Aristocracy [Late Latin aristocratia, government by the best, from Greek aristokrati : aristos, best; see ar- in Indo-European Roots + kratos, power; see -cracy.]. An aristocracy is a form of government in which rulership is in the hands of an “upper class” known as aristocrats. (The Greek origins of the word aristocracy imply the meaning of “rule by the best”.)
People like David Attenborough or almost anyone connected with Population Connection (a group which used to be rather more directly called ‘Zero Population Growth’), are technocrats at heart. Problems are identified, analyzed by experts and their solutions to those problems are imposed via political interaction. It is simply ‘rule by expert’ and there is quite literally no limit to the areas of life which is beyond the overarching gaze of the men and woman with letters after their names. When such people are given access to political power, no limits to what they can make you do or not do. The experts are, after all, the best and thus know best, and if people will not be swayed by their words spoken from the position of superior knowledge, then they must be forced to comply via the political system. They are the new would-be aristocracy in the literal Greek sense of the word.
In today’s Times of London (we do not link directly to The Times), David Attenborough, speaking for the Optimum Population Trust, demanded that the British state work to halve Britain’s population by establishing a ‘population policy’.
He said: “The human population can no longer be allowed to grow in the same old uncontrolled way. If we do not take charge of our population size, then nature will do it for us and it is the poor people of the world who will suffer most.”
[…]
[the Optimum Population Trust] believes that Britain should seek to reduce its population from its present 59m to about 30m by 2130 — about the same as the population in 1870. It wants economic incentives for women to stay childless, free contraception, a balanced approach to immigration and a government population reduction policy.
Indira Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping shared such views and enacted policies based on the realization that gentle prods will not stop people having children. Their views were based on crude pragmatism married with an honest understanding of the efficacy of coercive violence.
People like David Attenborough however take a rather more lyrical utopian view of nature and ‘sustainable economics’ (which in fact has nothing whatsoever to do with economics) and thus are rather more grandiose in their objectives. They seek to limit people’s right to have children or to travel the world or engage in ‘wasteful’ or ‘harmful’ economic activity generally that is not approved of by…well, them, of course. They wish to restore balance and harmony. This sort of idealized view of nature and man’s place in it (or lack thereof) was something that would have gained approving nods not just from idyllic ruralist 18th and 19th century poets but also Heinrich Himmler.
For these people there are no ‘market’ solutions caused by the social interaction of free people, because that would allow the possibility that free people may simply ignore the ‘wise words’ of The Best. In a political system, rather than a social system, there are only a few people who must be convinced and manipulated, and thus it through coercive collectivist politics that the new technocratic aristocracy seek to apply their ‘wisdom’.
At least the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement are not trying to use the violence of state to make people comply. The same cannot be said of Sir David Attenborough and his collectivist ilk.
—“… the poor people of the world who will suffer most.”—
I guess someone hasn’t heard the old “World ends tomorrow… women, children and the poor suffer the most!” joke yet. It’s a good punch line and I can’t refrain from laughing when ever I hear it.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Can anyone source that old line for me, by the way?
Well surely this happening…the evil nasty European honky-types are not replacing themselves. Most Euro-countries, including Scotland, have a negative birthrate. Isn’t this good enough for these dolts?
Didn’t the Peoples Republic of China impose some pretty draconian birth controls some years ago?
What happened?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Yeah, Mark. It was my grandfather. Hm, yes, I’m quite sure of it.
Das Kapital, Volume 1, part III THE PRODUCTION OF ABSOLUTE SURPLUS-VALUE Chapter VII THE LABOUR-PROCESS AND THE PROCESS OF PRODUCING SURPLUS-VALUE SECTION 2. THE PRODUCTION OF SURPLUS-VALUE Paragraph 21
There are a lot of much older quotations that mention hell being paved with good intentions.
Re: Academocracy:
Theo P,
Yep, the Chinese still operate a one-child per family regulation and it is strictly enforced via fines for bringing any additional offspring into the world. Andrew is right, too, of course, in his statement that the offspring of Europeans and European-Americans no longer reach the nominal replacement number of 2.1 children per woman.
Higher reproduction is concentrated in those countries with high levels of poverty, illiteracy etc. So it seems pretty inevitable that the poor will indeed be the first to cop it on that fateful day, er, when something inevitable that the Optimum Poplation folk fear comes to pass and, er, we all, well, you know, whatever they say, really. Because they are experts, after all. I wonder how many kids they’ve got.
Indira Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping shared such views and enacted policies based on the realization that gentle prods will not stop people having children.
Also the realization they were up to their individual and collective assholes in infants they couldn’t feed.
On the other hand, the American birthrate was also quite high in the second half of the 19th century. There was more poverty then than now, of course, but also rising prosperity and substantial literacy. And, two other factors as well: a strongly held societal belief that women’s duty was to bear and raise children before anything else, and a mostly agrarian economy in which most people worked where they lived. As an earlier poster pointed out, the train has pretty much left the station on both counts as far as Europe is concerned. So unless we’re talking about cutting the number of Bangladeshis or Brazilians in the world zero population growth is a moot point.
I favor the term buristocracy over technocracy for two reasons. First the majority of the putative “upper class” Perry talks about works for governments or other large organizations, even if their jobs involve (as many do) merely implementing rather than devising policy. Second, it isn’t just a question of buristocrats having the power to shape society, but also of their social status within society — one of the major concerns of the traditional aristocracy as well.
But think of the fun that could be had when making out the Population Reduction List. Where do you start?
Unemployed? Over 80? French in London? The Welsh? Previous Railtrack managers?
I could go on….
I thought that the poor suffered the most no matter what?
mass of a trillion human bodies less than a trillionth of mass of planetary material in our vicinity
Interesting topic! I’ve always felt the ‘You must have immigration to maintain population’ argument was weak. Its primarily economic, and could largely be nullified by severely restricting retirement (except at your own expense), which I happen to believe would be socially beneficial. Although those heading towards tax-payer funded retirement would be up in arms, as we have seen recently in France.
In my experience sparsely populated places are much nicer places to live than are densely populated places. OTOH its expensive to provide services in sparsely populated places.
I actually see a completely different issue here than Perry. For me the issue is the chilling of rational debate by those who bandy around ‘isms’ and ‘obias’ to silence rational analysis of issues.
Dragging Indira Gandhi and Deng Xiaoping in the discussion misses the point. Both of them tried to control population levels as do the ‘We must have immigration and maintain population’ crowd. Why not just let population rise or fall as we collectively decide it should through our birth rate? Note this is how Optimum Population Trust arrives at UK 30M population.
For me, the question of whether or not to curtail someone’s liberties comes down to this question:
Are they exercising their liberties in a way that represents a substantial threat to the liberties of myself or other uninvolved strangers?
The population growth rates in some countries are pretty clearly not sustainable. For example, imagine the population of the West Bank being supported in its growth rate for about 5,000 years. At that point, the energy required to meet basic dietary requirements approximates the energy production of the entire known universe. Within another thousand years of that, the mass of Palestinians exceeds the mass of the known universe. Beyond that, there is scant hope for sustainability. It’s pretty clear that short of that point, something is going to change.
The Palestinians are particularly interesting because of their current culture of violence. The Pakistanis have similiar problems. I recently read a story (probably on rantburg) of a man lamenting the jihadi death of one of his 7 children. Did he see any trace of cause and effect? Not bloody likely. These areas are violent, messy, and because of the culture they’re going to get worse.
Burgeoning population is a problem globally. Something has to be done, or a lot of people are going to die in a messy way. Chances are pretty high (with Jihadi culture) that it’s going to happen in a way that limits my liberties, possibly including fatally.
That’s the global context, now for the local:
Many ‘liberals’ use the line “Think globally, act locally.” I believe that is what is going on here. Unfortunately, that has become an excuse for ignoring the global problem. Local population is already shrinking. Accelerating that shrinking has very little appreciable impact on the global problem. Even if the population of the North America and Europe were instantly annihilated, it would only set world population growth back by a decade. Furthermore, this reduction would come from the segment that already has negative growth, so that after 10 years the loss would be replaced and the growth rate would be higher.
During the early ’90s, my father was chairman of the Sierra Club Population Committee (National), in large part because of my urging. The committee as a whole ran into problems, being called ‘racist’ by the Sierra Club at large. The root problem is that there are specific cultures that are having large numbers of children with specific ‘racial’ traits. Because of the deliberate avoidance of criticizing anyone with a different melanin level, enviros are actually refusing to face the real problem.
Back to the global level: We’ve got a choice, either attempt to address the problem now, when it’s only causing a few fatalities on our side, or later when the body count gets high enough for people to recognize the threat as personal. If we address it now, it increases the probability that it can be addressed without genocide. The longer we wait, however, the higher the probability that its solution will involve the use of nuclear weapons.
If you don’t think nukes are in the future of this, consider:
1) Pakistan already has nuclear weapons
2) Pakistan has an unsustainable birth rate
3) MMA supports large families
4) MMA is increasing in power within Pakistan
5) Elements of MMA advocate Jihad against America
That’s just one country. There are others as well.
Me, I’d consider a nuclear war to be a severe infringement on my liberties. Not the most severe, but close.
All well and good to be skeptical of the source. I am as well.
But what of Attenborough’s idea?? It may be indeed be a bad idea especially as to the how one would implement it. But, as to fewer people as a goal, why not? (I ask to promote rigor of discussion, not to disagree with the conclusion.)
To speak of “market solutions” as the criterion is to overturn the last 5000 years (or 2000 years as you prefer) of history. The “peculiar institution” of black slavery in the USA was not abolished by market solutions but by pointy-headed intellectuals who came along to provide a justification for …well it’s not clear why the south seceeded…but the weight of history does not suggest that it ws because southerners decided to forgo free labor. Economic reasons, perhaps, but free markets…I don’t think so.
May I make a larger point? “Libertarianism” as I see it is not synonymous with market solutions, especially when markets can be dominated by bullies. Free markets are an element but not the goal.
No?
I’m going to take a radical position, which some of you may not respect:
I am in favor of curtailing the liberties of anyone who expresses an intent to kill me or impose some form of fascist regime upon me.
It’s complicated. The number of humans is important but the demographic mix is even more important. You need a roughly even mix of sexes and a full spread of ages in order to have a functional society. When these simple truths of population biology and human sociology are ignored by politicians you get the current muddle.
In China the result of their draconian 1 child policy was a serious imbalance of male and female children. When a Chinese family can only have 1 child it must be male or else they have no future. They use various sex tests and abortion to assure that they have male babies. There is a 4:3 ratio now of male:female in that demographic segment.
When the fertility rate falls below the replacement rate the average age of a society increases. Europe’s problem is a low fertility rate and the promise of a near future where a few productive youths support hordes of doddering pensioners.
Lowering population is possible, even desirable in some views, it’s am aesthetic judgement. To do that you can’t just stop breeding or society will collapse. You have to get rid of those old people too and you have to do it all very gradually to avoid social and economic melt down.
The trends are not favorable. Life expectancy is increasing and most people think that this is a very good thing. It is good if those old people are still productive and don’t consume huge amounts of medical services. In this case the fertility rate can fall to some number below 2.1 and still be stable, but the population total will not drop.
IMHO the best outcome is for nations with high birth rates to achieve economic prosperity. In most cultures this will lead to a dramatic drop of birth rate.
Unfortunately, this is hard to achieve, mostly because of a lack of western democratic traditions in most cultures, with resulting kleptocracies and corruption holding down the economic growth. Mexico is a good example of this: a country with huge potential, vast natural resources, a great market just to its north, and yet a governing culture of corruption that prevents economic growth.
“I’m going to take a radical position, which some of you may not respect:
I am in favor of curtailing the liberties of anyone who expresses an intent to kill me or impose some form of fascist regime upon me.”
I agree. I’m in favor of curtailing their liberties so much that I favor killing them before they kill or enslave me.
To return to the original post a little after the diverting & highly educational posts above (eat your heart out, Malthus), perhaps we shouldn’t take David Attenborough too seriously. He’s at that age where a degree of eccentricity is allowable, after a thoroughly worthwhile career in which he must have inspired a great many young people to study zoology and the natural world. He reminds me of a friend – not aged or eccentric, but perhaps a little single minded – who once told me he’d had “great hopes for this AIDS thing” because he thought a severe population decrease not affecting the sexually monogamous such as himself might improve the quality of his fishing…
BTW Mark, I’d always assumed the “road to hell” bit was Shakespeare (most things are) and indeed it might be, but it was certainly attributed to Johnson by Boswell, vol 5 chap 9, though it appears there as “Hell is paved with good intentions”.
Please excuse my ignorance, but I am new round here. Why is it policy not to link to “The Times”?
Well, recently the Times has changed their format so you can’t access the articles if you’re located outside the UK, unless you pay them more money, at least, than I can afford to give ’em at the moment. (It’s upsetting.) Maybe that has something to do with it?