World Population Day

Yet another of those “special” days that is suppose to focus our minds upon one of the innumerable problems and crises we all face. 

Today there are about 7.7 billion men, women on children on Earth. Projections ar that by 2050, the world's population will be around 9.7 billion and it will continue to rise, reaching a figure of about 10.9 billion by 2100. Today there are about 1.2 billion Africans. By 2100, there will be more than 4 billion. It should be noted that many countries in Africa are likely to become grimly inhospitable when global heating takes a tighter grip on the planet. Many millions may be driven from their homes as heatwaves, famines and droughts sweep their lands. Yet very little of the burning of fossil fuels that has triggered this climate crisis occurred in Africa. It took place in the west, whose industrial emissions are a key cause of global heating. It is a fact we should do well remember when climate refugees seek salvation on our shores.

Although all expectations are that there will indeed be a population crisis, it can be avoided - but only when we take full control of our resources, natural and man-made. Already the fate of many of us are hunger, homelessness and insecurity. These are the “normal” human condition. For too many of the world’s population, Doomsday has long ago become reality.

Rather than see people as a problem, the Socialist Party's reply is that every new child does bring an additional mouth to feed but they also brings an additional pair of hands able to produce more than enough nourishment. A growing population far from being a handicap, can be a positive good. Given the willingness of capitalism to squander vast resources in wasteful production and adopting a miserly and derisory policy of alms-giving as a solution to global poverty, the Socialist Party's response is the rational reorganisation of the world economy. The logic of a class society will drive allocation of resources towards the rich and away from the poor. Experts dare not draw this conclusion which stares them in the face, namely that the cause of all this unnecessary misery lies in the absurdity of the market system. Money “talks” and is listened to. A deaf ear is turned towards those without it.

The theory that the our planet already or soon will have too many people for its possible food supply is completely bogus. We can potentially and practically provide enough food for many times more than the present population numbers. Those promoters of the over-population argument conflate the problem of poverty with population and neglect the root cause – the exchange economy. The rich and powerful sponsor a message blaming the poor so as not to explain the expansion their own wealth for themselves but not for everyone else. From every parts of the world comes the cries of millions in desperate need that must be systematically ignored. In this era of robots and automation that can offer abundance and plenty for all, the biblical justification for inequality has to be preached, “For ye have the poor always with you”. The Four Horsemen already rides among us, Famine, Disease, Ignorance and Death and not only just in the developing poorer nations but also in the industrialised countries, as well.

The problem is not too many people. If people could decide what they produce, there would be more than enough food and shelter for a far larger world’s population. The problem is that a ruling class minority organises production for its own benefit and for no one else’s. That is why they try to prove that hunger and poverty are not the fault of the rich but the fault of the poor and needy for being too many.