The Struggle to Control World Population

The Sunday Times, on 18th May 2008, reviewed a book by Matthew Connelly called “Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population”. The book looks at methods used over the years to try to reduce and control population levels. The review starts off as follows.

The population-control freaks are back in town. Two factors have given the neo-Malthusians hope that their bleak world view and dismal remedies might once again become intellectually fashionable.

The first is the notion that the most efficient way for mankind to cut its carbon emissions is not to breathe at all - or at least to do so in much smaller numbers. The second is the recent rapid increase in food prices worldwide - which the neo-Malthusians, as ever, do not believe is capable of being addressed by either the market or agricultural technology. These days, even apparently liberal commentators in the mainstream press write effusively in admiration of China's coercive one-child policy.

Against this background, the publication of Matthew Connelly's book is not just perfectly timed: it is essential. The assistant professor of history at Columbia University has delivered a devastating account of the population-control movement; he demonstrates, detail by shocking detail, how a movement that believed it was acting from the highest humanitarian ideals became responsible for callous abuses of human rights on a global scale, ruining millions of lives in a grotesque eugenic experiment.

The book highlights the affect fear can have in making governments do horrible things, believing them to be for the best. How many other foolish actions will take place because of overhyped, exaggerated fears?