCP ] >I don't think you can blame the population/scarcity problem in >China on Mao, however. "Population problem" is something *you* should blame on him, since he prohibited all discussion of population control. That was the point - demonstrating a lack of consensus. The rest is digression, but I'll answer it anyway: Scarcity is a mild word for the misery he inflicted. It included, among other things, the greatest famine in the history of the world, and by a large margin: estimates of the dead vary from 20 million upwards; but think of what this did to the survivors... All relief was forbidden.This was not a natural disaster, but a purely administrative famine, in conditions of peace and order. Mengistu at least has a rebellion to deal with. >I will not say that Mao's revolution did not entail needless des- >truction and excess. It did. But dispair breeds irrationality, >and that, I think, is my entire point about overpopulation. The >Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward were both disasters. They had, however, nothing to do with despair: both were ambi- tious, forward-looking initiatives of the well-fed, optimistic Mao. They reduced the people to starvation and abject terror, and destroyed agriculture, industry and education. Direct exter- minations were also on a Hitlerite scale. >But China in the late 40's was a shambles as a result of coloni- >alism and WW2, and I fear it would have been far worse under >Chang than under Mao. The Great Leap, and the collectivization, started in late 50's. Late 40's are irrelevant. >Mao, I think, felt something for the people. He had a funny way of showing it. >>A consenting or a dissenting voice? Consensus does not >>imply unanimity, does it ? >I guess I should formalize it to the narrow sense that *con- >sensus* implies that negotiations continue until everyone con- >curs. Oh, you *do* mean unanimity. So noted. >>[projections] of population and of production - have proved worthless. >So you claim. If you can predict next year's economic situation, you ought to make a killing on Wall Street. If you can't, then you can't predict twenty years ahead. If you can't do it in the USA, then you can't do it in places where even reliable current statistics are unavailable. >>>[need for reserve resources] >>What about reserve population? >Tell me, for what are they being held in "reserve" for? I think >you just shot yourself in the foot. Why, you talked about reserve resources. People are a resource. E.g., the USSR is suffering from an acute labor shortage. >>Market is not infallible, but projections are garbage. >But do tell me on what basis, if not the best numbers available, >do you decide to buy or sell futures on commodities? Why, the futures market *exists* because futures are unpredictable. That's what it's for - insurance on one side, gambling on the other. >>>You want 'em, YOU FEED 'EM. >>They'll likely feed me - and you. They'll have hands and brains >>as well as stomachs. >Provided that someone feeds and educates them for 10 to 20 years FIRST. Parents or guardians, usually... You are talking as if childbirth has just been invented, and never tested. >Think of it as an investment. Be my guest. If it were up to me >(thank God it isn't) I'd rather teach their parents about birth- >control, ... Teaching is welcome; but they mostly know some methods. Indoctrination is something else. Teaching *how to* control is teaching. Teaching *to* control is indoctrination. >...systems theory, and then mechanical engineering and >french-intensive horticulture for sustainable food-production. >Then, I'd prefer to teach THEM about systems theory, then, com- >munications theory, computer science, and robotics for sustain- >able industry. So you assume them born, in spite of the previous course... >But new markets just don't happen. They have to be built. >Where would Japan be now without the Marshall plan? The Marshall Plan did not apply to Japan. >I envisage *consensus* in conditions of freedom, You've just defined consensus as unanimity. You can't seriously envisage it. >and I recognize the harsh realities of survival that constrain >political rationality when conditions are desparate. No consensus, then: so, by your stated principles, no right to impose your malthusian initiatives. >But before getting started, I'd much prefer to sell everyone on >the merits of the plan. Everyone - again, a glaring impossibility. (Prefer? So you *can* do without consent? This is new.) >Of course, once everyone has agreed, [...] There you go again. In a small nation of 10 million - what are the odds of everyone agreeing? >I find that such a framework is currently lacking. And for the >record, I find the notion of the invisible hand to be woefully >lacking as even a theoretical basis for ethical evaluation of in- >direct effects and unintended consequences. Does this mean anything ? The invisible hand means that market works; it is not a lacking theoretical basis for ethical evaluation of tralalala. >And I believe that Pareto optimality is the flimsiest excuse for >redistribution (favoring the politically connected) imaginable. Did this get here from some other article ? >That is my opinion. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but >I'm not willing to be shouted down. Eh? >To say that there is no such ethical stance possible is, perhaps your >opinion. I happen to feel differently. Such? Stance? Which stance? >I think it unrealistic to expect anything other than totalitiari- >anism to grow under mass-starvation conditions, and I think that >to blithely advocate unlimited population on the one hand, and >free market economics as the invisbly handy solution on the oth- >er, is to be deliberately ignorant, at best, of the fact that it >takes a certain level of infrastructure, education, and econom- >ic reserves on hand to sustain a market economy. There is no such fact. Market economy works even among naked sa- vages. "Deliberately ignorant, at best" is a nice expression. What was it you said about shouting? >In short, I think that to advocate unrestrained population >growth, as you have done, is to (perhaps unintentionally) advo- >cate the development of conditions that can only support one >form of government -- totalitarianism. That is my opinion. "Perhaps" is nice again. You are, however, begging the question: does per capita production fall or grow with birth rate? >If China is doing better now than it was under Mao, I strongly suspect >that it is because, harsh and irrational though it was, his re- >gime restored the infrastruture, education, and economic reserves >needed to support the economic growth per capita (i.e. production >increasing faster than population), happening now. No. Quite the opposite. All this is being restored after Mao - by the "invisible hand" you so distrust. >As for the rest of it, I think that it is all just blather on >both our parts, You are exactly 1/2 right. Jan Wasilewsky