Why We Don't Need Population Control: Criticisms and Responses

My article on population, originally posted as a facebook note, brought some interesting responses. The names of those who commented shall remain secret.

Comment: Very good points although I don't think it puts a focus on the Philippine context we have to acknowledge differences in cultures across countries. Yes lower population doesn't equal more wealth but don't you agree a high population that can...not be controlled by the government and cannot be provided for is a bad thing even in a economic standpoint. Lastly we have to understand simply adding to the workforce will not have a great increase to the economic pie to oversimplify this we can put this into the context of law of diminishing returns the more you add to the workforce with a limited set of capital the increase to productivity will be very small; take account of empirical data such as unemployment and poverty.

Yes I agree only through modernization of different economic sectors will the Philippines prosper but I believe we shouldn't put the burden to the gov't but to ourselves. (cause i have zero faith in the gov't :))) for what class is this???

My Response: An increased labor supply does mean lower wages. Ignoring licensing requirements, more doctors mean lower wages for all doctors. But this also means lower prices for medical services, which benefits us all. Moreover, economic value is subjective. Diamonds are not valuable because it is costly to mine them. We mine diamonds because they are valuable.

Further, there is as much demand for human labor as there are unfulfilled desires. It is a myth that jobs are limited and should be rationed by government. Primitive societies start off with agriculture and, with an increase in the population, increase in labor force. It doesn't mean they are worse off because now they can consume more as well. Eventually, the peasant farmers will move into new industries and fill demand for other services. It is a win-win situation.

If we take your assumption to be correct, then no civilization would have ever gotten out of subsistence agriculture.

Comment: the main argument for population control is the limited amount of resources we have to go about. Given your argument that production can only increase with an increase in labor input, whether manual or capital. However, you must also c...onsider the materials and resources needed for production. We may have the workforce necessary to produce 2,000,000 tonnes of food, but without the requisite resources we will not get very far. Let us take money out of the equation as money is merely an idea. All the money in the world cannot buy food when there is none to be bought.

You may argue that this threat to existence may force mankind to develop new technologies to look for resources elsewhere or to adapt biologically, thus moving us forward, but I will ask you - forward to what? It has been said that we are beings of infinite needs and wants living in a finite reality. More will only make us want more.

My Response: Let us assume you are correct. How is the RH Bill supposed to solved this problem? If having more children is advantageous to those living in rural areas, then they will not participate in the population control program. Hence, th...e RH Bill becomes another government boondoggle by creating a gigantic commission has no practical use.

Now to the main point. The law of scarcity in economics is often misunderstood. Mankind was more of a burden to nature 2000 years ago because they did not know how to transform nature-given goods efficiently. Cattle were hunted down and were replenished only by nature, unlike now with cattle farms that replenish the supply of cattle faster. Whereas it took 200 hectares of land to produce 200 tonnes of food before, now it only takes a tiny fraction of land to do that.

Also, the economically usable supply of resources today is far greater than that 1000 years ago because of technology. We can now mine in areas where it would be impossible to mine 100 years ago. And the economically usable supply of goods today is still a tiny fraction of nature's raw contribution since we are unable to mine in asteroids and stuff.

Yes, we do have infinite desires but that is the reason money and prices exist to help us decide what is best. If money and prices disappeared tomorrow, then no consumer goods will be left after a week and after several months, 90% of humanity will die off.

The price system, even in its debilitated state today, by guiding the activities of 6 billion people in an economically rational way, supports life.

Comment: Wait a second. Are you talking about "House Bill No. 5043 (Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008)"?

Have you read it? There is nothing there about population control measures (at least in the way that you hint at). It is... about access to information and services related to reproductive health.

Setting aside the idea of needing more laws in the first place, what exactly is wrong with allowing people access to something?

My Response: There are many reasons and it is indeed coercive in the same way as SSS and PhilHealth are. I'm surprised, I thought your siding with me on this issue.

http://jlp-law.com/blog/full-text-of-house-bill-no-5043-reproductive-health-a...nd-population-development-act-of-2008/

1. Unnecessary (read article above)
2. Creates massive bureaucracy
3. No Certificate of Compliance, no marriage license(Sec 14)
4. Forces employer to pay (Sec 17)
5. Affirmative action law (I think you know how this works out) (Sec 17)

Statist Superstition

The typical statist believes:

- that government can suddenly change for the better despite deeply embedded financial interests
- that government is our friend and can give us free stuff that only the state can produce
- that 'we' are really the government and we don't have to worry about abuse since 'we' can change it the next election
- that government bureaucrats carry within them both the tacit knowledge and calculative ability necessary to allocate resources to their best uses
- that taxation is what we pay for to live in a civilized society (why not raise taxes more so we be more civilized?)
- that we have no natural rights which stem from our creator but only those signed into law by high-powered strangers
- that individuals can be greedy and evil and have to be monitored but once they enter into government they suddenly turn into virtuous and selfless men
- that politics is a sane and necessary part of society and NOT a brutal circus activity
- that politicians are NOT psychotherapeautically suspect
- that political campaigns can be worthwhile to pay attention to and are NOT the longest running bullshit marathon in history
- that congressmen, whose average net worth is 30 M (in 2001) actually gives a shit about the poor
- that politicians can be honest when an insignificant percentage of campaign promises in the history of politics were actually fulfilled
- that political parties reflect the differing opinions and ideologies of the populace instead of advocating a fundamentally statist agenda
- that the system that we live in is moral
- that the Philippines is a capitalist country instead of a statist one
- that democracy is the best form of government
- that voting works
- that capitalism is evil

What Bastiat Can Teach Us About Typhoon Juan

The Philippine Government has patted itself in the back for their ‘good’ performance in handling typhoon Juan. It is as if the government help is gratuitous and does not or did not incur any cost to the public when in fact paying taxes is an enormous cost to the public. The government also makes everyone less prepared and less responsible by promising security and stability. The standards by which they judge their own performance must also be questioned since the government is such a big and powerful organization. So before concluding ad hoc that the government ‘did well’ in managing typhoon Juan, it is helpful to consider the unseen effects of government interventionism.

Taxes on private capital – As illustrated in the Haiti earthquake, wealthier and more civilized societies are better able to defend against natural disasters than poorer societies because of better infrastructure, sturdier housing, higher quality medical care and technical expertise. All of these come from capital accumulation, therefore taxes on private capital remove individuals’ ability to defend against natural disasters.

Government mandated monopolization of electricity and water – Water and electricity companies that are not pressured by competition in the market are inefficient. In the event of a strong typhoon, having water and electricity could be a matter of life and death.

Building codes – To quote economist Robert Murphy,

“It’s more expensive to construct a building that can withstand an intense earthquake. Imposing US building codes in Haiti wouldn’t have saved hundreds of thousands of people; it would simply have made them homeless all these years.”

Same applies to Typhoon Juan

Relocation of informal settlers – The Philippine government relocates informal settlers near riverbanks and waterways and sites affected by government. These relocation programs are limited to land acquisition for the informal settler and do not account for the long term hence resulting in disaster. It is estimated that 700,000 of the 5 million informal settlers within Metro Manila live in danger zones. The poor who would rather live near where they go to work are forced to live in far off areas. One security guard and his family were relocated far from city where the security guard works and his children go to school. To make ends meet, the security guard now lives in a worker’s barracks to be close to work and only meets his family only twice a month. Most of the times, the relocation sites make the poor worse off because of the lack of jobs in the vicinity.


Zoning laws raise the cost of living, create sprawl, inhibit community building, and restrict small businesses - With zoning laws in place, the government mandates how plots of land are to be developed, not the individual. It creates inefficiency and attracts corruption. Land that might be better used for commercial purposes are classified as residential land hence making the price of commercial real estate higher than what it would have been. Local community-building is hampered since commercial interactions between neighbors are less likely to occur. If there were no zoning laws, then one probably wouldn’t need to drive downtown to go to a coffee shop or grocery store, there would be small coffee shops and grocery stores in the neighborhood. Zoning laws can be viewed as another barrier to entry in starting a business since one is limited in planning a good location. It is no doubt that zoning laws have negative effects on the poor. More on zoning here.

NFA uselessness – The National Food Authority is a totally useless organization that has wasted a huge amount of food stocks. Some facts gathered here:

- NFA has incurred a debt of Php 171.6 billion
- It costs them P5 for to give P1 of subsidy according the the Finance Secretary Purisima
- World Bank study estimates that only 27 percent of the poor have been fed by the NFA. Most of the subsidies have gone to people who did not need it or allegedly the wallets of enterprising NFA employees.
- In 2004, for instance, NFA bought 900,000 metric tons of rice as against the need of only 117,000 metric tons. Three years later, NFA again imported 1.827 million metric tons of rice against the need of just 589,000 metric tons.


Government, as Frederick Bastiat noted, is an institution which takes from us. Unfortunately, this idea is lost on most people who believe government is there to give free education, free health care, etc. The cost side of the equation must always be considered.

Immorality in US Public Health System

So much for the humane institution of public health. It so happens that the US government has been secretly conducting inhuman medical experiments on 696 helpless mentally ill Guatemalans, infecting them with syphilis without their consent. The mentality ill prisoners were infected by the drug in sometimes cowardly and despicable fashion by sending prostitutes into jail cells.

40 similar experiments were done in what is known as the 'dark chapter in American medical research' according to the yahoo article.

It is so easy for the likes of Hillary Clinton to apologize decades after the brutal crime happened and to a basket-case of a nation. It makes them appear like the kindhearted and wise overlords that they wipe their asses to look like. But of course this is just to feed their gigantic egos. If they were really sorry about the actions of the government in the past then they would have already quit and gotten a real job.

And what of the promise that there will no longer be such abuses because of stricter regulations? We must always view government as a monopoly firm. If one department of a firm --- say its health care department --- committed abuses and the corporation promised to impose regulations on its own department, would that be a reliable assurance? Of course not. Likewise, a government that self-regulates itself cannot assure that it will not commit such abuses again, especially when (unlike private business) they suffer no losses by doing so.

Why We Don't Need Population Control

Population has become a subject of heated debate during the past few years. Proponents of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill argue that the Philippines is becoming overpopulated and that it is undermining the public welfare. Everybody will partake less of the economic pie because resources, especially land is fixed. Neighboring Asian countries have enacted population control measures and are doing better than the Philippines, so therefore, higher per capita GDP must be because of population control measures! And in the name of sustainable development, the Philippine government must enact population control measures here. The idea is that lower population equals more wealth, and more happiness!

There are many problems with this sort of thinking, but to start off, we must remember that per capita GDP describes an aggregate, and does not describe the distribution of income throughout society. A hypothetical country wherein 90% are poor but 10% are extremely rich would still yield high per capita figures. More importantly, a lower population does not imply that everybody gets a little bit more. Economic demand is not constituted solely by desire, but by desire plus purchasing power. An infinite desire to have a BMW does not mean infinite demand. Demand only exists where there is purchasing power accompanying desire. If the population of the Philippines were reduced by 1/3, the poor would not be any better financially. If we assume that the 1/3 that disappeared were part of the labor force, then society would be worse off because there would be less productivity. Division of labor is compromised making goods and services less available and more expensive.

The concept to grasp here is Say's Law, named after classical liberal economist Jean Baptiste Say. A farmers supply of wheat excess of what he consumes constitutes his demand for all other goods. You first need to produce in order to consume. A lower population means less productive labor, and hence less ability to consume.

On the individual level, the population of your country says nothing about the quality of life you can achieve. If you want to better your lot in life then you work, you take part in the division of labor. The more people take part in the division of labor, the more the specialization, and the more efficient wealth creation becomes for everybody.

The market system is not a zero-sum game. If you want to consume then you have to produce, you have to add to the economic pie. Prices determine what you must produce and what to consume. Prices of labor or wages guide people in getting jobs, as with prices for other items. The only thing government can do is impede this process and create more consumers than producers, as most Western welfare schemes, by subsidizing the unemployed. They have changed the rules of the game. For now you can earn an income and consume goods without working, ignoring the Biblical tenet "For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat."(2 Thessalonians 3:10)

It is vain to take the collectivistic approach and deal with charts and figures rather than real, living, changing economic agents at the ground level who are unique and make different choices. The government simply cannot look at population growth charts, compare them with population charts with other countries, and ex post facto come to a conclusion that will lead to the creation of another corrupt bureaucracy.

Empirical evidence does not warrant the claims of the population controllers. Hong Kong, Monaco, and Singapore are ranked in the top five in population density yet those three countries are also among the top ten in terms of per capita GDP. At the other end of the list, it is the poorest countries that have the lowest population density. Countries like Congo, Mozambique, Mali, and Zambia. It is important to note that just because less population does not equal more wealth for everybody, does not mean more population necessarily means more wealth for everybody. It is only when the productive worker or entrepreneur produces more than he consumes, or in the act of saving, that he can benefit society the most. The point is that in order to have high population numbers, there must be, or must have been a good workforce and capital goods enough to support it.

Poor Southeast Asian and Latin American countries have a large portion of their labor force in the agricultural sector where many working hands are needed. Large family sizes make good financial sense in the context of rural life. Children in rural areas are viewed as assets in the financial sense because they contribute to the family income at a young age. Urban families have less children because children are viewed as 'liabilities', their education and various other consumption items unavailable to rural children are expenses of the family. So contrary to the claims of the population controllers, having many children are actually good for rural families. And how could they not be? Rural folks do not mindlessly produce more children without weighing the costs and benefits. Families in the rural area are just as responsible as those in the cities. Or maybe the political establishment thinks differently?

The truth is that the poverty of the Filipino people have nothing to do with population. The Philippines is suffering because of the government interventionism hampering the market process and a majority that refuses to recognize and accept the inherent evil of state coercion.


Side notes:

If the goal is to reduce population numbers as such, then capital accumulation, particularly, machination and modernization of the agricultural sector is key. In the agricultural areas, the benefits of having children surpass the benefits of not having children. The solution is to reverse this. By making it unnecessary for agriculture to be labor intensive, labor will move to higher paying industrial and service-oriented sectors where children will not be needed on the fields and can be sent to school. And the only way this can happen is to get the government out of agriculture, out of fertilizer subsidies, import quotas and customs fees for agricultural commodities, out of the provision of irrigation, out of crop insurance, but that is another topic for another day.

I will be forever dumbfounded by the silly attitude of the political establishment in accusing lack of education for the alleged overpopulation of the country. This is typical leftist blame the victim mentality. For who, in fact is educating the masses of the people, the freakin' government is!

If you sincerely believe in reducing population growth for whatever reason, you can do it the moral way by spending your OWN money to buy condoms and distribute to people. Voting on other peoples' property just to serve an unfounded belief (look at sources) is wrong and is why the government can get away with a lot of horrible acts. Statism is just so easy to subscribe to. No down-payment required.

Sources:

http://mises.org/econsense/ch41.asp
http://www.pop.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV9GCo5_D8Y

Jueteng, Rural Banks, Politics

http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view/20100916-292703/Rural-bank-group-denies-laundering-money-for-jueteng-operators

The topic of the inquirer article in the link is about jueteng money being transacted by rural banks. According to Vicente Mendoza, Rural Bankers Association of the Philippines(RBAP) executive director,

“Rural banks are at the forefront of countryside development and it is not our desire to be used in jueteng activities. Rural Banks strictly comply with BSP [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas], PDIC [Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.], and AMLA [Anti-Money Laundering Council] regulations,”

The first issue here is the ability of rural banks to help poor people in the countryside. Rural banks are mandated to offer financial services to those whom are not served by larger banks. Given this, it would make no sense to restrict the rural banks from having a larger pool of loanable funds. By not allowing jueteng money to be deposited in rural banks through the ‘anti-money laundering’ laws, development in the countryside is forestalled.

Secondly, there is really no rational basis for such ‘anti-money laundering’ laws to exist. Even taking the assumption that government has the right to stop gambling activities of its choosing, such laws will not help to stop jueteng operations. It will only create uncertainty for the subscribers of jueteng, mostly poor people, and might even empower the black market by creating a demand in it for the handling of such winnings. Then there’s the moral problem, for ‘anti-money laundering’ laws are a heinous attack on privacy. Giving the government the power to monitor commercial transactions means giving it the power to investigate your work and even your home. Such a loose framework for the state to work on opens so many opportunities for the predatory state to abuse its power.

Lastly, jueteng as a gambling activity is in no way fundamentally different from all other gambling activities, and its voluntary status makes it immoral for the government to control or abolish it. Regardless of personal reservations upon the matter, jueteng is beneficial to those who have voluntarily subscribed to it. To quote the great one Ludwig von Mises,

“Since nobody is in a position to substitute his own value judgments for those of the acting individual, it is vain to pass judgment on other people's aims and volitions. No man is qualified to declare what would make another man happier or less discontented.”

There are also unintended consequences in criminalizing jueteng. Like all other commodities or activities with high demand, a government ban on such activity would create a black market where violence is included in the medium of transaction. Barbarism is introduced and norms of practices of civil commerce like contracts, arbitration and knowledge sharing are removed. Government prohibitionism is a war against man’s ability to choose and since it undermines economic freedom, it is also a war against prosperity.

But then there’s the political dimension to all of this. The reason why jueteng will not be legalized, at least in the near future, is because the Philippine police and politically-connected rascals and mafia lords will not be able cartelize the profitable game. They get so much in bribes and in payoffs in keeping this game illegal and hence will fight to keep it illegal. It is no surprise that Noynoy is lenient on discussing the topic. This issue is just another reminder of the sad reality of politics and why nothing ever changes in government except when it is in the government’s interest.

Obamacare Blowback

*Image taken from

http://finance.yahoo.com/insurance/article/110602/health-insurers-plan-hikes?mod=insurance-health

*This article is also a reaction to the linked yahoo news article



This illustration indicates the rate increase attributable to Obamacare. However, we must not forget that rate increases not specifically attributable to Obamacare are the result of government hyper-regulation nonetheless.



First time I saw this article I told myself 'What do you expect!?!'. No rational and decent person would want to participate in a corrupt welfare scheme, which is really what this is, it has nothing to do with insurance. In fact, government has completely destroyed the idea of health insurance long before Obamacare was enacted. There can only be insurance where insurance companies can create groupings and sub-groupings of classes. In order to do this, they have to --- wait for it --- discriminate! Suppose insurance company X has a number of professional boxers and economists as clients. They would of course have to segregate the two groups. The professional boxer has to pay a higher insurance premium because his risk of injury is much higher than that of the economist, more importantly, he has to be pooled together with other boxers while the economist has to be pooled together with other economists. Putting the two groups in one pool will amount to a redistribution scheme as the economist has to pay a higher premium, subsidizing the boxers he is being pooled with.

A rule of thumb when it comes to insurance is that events under the control of individuals are not insurable. There is really no such thing as car insurance since the physical condition of a car falls under the responsibility of its owner. No insurance company would offer car insurance since they will incur losses because of clients taking advantage of car insurance. This rule is also the reason why so -called government 'unemployment insurance' creates more unemployment. The government has created, in the realm of health care, a scheme similar to having insurance on the loss of sales ---- it is that ludicrous!

Here are a few actual examples of what modern health insurance in America is like:

- insurance coverage for alcoholism
- insurance coverage for drug addiction
- insurance coverage for psychological problems
- insurance coverage for body transplants (liver and heart)
- insurance coverage for hair loss
- allocation of funds to sperm banking
- allocation of funds to social workers
- insurance companies cannot ask what lifestyle people lead
- no genetic tests

It is obvious that health care insurance in the United States even before Obamacare is really just a fraudulent redistribution scheme creating perverse incentives that will make a population less healthy and more degenerate. It is therefore no surprise why so many Americans do not have health insurance for the simple reason that they did not want to pay high premiums to subsidize sickness, recklessness and degeneracy and in the process creating more of such. It is proven that the main reason for Americans being 'uninsured' is this voluntary refusal. About one third of the 'uninsured' in America are illegal immigrants, who do not have the means to pay for hyper-regulated health coverage owing their poor beginnings.

Obamacare further destroys application of sound actuarial science and economic calculation by expanding the problems stated above. Unfortunately, the blowback from government intervention will only cause a ratchet effect, inducing more government intervention and controls in the health care industry.

Whereas it is cheaper and more rational for a person to just pay the penalty in the current version of Obamacare, I have a feeling that the US administration will try to abolish this option and create a full socialist health care system in the future.