Simon rejects the view that economic production is depleting the earth of natural resources. He argues that the “Ultimate resource” is human inventiveness— and that this asset is never exhausted.
Simon, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland, is virtually a lone voice in active, ongoing opposition to the population-control movement.
Population growth and immigration influxes, he says, are economically beneficial because they consist not of mindless consumers devouring a static stock of goods, but of thinking producers of wealth.
The book provides an excellent array of data to support the author’s contention that per-capita food production in the world is actually growing—or that the supply of agricultural land is increasing—ok that our environment is becoming cleaner and healthier—or that energy supplies are becoming more and more abundant—or that, over all, “natural resources will progressively become less scarce, and less costly, and will constitute a smaller proportion of our expenses in future years.” Simon, who at one time assisted government agencies devoted to limiting population growth, came to change his views, he says, when he was struck by the thought: “What business do I have trying to help arrange it that fewer human beings will be born, each one of whom might be a Mozart or a Michelangelo or an Einstein? This book is a thoughtful refutation of a great deal of ecological disinformation.
In addition, it is an examination of concrete programs of environmentalists, and a demonstration—by reference to such proposals as the re-use of garbage and forced sterilization—that a love for mankind is not one of their motivations.
Simon does undercut his argument somewhat by falsely maintaining that statistical extrapolation is the only way of knowing whether production will continue into the future. Nonetheless, The Ultimate Resource is a refreshing alternative to the Malthusians’ baseless predictions of doom.
This review is made available by the Ayn Rand Bookstore (formerly Second Renaissance Books)
