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” In their book “Food First” Fraces Moore and Joseph Collins quote from “Road to Survival” in which one William Vogt wrote about a populous Asian country that it quite literally cannot feed more people” He predicted “Millions are going to die. There cannot be a way out…these men, women, boys and girls must starve as tragic sacrifices, on twin altars of uncontrolled reproduction and uncontrolled abuse of land and resources” We read and hear stories such as this, and feel they must be true. The graphs show population soaring and we know food supply is limited by land.
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Yet Mr. Vogt’ words, which seem so obviously true, were written about China in 1948. What has happened to Chinas population since 1948?….

Limiting population is high prirority. But it is easy to lay blame on population and miss the deeper problems. ….
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Easwaran, goes on to talk abt the core issues surrounding this problem and giving solutions in his own style.

Vol 3, page 227 to 230

Since I’m in Singapore, and cannot afford the airfare, I’ll resist the temptation to take you up on your offer.

However, I’m all ears. Academically, what you propose may be workable (given an infinite number of highly qualified economists); but I’d like to know what in your proposal is can be realistically implemented without dehumanising people. In particular, how do you get around the issue of obligatory sterilisation?

Bill Nordhaus is not a NOBEL prize winner. He might win one one day but hiterto he is not won one.

Cheers

Salah

Thanks for the correction. I stand corrected that Nordhaus has not won the Nobel prize.

I can see the beginning of a vicious cycle. Make a constitutional amendment to override fundamental rights. If you are economically disadvantaged , you cannot have children. Too bad. Surrender or be castrated. You give up your right to reproduce to some guy further up the chain who will have bought the right to have more children.

Are rich parents better than the poor ones? On what basis are you arriving at such a conclusion? How does the ability to ‘buy more’ confer on people beter values?

I don’t work for an NGO. I work for the most material of professions – an advertising agency. One that defines the attractiveness of people by their ability to buy. As much as they can of whatever we are peddling.

What you are suggesting is tantamount to genocide. If you are poor, you have no right to propogate. So your lineage will die out. The only people left in the country will be those who can ‘buy’ up their right to repoduce further.

These values in turn are passed on to their offspring.

A famous actor ran over four people sleeping on the footpath because he was drunk. Isn’t it just wonderful that he can buy his way through and never have to spend a day behind bars?

The tricky part is, someone has to be at the bottom of the chain. The price of the ‘Right to Reproduce’ will grow all the time. And the middle class which can afford it now will no longer be able to do so.

I know what your counter to this will be. Once we have stabilised the whole population problem, we can repeal the laws and allow people to get their fundamental right again.

Yeah. Just like reservations. Fifty years into our independence, not one politician is willing to say a word about doing away with it. Instead they have found a fabulous compromise. Include more and more castes under the reservation scheme every year. Then we can ‘reserve’ the whole of India for all castes! Finally there will be justice.

I accept your offer unconditionally. I stay in kolkata and Restaurants, even the best ones don’t cost a lot. But before taking on I would like to lay down the axioms so that none of us have trouble in accepting each others point ( inspite of so much blah blah about intellectual honesty ) :-

1. Mere desire is no demand until you have the purchasing power. Any thing which is a mere wish but can not be translated into action ( inspite of how so ever hard you may try) remains outside the perview of economics.

2. Basic intention of your idea is that it would increase human happines over a long period of time , calculated as sum of happiness of each individual born till the dooms day ( if it ever was and you feel if your scheme is implemented it would never be )compared to present system.

3. “Experts” in One field will not automatically qualify for experts in field outside their area of expertise (Biologist can not be trusted with predicitions which will require insight into human psychology , economics , genetics, environmental science , astro physics et al.)

Hope you will accept the challange.

Rajeev Kumar
Flat #2,
34 Park street
Kolkata

I am still waiting for you to accept the challenge ( originally thrown by you) .

I have “Q.E.D” paper ready to counter your “brilliant idea”. I am waiting for your reply …

Rajeev Kumar

There is nothing for me to accept. As you already noted, I made the offer and you accepted. The contract is complete, the wager is on. At some point, one of us will have to concede. Until then, the outcome is undecided.