From a young age we are conditioned to assume that growth is a good thing. As we mature from childhood into adulthood, our parents measure our growth and celebrate every inch. Some parents even mark our height increments on a wall. A lot of growth is considered a good thing; we all want to be tall, but to be stunted is a defect. We like to watch our bank accounts grow, our careers grow, our families grow and our friendships grow.
As adults, when we hear the word “growth” we generally think of good things. Of course there are exceptions. We don’t like the growth of tumors (except on Ted Kennedy), the growth of our bellies (unless we’re pregnant), or the growth of our debt (unless we’re the federal government).
Is population growth a good thing? I would argue that, except in certain circumstances, it is not. For example, we’ve got more than enough people in the United States as it is.
In a March 15th front page article, Erin Middlewood writes in The Columbian:
Although Clark County’s growth slightly exceeded that experienced by the state as a whole, it’s a far cry from the suburban boom here in the 1990s.
Clark County added 5,172 residents in the year leading up to July 1, 2012. A little less than half of the county’s growth came from births outpacing deaths, with the other half from people moving into the county. About a third of the newcomers arrived from other countries.
Migration has historically fueled Clark County’s growth, but that changed during the Great Recession, said Scott Bailey, a state regional economist. The jobs market remains poor. And the county’s reputation as a pleasant bedroom community hasn’t overcome the aftershocks of the housing crash.
We are led to believe that “growth” (I.E. “more people”) is a good thing and the only reason we’re not seeing an even greater increase in population is that our economy is fairing poorly. If all were well, our population would be increasing in leaps and bounds.
Is this logical? At what point, if any, would the corporate media admit that we don’t need more people? If it reaches the point where we’re packed like sardines, with standing room only and fed by tubes from giant tanks suspended from above, would they still be claiming that “growth” is a good thing?
Back when the West still had nations, the citizens of those nations could enjoy their good fortune when fate smiled upon them. They would feel fortunate when their bounty belonged to them and foreign hordes were not infiltrating their lands to take it. When large numbers of foreigners did attempt to help themselves to a nation’s wealth, it was considered an act of war. But now the wealthy and powerful have no allegiance to a nation; their only loyalty is to themselves. They control the media. The media controls the votes. The votes control the government – and the government controls the laws. The ruling elite (some would call them the “one-percenters”) are perfectly happy to bring in as many peons as possible. Those peons will vote as they are told and the fact that our share of the pie gets ever smaller with each influx doesn’t bother them at all. After all, their share of the pie gets even bigger.
Please tell your family and friends to stop believing these corporate/media lies. Such “growth” doesn’t help us at all; it only helps them.
A 3x in population might mean a 10x market value for rare disease treatments, for example. It can exponentially increase the economic viability of a lot of new innovations, breaking through what used to be hard thresholds. Of all factors reducing the quality of our population, the quantity of the population is a mole hill. I dare say, a higher quantity population requires a higher average quality to manage, all else constant.
Just compare urban vs rural blacks. Or, consider the staggering ecological damage cavemen and ancient Romans did. Pound for pound, they were disastrous. Extrapolating the overpopulation of Egypt or Yemen or Indonesia (think of the common element to these countries…) to the entire planet is a gross misunderstanding of demographics.
Earnings/profit growth, by the way, is largely just inflation and share buybacks now. Increasingly, it doesn’t really refer to a real larger footprint now.
“If it reaches the point where we’re packed like sardines, with standing room only and fed by tubes from giant tanks suspended from above, would they still be claiming that “growth” is a good thing?”
Even then, if companies could find foreigners to work for lower wages, they still would insist they get more, as they are now. Those wanting higher wages (native born Americans) will be told to jump into the oceans and drown.
The bottom line is short money for stockholders. The future belongs to someone else to worry about.
Look up the list of corporate lobbyists on the internet. We must stop purchasing from them if at all possible. Tyson Foods asks for many unskilled laborers and gets them. They come from Somalia. Read about Somalians in the U.S. From cruelty to animals, rape, gangs, drugs, murders, and not taking baths. So, yes, I buy my chickens and beef from a local farmer where they are treated humanely and processed with clean hands and bodies.
We must stop buying anything from these companies, if at all possible.
We must remember, these poor foreigners are only looking for a better life, so my Democrat Senator keeps telling me using words and tone for an eight year old. He has nothing to say when I respond with, “Where do WE go for a better life now that all these Third-Worlders have destroyed our country?
Your description brings to mind a land with no animals, trees, used up resources, filthy lakes and rivers, and violence. Before that occurs, there will be an economic collapse, multiracial and ethnic revolution, or both. I’d say both.
Join NumbersUSA.com. They fight both legal and illegal immigration and amnesty. There you can FAX your legislators.
Hopefully, everyone who reads this blog IS protesting to their legislators, every day! We need many to do that.
Mathematically-EXACT center of the X-ring at 1,000 meters. “Globalization” is the exoteric public face of that process wherein the Great Rich (the ones Paul Fussell categorized as “top-out-of-sight”) secede from their respective Bodies Politic and club together in alliance against (For is not plunder acting against the one plundered?) their respective Peoples.
Great video on growth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Thanks for the link. It’s a great video – but he should have gone further and explained that the only reason the U.S. still has population growth is immigration.
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell”
Edward Abbey
Quantity vs. quality.