FLAT OUT

"The Tragedy of the Commons", by Garret Hardin

It's provocative to read this argument in favor of forced population control immediately after reading Friedman's "The World is Flat." At a time, according to Friedman, when most of the non-western world is rapidly working towards an education level, relative income, and lifestyle that is comparable to the west, we're clearly accelerating the problem of competition over rival resources. China is already strategically purchasing oil production companies in preparation for a certain spike in oil demand. Imagine gas prices when there are several hundred million new oil consumers in the market. This is the stuff wars are made of.

Yet, it is basically inconcievable that any western government would implement the sort of population control measures that China has. We seem to hope that it won't come to that, or people will recognize the problem and take corrective action. However, as Hardin describes, there are mathematical and psychological reasons why we will never be motivated to address the problem volunarily: anyone who denies himself access to the common asset will be something of a sucker. Consider the smug condescension of your SUV driving friends when they regard a toyota prius. Culturally, this country has a long ways to go before we even approach European levels of sensibility, where gas prices have long been sufficiently high to make small, economical cars a fact of life.

So maybe the market has the answer. If higher gas prices will slowly, painfully correct this country towards a greater appreciation of sensible vehicle technology (and I do love the thought of SUV drivers forking over a hundred bucks at each fillup), then maybe something similar will inevitably apply with children.

Now, admittedly, I don't have children. I can discuss them with the sort of logic and distance that probably makes me look insane to parents, and that is a core problem with this particular issue. Cars, we can discuss. The need to procreate, further your bloodline, spread your seed, etc., these are urges so fundamental to human survival that it's a little off the table to start discussing legislation.

But what about the market? It's becoming very expensive to have kids, I hear. College is a luxury that is galloping off into the distance in terms of cost. Food is expensive, and a family sized house in most American urban areas is sufficiently costly to pretty much define a home-owner as middle class. Maybe the added cost of raising a family will, itself, have a corrective effect. It's probably exactly what the neocons are thinking when they decrease health and human service funding -- let the market rule.