Zachary Karabell
220 μ¢¤³£ ¬μμ¬
consume less as they age. A smaller,
older population spells some relie from
the immense environmental strain o so
many people living on one ¿nite globe.
That is the plus side o the demo-
graphic deÇation. Whether the concomi-
tant greening o the world will happen
quickly enough to oset the worst-case
climate scenarios is an open question—
although current trends suggest that i
humanity can get through the next 20 to
30 years without irreversibly damaging
the ecosystem, the second hal o the
twenty-¿rst century might be consider-
ably brighter than most now assume. The
downside is that a sudden population
contraction will place substantial strain on
the global economic system. Capitalism
is, essentially, a system that maximizes
more—more output, more goods, and
more services. That makes sense, given
that it evolved coincidentally with a
population surge. The success o capital-
ism in providing more to more people
is undeniable, as are its evident defects in
providing every individual with enough.
I global population stops expanding and
then contracts, capitalism—a system
implicitly predicated on ever-burgeoning
numbers o people—will likely not be
able to thrive in its current form. An
aging population will consume more o
certain goods, such as health care, but
on the whole aging and then decreasing
populations will consume less. So much
o consumption occurs early in life, as
people have children and buy homes, cars,
and white goods. That is true not just
in the more aÍuent parts o the world
but also in any country that is seeing a
middle-class surge.
But what happens when these trends
halt or reverse? Think about the future
cost o capital and assumptions ostagnate, with an aging population and
gradual absolute decline thereafter.
Bricker and Ibbitson, on the other hand,
warn that China’s fertility rate, already in
free fall, could actually get much worse
based on the example o Japan, which
would lead China to shrink to less than
700 million people in the second hal
o the century. Morland does agree with
Bricker and Ibbitson on one important
point: when it comes to global population,
the only paradigm that anyone has known
for two centuries is about to change.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The implications o the coming popula-
tion bust occupy a large portion o Bricker
and Ibbitson’s book, and they should
occupy a much larger portion o the
collective debate about the future and
how to prepare for it. The underlying
drivers o capitalism, the sense that
resource competition and scarcity deter-
mine the nature o international relations
and domestic tensions, and the fear
that climate change and environmental
degradation are almost at a doomsday
point—all have been shaped by the
persistently ballooning population o the
past two centuries. I the human
population is about to decline as quickly
as it increased, then all those systems
and assumptions are in jeopardy.
Both books note that the demographic
collapse could be a bright spot for climate
change. Given that carbon emissions
are a direct result o more people needing
and demanding more stu—from food
and water to cars and entertainment—
then it would follow that fewer people
would need and demand less. What’s
more, larger proportions o the planet will
be aging, and the experiences o Japan and
the United States are showing that people