Population Policy

Population Policy Press

The relevant biological, political, and other factors of the population problem

Population Policy Press was established early in 2002, to ensure the publication of controversial works on human population and related issues which more commercial publishers are reluctant to take on.

Still in its infancy stages, Population Policy Press was set up by Director, Author and General Editor, Jack Parsons.

Based at Treferig Cottage Farm, just outside Llantrisant in South Wales, UK. Population Policy Press will commission, edit, publish (in some cases print, also) and sell worldwide (with particular emphasis on the UK, continental European, USA, Canadian, and Australian markets) books, booklets, pamphlets, and CD ROMS relevant to the population policy field.

Although we currently have a steady stream of work - we are interested in new projects and would like to hear from any authors in the population or related fields who are looking for a publisher.

Mission Statement

To make available information regarding population and related problems, with particular reference to population control, to all who are interested in these issues, especially those involved in opinion-forming and decision-making positions.

Why Population Policy Press?

Our rationale is as follows:

1) The basic goal.

What we think is -- or certainly should be -- the most basic ethical, economic, social, and therefore political goal, is a high or at least acceptable quality of life, over the long term, for the whole of humanity. A life based on peace, moderate prosperity, and freedom.

A precondition for achieving this worthy goal is the attainment, and then permanent maintenance, of a reasonable balance between human numbers and world resources. When this balance is not present then there must be deprivation and suffering for at least a minority, often for the majority, states which are all too frequently exacerbated by conflict over scarce resources.

Unfortunately, while almost everyone is in favour of the good life, just as nearly everyone is against sin, only a tiny minority is prepared to face the hard ecological facts and their implications. Neither economic growth nor population growth can go on for ever and many societies are now bumping up against the limits.

Beyond a certain optimal point/range, there is increasing conflict between quantity and quality, with quality increasingly losing out. We want to do our bit to increase the size and effectiveness of the ecologically aware minority, involving as many citizens as possible in the great debate about the future of both our individual societies and the species as a whole.

2) The nature of the task.

It is a tracking-task. Societies must continue to deal effectively with a wide array of complex, and interlinked problems with no possibility of ever finding a final solution.

Even when things go well for a time, in the absence of careful, informed, rigorous, and continuous group management mechanisms of one sort or another there is a tendency for the key variables to slide out of kilter with both each other and with the ecological imperatives enveloping all social systems.

3) The best way to achieve success.

We believe that the best way to deal with this inescapable task -- at least the one which should first be rigorously explored -- is through democratic debate. We want to stimulate the widest possible dissemination and understanding of all the relevant facts and theories and to encourage inclusive, informed, and rational public debate about them, leading in turn to the adoption and continuous monitoring of effective population policies.

4) Obstacles in the way of success

a) The near-universal human tendency to prevaricate; to avoid, wherever possible, bad news and awkward decisions.

b) The inherent difficulties in seeing clearly and thinking hard, straight, and long, even when we do try..

c) A widespread misunderstanding of the essential processes of social control. This stems from the false belief that freedom and control are polar opposites. In society, freedom is actually produced by suitable social controls. Not too many, not too few, but just right.

d) The influence of political correctness, often based on hopelessly idealistic notions of what is feasible.

These add up to a powerful and near-universal taboo on the topic of population control policies, with no regard whatever for the likely consequences of a failure to adopt such policies.

The relevant biological, political, and other factors

The biological basis of the population problem

This is superfecundity. All living things can produce, and many do produce, vastly more seeds, eggs, or offspring than can possibly survive. In our case only two surviving children are required to replace both parents (plus a small fraction to replace those who do not reproduce at all) but women not subjected to an effective set of restraints (which can of course include self-controls -- celibacy, contraception, etc ) will on average produce more than ten. (Some groups are still producing today an average of seven or eight offspring, making their population numbers double in less than 20 years).

The ecological basis of the population problem

This is physical finiteness. While the universe as a whole may be infinite, and significant space-travel may one day be feasible, for the foreseeable future our lives are and must remain earthbound and subject to very firm and obvious limits.

Intellectual, social, economic and political aspects of the population problem

The 1949 Report of the British Royal Commission on Population stated clearly that with respect to our country:

'The population problem ... will always be with us and ... always be changing. It will therefore require continuous study. To provide for this study and to ensure that the results ... are given due weight in the making and administration of national policy has become one of the functions of a modern community.' (para 595)

'We recommend that the Lord President of the Council should be made responsible for a continuous watch over population movements and their bearing on national policies.' (para 611)

'It is impossible for policy ... to be "neutral" on this matter since over a wide range of affairs policy and administration have a continuous influence on the trend of family size [& of population-size?]'. (para 654)

Population dynamics do not create problems only for a 'modern community'. They have troubled all societies from time immemorial. One of the oldest literary documents extant (impressed on a clay tablet in Babylon about 4,000 years ago) is a poem called Atra Hasis. Its theme was over population and environmental damage, coupled with a plea to the high gods for a swift and drastic population control policy.

The ancient Egyptians and Indians, the authors of the Bible, the main Greek philosophers, Roman statesmen and thinkers, all dealt with population problems, theories, and policies, as have most traditional societies.

Even the late Professor Julian Simon -- who argued that resources and human population will grow for ever and was widely acknowledged as the leader of the modern Cornucopian school of thought - readily acknowledged that:

'Every tribe known to anthropologists, no matter how "primitive", has some effective social scheme for controlling the birth rate.' (1977, p.469)

Before their cultures were disrupted by colonisation, by means of drastic surgical methods of birth control the Australian Aboriginals seem to have maintained approximately zero population growth [ZPG] for upwards of 40,000 years.

A few brave contemporaries from the less-developed countries [LDCs] have insisted on drawing attention to the relation between exploding population numbers and poverty, pollution, illiteracy, unemployment, resource-conflict, etc.

For instance, the Burmese statesman, U Thant, then Secretary-General of the United Nations:

'I do not wish to seem over-dramatic, but I can only conclude from the information available to me as Secretary General that the members of the UN have perhaps 10 years left in which to subordinate their ancient quarrels and launch a global partnership to curb the arms race ... improve the human environment ... defuse the population explosion, and supply the required momentum to development efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within the next decade, then I very much fear that these problems will have reached such staggering proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to control.' (1972)

Dr Martin Luther King also, was a firm supporter of effective multiracial birth-control:

'In the need for family planning, Negro and white have a common bond: together we can and should unite our strength for the wise preservation not of races, but of the one race we all constitute, the human race.' (1973)

Mr Mwai Kibaki, then Kenyan Vice President and Minister of Home Affairs, President since December, 2002, was very explicit on the urgent need to control human numbers:

'You Kenyans ... have accepted that ... your agriculture should be planned, your livestock ... your health programmes ... industrial development ... use of energy [so] it is downright foolish of you to say that family size, for which all those other things are being planned, may not itself be planned ... This is the missing link in this continent ... because we are not able to feed ourselves'. (1984)

In the United Kingdom, the Royal Commission's recommendations, quoted above, were even more strongly urged by the Select Committee on Science & Technology, the Population Panel, other official and otherwise prestigious bodies, the Commons All-Party Motion on Population, and by a number of voluntary bodies such as Doctors & Overpopulation, Population Stabilization, and the Conservation Society.

Over the last quarter-century, however, as the UK population has increased by three and a half millions, poverty-stricken Africa has more than doubled, to 840 millions, and the world population has increased by two and a quarter billions, the topic has been progressively enveloped by a deathly silence.

The only world leader today with the ecological awareness needed to understand the problem and the courage and concern to out speak plainly about it is the Dalai Lama:

'Ahead even of money, it is overpopulation that is at the root of all the dangers and threats that are facing us … We must inform people about these things, clearly and without prejudice. We must say: six billion is too many. Morally it is a major fault, because it aggravates the imbalance between rich countries and poor ones. In practical terms it is a tragedy.' (1996)

In contrast to this clarion call, virtually all university departments and their staffs, free-floating intellectuals, political activists, parties and governments, the BBC and other broadcasting bodies with their wild-life and environmental documentaries and highbrow chat-shows, the aid and conservation organisations, our newspapers and other periodicals, our boldly probing journalists in every other subject area, are all as quiet as the proverbial church mouse.

Oughtn't we all to be thoroughly ashamed of this new 'Treason of the Intellectuals?' (See Aldington, 1928)

Population Policy Press proposes to do its level best to help trigger a return to sanity.

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