On the 'Population Explosion'

...Eugene Staley of Stanford puts it, "Despite all the vaunted technological and economic progress of modern times, there are probably more poverty-stricken people in the world today than there were 50 years ago...

...But public figures, especially current affairs commentators, must not be allowed to shirk the responsibility of facing the facts...

...The most recent book (People, Jobs and Economic Development, by A. J. Jaffe, Free Press, $6.00) is head and shoulders above most of the rest in this respect...

...Jaffe shows how crucial this is, and also how direct the relationship is...

...Another major theology seems to be struggling to divest itself of its medieval heritage and focus on the human situation...

...Puerto Rico's "Operation Bootstrap" has attracted widespread attention from the whole non-Communist world...

...Another two billion persons will be added in the next 30 years...

...It still has few rivals in setting forth the important consideration that "the really fundamental problems of economic development are non-economic...

...Two far broader books which originated abroad should be better known here...

...Almost 800 million people will live in an area less than half the size of the United States...

...We can "farm the sea" and eat the algae...

...Theoreticians and practitioners in economics, economic development and demography, as well as citizens who want to follow world affairs, will get a great deal of valuable information from the study...

...In fact, national income can double or treble without an increase in the volume of total employment, because the rate of increase in the volume of national income is closely related to the increase in labor productivity, while the rate of increase in total employment depends primarily on the size of the labor reservoir...

...One sentence summarizes the book's position: "The family which courageously and even heroically rears a large number of children in an over-populated area merits special praise for its virtue...

...and "Achieving Development in the Contemporary World...

...Gunmar Myrdal's little book (Rich Lands and Poor, Harper, $3.00) throws a great deal of light on why the gap between the "have" and "have not" nations is widening in spite of all the recent action in the field of foreign aid...

...On the 'Population Explosion' By Clarence Senior Chief, Migration Division, Puerto Rico Department of Labor STRANGE AS IT may seem, there are many persons in public life today who refuse to take the "population explosion" seriously...

...It has been obvious for years that industrialization alone is not likely to solve the "population problem" in an underdeveloped, densely populated area...

...Official Communist theology opposes even the concept of "overpopulation...

...we can make steaks of wood pulp...

...An earlier but still helpful work by Norman S. Buchanan and Howard S. Ellis (Approaches to Economic Development, Twentieth Century Fund, $5.00) deals with "An Analytical View of the Problem...

...One of the factors which has often puzzled both participants in "Operation Bootstrap" and foreign visitors in Puerto Rico with whom I have spoken is the persistence of unemployment and underemployment in spite of fairly large-scale migration and in the face of a dramatic rise in national income...

...Many people lose contact with reality when such magnitudes are involved...

...He served as consultant to the Secretary of Labor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico for over four years and uses mostly Puerto Rican material in his analysis...

...And, of course, population behavior is included as an important aspect of the non-economic problems...

...Modern machinery is costly and, in general, the more modern it is, the fewer people are put to work when it is installed...

...One of the "facts of life" which we of the richer lands must keep in mind is, as Dr...

...Economic Development as Recorded History," with special attention to England, Western Europe, Japan and the USSR...

...The rate is likely to increase, however...

...He deals with such broad categories as "The Will to Economize," "Economic Institutions," "Knowledge," "Capital," "Government," and even asks, "Is Economic Growth Desirable...

...He follows population trends as they affect and are affected by employment, unemployment and underemployment, by education and by the various governmental programs...

...we can colonize the steaming Amazon and irrigate the deserts...

...Some say, "But the world's population is growing at a rate of only 1.7 per cent a year...

...it also reduces reproductivity...

...About 47 million persons are added to the earth's population every year...

...anyone who speaks of it is an "agent of imperialism...

...Thousands flock to Puerto Rico every year to learn how the numerous problems of an "underdeveloped" area have been tackled and, in many cases, solved...

...Obviously, illiterate workers would not be productive workers either in modern industry or in efficient agriculture, where hormones, fertilizers and machinery must be handled...

...Few persons not blinded by outmoded theology could disagree with the authors' careful, logical affirmative answer to their question in the case of both India and Mexico...

...Jaffe examines the various programs in the light of the economic background of the island and the realities of its population growth...

...Happily, "Operation Bootstrap" placed great emphasis on education...

...One important part of an answer is to "hope and pray for lower fertility rates and . . . request that measures for the rapid and wide spread of birth control be made part of the economic planning for economic development...

...But in spite of their inherited dogma, the Chinese Communists, faced with over one million more mouths to feed every month, have launched a birth control program...

...If its birth rate remains at its present high level of 43 per 1,000 and the death rate falls even moderately, India's population will almost double by 1986...

...Last, but far from least, the President's Committee to Study the United States Military Assistance Program, in its third interim report, issued in July 1959, ended three pages of realistic discussion by recommending that the U.S., directly and through the United Nations, help "individual countries in the formulation of practical programs to meet the serious challenge posed by rapidly expanding population...

...The author has a background of outstanding contributions to the study of the labor force...

...But scholars without theological commitment, either Catholic or "Marxist," are making it clear that rapid population growth and excessive density are likely to be obstacles to economic progress, particularly when they are combined...

...India is the major area for investigation, but there is also some consideration of Mexico...

...Agricultural modernization is also being carried forward—and one major result is more unemployment in agriculture...

...perhaps they may be excused from discussing population questions...

...One recent book shows little hope and probably does less than full justice to the progressive forces in the Catholic Church...

...within a few years it will be closer to 77 million annually...

...Many observers spend much time and energy trying to prove that the world can support additional billions of people...

...Education does more than increase productivity, however...

...Puerto Rico has recognized this and has attacked it simultaneously on a number of fronts...

...Recent writings on economic development are here reviewed with this major factor in mind...

...His chapter on "Population and Resources" would be a splendid place for an intelligent beginner in the field to get his bearings on the price that countries pay for refusing to apply intelligence to the control of births as they now do as a matter of public policy to the control of deaths...

...Most other recent authors writing on economic development would have benefited tremendously by having this study available when they were working on their books...

...India's population of nearly 400 million is increasing each year by almost 8 million persons...

...W. Arthur Lewis, with wide experience in underdeveloped areas and years of teaching at Manchester, ranges widely and with wonderful effectiveness over many of the sacred provinces of his predecessors in the stronghold of laissez-faire economics [The Theory of Economic Growth, George Allen and Unwin, 30 shillings...

...Another must for those who would discuss population factors in economic developments (Population Growth and Economic Development in Low-Income Countries, by Ansley J. Coale and Edgar M. Hoover, Princeton University, $8.50) sets out to test the basic question: Would a lower rate of population growth in underdeveloped countries increase total productive investment and per capita productivity...

...His carefully reasoned conclusion will shock and dismay many persons who do not know population realities, or who, knowing them, try to hide from the implications: "There can be substantial increases in national income without any change in the overall level of employment...

...That rate, although it seems low when compared with Latin America's championship 2.8 per cent, would result in one person for each square yard of the earth's surface in 600 years...