World Population Day

We have been bombarded for decades with the idea of overpopulation and food scarcity. It all seems logical and credible, right? Well, think again. The capitalist system spells deprivation and misery for great numbers of the population. The "overpopulation problem" is really a misuse of resources problem. Capitalism, as a system of rationing via the market, is justified in people's minds by a belief in scarcity. "There isn't enough to go round", so we must be restricted in what we are allowed to consume. It has become a cliché to speak of "this overcrowded planet” yet if, for example, the entire world's population were now placed in the United States, the population density in that country would still be little more than that of Holland. The world already grows enough food for 10 billion people. The world production of grain and many other foods is sufficient to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day. We don’t have a scarcity problem. We have a distribution problem. 

 To achieve perfect replacement, humans must have 2.13 children per woman.  Some women have more children while others have fewer, but 2.13 is the magic number to maintain a steady population. More than 90 countries (the USA and Canada among them) are currently experiencing a birthrate under that magic number. People are simply not having children.

Wealth distribution is extremely unequal: More than 70 percent of the world's population own an accumulated 3 percent of global wealth, with each one of them owning 10,000 dollars or less. The millionaires and billionaires of the world, on the other hand, own almost half of the global wealth.

According to Forbes magazine, there are 2,043 billionaires living on Earth in 2017. That's a record number - the first time that the magazine was able to pin down more than 2,000 billionaires. Last year, that number was at 1,810. On the other end of the spectrum, in 2013 there were 767 million people living in extreme poverty according to the World Bank. These people live on less than 1.90 dollars a day.

663 million people have no access to clean drinking water, according to the NGO water.org, and 795 million people didn't have enough to eat in 2015, according to the World Food Programme. One in nine people will go to bed hungry tonight.

People who claim that population growth is the big environmental issue are shifting the blame from the rich to the poor. The overpopulation myths are handy for the exploiters, giving them a "scientific" excuse for the misery they cause so they can enjoy their blood-money without remorse. 

It is not overpopulation is the problem but the private, corporate or state ownership of the means of production and distribution with its competitive ethos and accumulative 5% minority parasitic profit system allied with the coercive state apparatus and war machines to aid and back up its plundering and wasteful use of nature given raw resources as well as the exploitation of the 95% human resources in pursuit of accumulation of profits.

We are more than capable, with a commonly owned world, of sustaining a superabundance of the necessities of life with production for use and not for sale, allied to free access to them, with democratic control exercised by all through delegation, not government or states allied to a self-regulating equilibrium of virtuous, holistically sustainable and ethical environmental standards. Poverty is caused in the developed world by capitalism.

We can easily provide in abundance for everyone here, and even double, triple or quadruple that if we really like. All we need to do that is to create a resource based economy, making sure food and resources are created where people need them and empower people to create their own lives wherever they live. 

The myth that overpopulation is the problem is not supported by evidence. We should reject anti-humanist solutions. We must celebrate humankind.