The Problem with Jeffrey Sachs' New Book

People are good

Sachs in Common Wealth joins a long list of people who think that there are too many people in world and that something should be done about it. Aid programs have long done 'family planning', which is the ultimate insult to those who for some reason or another keep wanting aid - what could be more insulting than the rich telling the poor not to have children ! Malthus was the original doomsayer, then we had the Club of Rome. All of these prophets of doom and overpopulation have been proved wrong. We have not run out of resources and the Earth has not suffered mass starvation. Unfettered from constraints from above people will survive and prosper. Julian Simon called people the 'Ultimate Resource'. Workers would much rather live in a world of people, despite how annoying we can all be sometime, than in a world without people, and has a hard time understanding those who think that planning from above is a better world outlook than one of people having the freedom to live and prosper on their own.