Chapter 13 Chapter 8 Extended Order and Population Growth

The most critical factor for a country's prosperity is the growth of its inhabitants. Malthusian Panic Disorder: Fears of Overpopulation I have been trying to explain that, despite the objections from our instincts, despite the fear of all the uncertainties in the spontaneous process and the general ignorance of the economy, despite the fact that the attempt to achieve by so-called rational means is actually an atavistic goal There's all this trite rhetoric about how the extended order of human cooperation evolved in the movement.I also maintain that if these movements were successful in eliminating the market, the extended order would collapse and many people would suffer and die.Like it or not, the current world population already exists.Destroying their material base in order to achieve the "moral" or instinctive improvements preached by socialists is tantamount to condoning the heinous crime of killing hundreds of millions and impoverishing the rest. (See my 1954/1967:208; and 1983:25-29.)

It is hardly a new discovery that certain evolving patterns of behavior, institutions, and ways in which humans interact, and the benefits they confer, have a strong relationship to population size.One of Adam Smith's most profound insights (1776/1976: 31), was that "the force of exchange provides the occasion for the division of labor, so that the degree of division of labor must always be limited by the magnitude of this force, or in other words, subject to the size of the market"; see also "Two Fragments on the Division of Labor" in his Lectures on Jurisprudence (1978:582-586).We have also seen clearly that those who adopt the practices of market competition, as their numbers increase, displace those who observe other habits.Following a similar claim made by John Locke in a second treatise (1690/1887), the American historian James Sullivan mentioned how Native Americans were replaced by European colonists as early as 1795, and can now make 500 Where a thoughtful man can live in abundance, there used to be only a primitive man who could "live with hunger" by hunting (1795:139). (Those Native American tribes who continued to live primarily as hunters were also replaced by people from the other direction, tribes who learned to farm.)

Although the replacement of one group by another, or one set of practices by another, is often bloody, it doesn't always need to be.Undoubtedly, the course of events will have been different in different places, and it is impossible for us to detail them here, but one can imagine different outcomes of events.It may be said that in some places invaded by the extended order, those who adopted new practices and were thus able to reap more from the land they already had provided other occupants in return for being able to use their land. (without the occupants doing anything, and the "invaders" using force), often as much, and sometimes more, than they could gain by hard work.On the other hand, its very high density of habitation also enables more advanced peoples to resist attempts to dislodge them from a vast expanse of land which has been used and necessary for them in the age of primitive use of the land.Many of these processes took place under conditions of complete peace, although, of course, the greater military power of commercially organized people tended to hasten the process.

Even if the expansion of the market and the growth of the population could be achieved entirely by peaceful means, informed and thoughtful people are now less and less willing to continue to accept the connection between population growth and the prosperity of civilization.Instead, when they think about our current population density, and especially the rate at which it has grown over the past 300 years, they become hypervigilant, viewing the prospect of population growth as a nightmarish catastrophe.Even such a wise philosopher as Frye (1967:60) admired Julian Haxley for recognizing that "before it was as widely recognized as it is now" "Population growth is the primary threat to the present and future well-being of mankind".

I have always argued that socialism is a threat to the present and future well-being of mankind, by which I mean that neither socialism nor any known alternative to the market order can sustain the present world population.But objections such as the one just quoted have often been raised by those who do not advocate socialism, who believe that the market order, which is both the maker of such a large population and the product of this large population, is also of great importance to the human race. Happiness poses a serious threat.Now it is obviously necessary to speak of this contradiction.

The modern notion that population growth will impoverish the world is simply false.It is largely due to the simplistic Malthusian theory of population; Malthus's theory, in his time, provided a reasonable first step towards understanding the problem, but modern conditions have rendered it meaningless .Malthus posited that human labor power could be regarded as an almost homogeneous factor of production (that is, wage laborers were all of the same nature, they were all engaged in agriculture, they had the same tools and opportunities), which could not have been further from the truth in the economic order of the time far (theoretical two-factor economy).For Malthus, one of the earliest discoverers of the principle of diminishing returns, this must have meant that any increase in the number of workers would lead to a fall in what we now call marginal productivity, and thus a fall in workers' incomes. This is especially true when the best land is divided rationally into small parcels (for the relation between Malthus's two theorems, see McCleary, 1953: 111).

However, under the changed conditions we have been discussing, this is no longer the case, when the labor force is no longer homogeneous but diverse and diverse.Population growth and employment density, accompanied by increased communication and improved communication and transportation technologies, gave rise to an advantage in the division of labor, leading to rapid diversification, differentiation, and specialization, making it possible to develop new factors of production and increase productivity (see Chapters 2, 3 and below).Different skills, whether natural or acquired, become distinctive and rare elements, often complementary in many ways; this makes it worthwhile for workers to acquire new skills that command different market prices.Voluntary specialization results from differences in expected returns.So labor can cause returns to increase rather than decrease.A denser population would also adopt crafts that would be useless in less populated places, and if they had been developed elsewhere, they could also be imported and quickly adopted (provided the required capital could be obtained).Even the mere fact of living peacefully and regularly interacting with more people enables the available resources to be more fully utilized.

In this case, labor is no longer a homogenous factor of production, so Malthus' conclusions no longer apply.On the contrary, an increase in population, due to further differentiation, can now lead to a further increase in population, which will not only be self-accelerating for an indeterminate period, but is a prerequisite for an increase in material and (due to individuation) spiritual civilization. So it's not just more people that bring productivity gains, it's more different people.People are powerful because they are so different: the possibility of new specializations (depending not so much on the rise of individual intelligence, but on the increasing diversity of individuals) opens up possibilities for more successful use of the earth's resources. Base.This in turn requires the expansion of the network of indirect reciprocal services guaranteed by market signaling mechanisms.The two-factor model, along with the conclusions drawn by Malthus, became less and less appropriate as markets revealed entirely new opportunities for specialization.

The widespread fear that the population growth that participated in and enabled all of these phenomena also led to poverty and disaster was largely due to a misunderstanding of one statistical calculation. This is not to deny that population growth may lead to a decrease in average income.But this possibility is also wrongly interpreted—a mistake that arises from conflating the average income of the existing population in different income classes with the average income of a larger population that arose later.The proletariat is an extra population that will never grow without new jobs.The fall in average income occurs simply because a large increase in population generally causes an increase in the number of the poorer rather than the wealthier segments of the population.But it should not be falsely concluded from this that all will become poorer in the process.No one in the existing society necessarily becomes poor (although it is possible that some rich people are displaced by some latecomers in the process and thus fall to a lower level).In fact, everyone already alive has the potential to be a little richer; but as a large number of poor people are added to the existing population, average incomes are likely to fall.It is a trivial fact that the decrease in the average is not inconsistent with the increase in the number of all income groups, but the increase in the number of high-income people is lower than the increase in the number of low-income people.That is, if the bottom of the income pyramid increases more than its height, the average increase in total income will be smaller.

A more correct conclusion follows from this: the poor majority benefit from growth more than the wealthy minority.Capitalism creates the possibility of employment.It creates conditions in which those who have not received from their parents the tools and land necessary to sustain themselves and their offspring can obtain them from others, to the mutual benefit of course.The process that enables people to survive in poverty and reproduce offspring that would hardly be able to grow up and reproduce without productive work opportunities: the process that brought millions of people into the world and made them survive without which they would not be able to exist at all, or even if they survived for a while, they would not be able to reproduce.In this regard, the poor benefit more from the process.As Karl Marx said, "capitalism" creates the proletariat: it enables them to be born and to survive.

So the whole argument that the rich deprive the poor of things that would have belonged, or at least could have, had they not used force, is sheer nonsense. A nation, the size of its capital reserves, and the traditions and customs it has accumulated for obtaining and exchanging information determine that nation's ability to sustain a large population.People will have jobs only if those who engage in investing activities, building a bridge between present expenditures and future returns, can get at least as much from this activity as they can from diverting capital for other uses. , in order to produce various materials and tools to meet the future needs of the unknown population. So without the rich -- without those who accumulate capital, the poor would only get poorer if they survived, struggling on poor land, and every drought would kill most of the children they tried to raise.The creation of capital changed this more than any other way.Since the capitalist is able to employ others for his own purposes, his ability to support them is beneficial to both parties.This ability is further increased when some people are able to employ others not only for their own immediate needs, but also for the purpose of exchanging goods and services with countless others.Therefore, property, contracts, trade, and the employment of capital are not for the benefit of only a few. Envy and ignorance lead people to think that if a person has more wealth than he can consume at present, it is not merit but to be condemned.However, the view that the accumulation of this capital can only be done at someone else's expense reverts to a baseless economic view, although it may seem so to some, and it prevents a proper understanding of economic development . Regional characteristics of the problem Another source of misunderstanding is that population growth is often only considered on a global scale.Demographic issues must be seen as regional, taking on different dynamics in different regions.The real question is whether, for whatever reason, the number of inhabitants of a given area always grows faster than the resources of that area (including the resources they can use for trade). As long as population growth is due to increased productivity of the population in the region, or a more efficient use of their resources, and not due to external artificial support for such growth, there is nothing to worry about.We have no moral right to prevent the growth of the rest of the world's population any more than we have an obligation to assist it.But on the other hand, if the materially developed countries continue to provide assistance and even financial support to the population growth of regions like the Sahel in Central Africa, and the existing population (not to mention the increasing population) of these regions The foreseeable future is almost impossible to survive by its own efforts, which creates a moral contradiction.Attempts to maintain the population above a certain number, so that the accumulated capital cannot be continuously used for reproduction, will reduce the number of people that can be maintained.Unless we intervene, these populations will only grow as long as they can feed themselves.By helping the populations of regions like the Sahel to grow, the developed countries raise hope and create conditions of commitment, and at the same time take on a great responsibility that they are likely to relinquish sooner or later.Man is not infinitely capable, and acknowledging the limits of his powers, rather than an instinctive urge to ward off distant misfortunes (unfortunately, he can't help much) can bring him closer to realizing his wishes . At any rate, in the foreseeable future that concerns us, there is no danger that the world's population as a whole will outstrip its raw material resources, and we have every reason to assume that inherent forces have halted the process long before this happens . (For related studies see Simon, [1977, 1981a, 1981b], Bosselup [1981], North [1973, 1981], Bauer [1981], and my own 1954:15 and 1967:208.) In the temperate regions of all continents except Europe, there are vast areas not only capable of sustaining population growth, but whose inhabitants can expect to achieve what the "Western" countries have achieved, simply by increasing the density of land habitation and intensifying the exploitation of its resources. The level of general affluence, comfort and civilization.In these areas the population must increase if the people are to achieve the standard they aspire to.Population growth is in their self-interest, and to persuade them to reduce it, let alone force them to do so, is not only presumptuous, but also morally untenable.Serious problems might arise if we tried to feed all the world's populations indiscriminately, but there is no reason for outsiders to object to their population growth as some groups are able to maintain their population numbers through their own efforts.Residents of countries that are already very rich have hardly any claim to an "end to growth" (as the Club of Rome or the recently published Global 2000 did) or to block countries that resent such policies. In this proposed policy of restricting the population, there are some unreasonable views, such as the fact that developed nations should turn a part of the area still inhabited by underdeveloped nations into a kind of natural park.The idyllic vision of primitive man, enjoying the bliss of rural poverty, happily forgoing development, indifferent to the benefits of civilization which it could bring to many of them, of which they are already aware, is based on sheer illusion. above.As we know, these benefits do require some sacrifice, instinctive or otherwise.But less developed peoples must decide for themselves independently whether these sacrifices for material comfort and advanced culture are worth it.Of course they cannot be forced to modernize, but neither can isolation policies prevent them from pursuing opportunities for modernization. Except when the increase in the number of poor forced the government to redistribute income for its own benefit, there is no instance in history where the standard of living of its members who have reached different levels has declined due to population growth.Simon has convincingly stated that "there is no empirical data, either now or in the past, showing that population growth, size or density has had a negative effect on living standards" (198la: 18 and his major works on the subject in 1977 and 1981b ). diversity and difference Differences are key to understanding population growth, so it is worth expanding on this crucial issue.The unique achievement of man, the achievement that leads to many of his other outstanding characteristics, lies in his difference and diversity.With the exception of a few species that have produced comparable diversity due to human-imposed human selection, human diversity is unparalleled.This is because, through the process of natural selection, humans have developed extremely efficient organs for learning from their fellow humans.This has allowed human population growth to be self-motivated rather than self-limiting, as in other species, for most of its history.Population growth follows a sort of chain-reaction pattern, with more densely populated land opening up new opportunities for specialization, leading to increased productivity of individuals, which in turn leads to further population growth.In addition, among this large population, not only have developed a variety of intrinsic attributes, but also formed a variety of cultural traditions, and their strong intelligence, especially in their long maturity, enables them to choose from them.Most of the human race are now able to sustain themselves precisely because of their high degree of flexibility, because there are so many different individuals whose different gifts enable them to form an infinite variety by assimilating different traditions. Combine to make them further crafted from each other. The diversity of new opportunities afforded by increasing population density is, in essence, diversity of labour, skills, information, knowledge, property and income.The process is neither simple nor causal, nor predictable, since at each stage increasing population density merely creates unrealized possibilities that may or may not be discovered and rapidly be implemented.The process proceeds very rapidly only when some earlier persons pass this stage and their practices can be imitated by others.Learning takes place through multiple channels and requires a premise of richness in personal situations and communication between groups and individuals that can lead to cooperation. Once people learned to take advantage of the new opportunities afforded by increased population density (not only due to the division of labour, knowledge, and property, but also the specialization due to the accumulation of new forms of capital by some individuals), this became the basis for further growth.By diversification, difference, association and mutual influence over increasing distances, and a process of dispersal over time, man has become a distinct species which retains some structural features conducive to the further increase of its membership. The Extended Order, as far as we know, is quite possibly the most complex structure in the universe, in which already complex biological organisms acquire the ability to learn and assimilate traditional elements beyond the individual, which enables them to continuously Adapt to changing structures involving more complex orders.Temporary barriers to further population growth are gradually broken down, population growth provides the basis for further population growth, and so on, producing a progressive accumulation process until all the fertile and fertile regions of the earth are occupied by equally dense populations. center and edge Of course there will be an end, but I don't think the most frightening population explosion that will lead to "only standing tickets in the room" is imminent.The population growth story may now be drawing to a close, or at least about to enter a new level.Because the highest population growth never occurs in a developed market economy, but always occurs on the fringes of a developed economy, in those who do not have the fertile land and equipment to sustain themselves, and it is the "capitalists" who provide them with a new existence among the poor of opportunity. However, those edges are gradually disappearing.And hardly any country has re-entered the fringe: an explosion of population growth that, in the last generation or so, has reached almost every corner of the globe. Therefore, there are good reasons to be skeptical about the speculation that the trend towards unrestricted acceleration of population growth over the past few hundred years will continue indefinitely into the future.We can hope and expect that those who are now entering the extended order will gradually decelerate their worrisome population growth once they have exhausted their remaining opportunities.After all, the very wealthy do not show this trend.We don't know much to say when this turning point will be reached, but it is reasonable to assume that it will be a considerable time before we arrive at the mythic horrors of an inevitable and indefinite population increase. before. I thought the problem was going away: the population growth rate was approaching or had peaked, not going up, but going down.One cannot say with certainty, of course, but, as long as there is no deliberate intervention to stimulate its growth, it appears (if not actually happened) that population growth will peak sometime in the last decade of this century and then gradually decline thereafter. As early as the mid-1960s, the annual population growth rate in developing regions reached a peak of about 2.4%, and then began to decline, reaching the current level of about 2.1%.During the same period, the population growth rate in the more developed regions has begun to decline.So, by the mid-1960s, the population appears to have reached an all-time high annual growth rate and began to decline (United Nations, 1980 and Cohen, 1984: 50-51).As Cohen puts it: "Humanity has come to enforce or experience the limitations that govern all of its kind." These dynamics may become easier to understand if we look more closely at populations at the margins of developing economies.Those rapidly rising cities in developing countries, such as Mexico City, Cairo, Calcutta, Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Caracas, Lagos, Mumbai, have doubled or more their population in a short period of time, and the old city centers Surrounded by urban slums or "suburban ghettos". Population growth in these cities is due to the fact that people living on the fringes of the market economy have benefited from participation in the market economy (for example, by receiving better medical care, more useful information, and advanced economic institutions and behaviors) ), but have not fully adapted to the traditions, morals and customs of this economy.For example, they may still practice reproductive habits outside the market economy. If their wealth increases slightly, the first reaction of the poor is to have some offspring, at least enough for their retirement.These old habits are gradually, and in some places even rapidly disappearing, and these marginalized groups, especially those closest to the center, are adopting traditions that are more favorable to them in terms of birth control.So growing commercial centers are intriguing in part because they provide models of how, by imitation, many people can achieve what they want. These urban slums are an interesting phenomenon in their own right, and they confirm several other arguments made earlier.For example, the rural population around these cities has not been reduced by urban slums; they have also generally benefited from urban growth.Cities provide survival opportunities for millions of people who, if they (or their parents) hadn't migrated to cities, would have died or could not have been born.Those who migrated to the cities (or the fringes) were brought here not because of the benevolence of city dwellers who provided them with jobs and tools, nor because of the well-meaning advice of wealthy country "neighbors," but because they listened to They heard rumors about other poor people they didn't know (perhaps from some distant mountain area) who went to the developing city because they heard that they could work there and earn money, thus saving their lives.These people survive because they yearn for a better life, even because they want it, not because of the good deeds of others, and the effect of doing so is better than that of good deeds.Although it is impossible for people from the countryside to understand the problem with abstract concepts, they know from market signals that the current income that is not enough to pay for the consumption of the rich in the city is used to provide other people with tools and livelihoods as a countermeasure. The reward for their work enabled those who did not inherit arable land and farm implements to survive. Of course, it is difficult for some to admit that those who live in urban slums have chosen slums rather than the country (for which there is so much romance) as their place of residence on purpose.But as Engels found in the case of Irish and English peasants in the slums of what was then Manchester, it did. The main reason for the poverty in these marginal areas is that the marginal utility of the economy is dominated by the residents there rather than the country people.The reverse "circular" effects of Third World governments' efforts to manage their economies, and their ability to eliminate jobs for marginalized groups by making concessions to entrenched workers or misguided social reformers Ability is also a factor that cannot be ignored. Finally, one can sometimes here directly witness some of the processes of selection in their clearest form, that are most brutally and clearly struck down by business ethics, not by those who have learned to practice them in a relatively advanced form, but by The latecomers who have not yet learned how to deal with them.Those who live on the margins are not yet fully compliant with the new habits (and so are always considered "undesirables", sometimes even bordering on criminals).They also experienced firsthand the first shocks of the habits of a more advanced civilization upon those who still thought in tribal and village morals.No matter how painful this process was for them, they also benefited from the division of labor formed by the practice of the business class, and it can even be said that they benefited more; many of them gradually changed their ways, and thus improved their quality of life.At least some minimal change in their behavior is a prerequisite for their consent to enter into larger established groups and gradually increase their share of the total product. The number of people who live by different systems of rules determines which system will prevail.These systems of rules are not necessarily systems that the masses at large (people living in urban slums are just one vivid example) have fully accepted themselves, but systems that are followed by a core group, where more and more people gather. around, sharing the revenue of the ever-growing total product.Those who have at least partially accepted and benefited from the habits of extended order often do so without realizing the ultimate cost of such change.Not only the primitive country people will learn these cruel lessons, but the military conquerors who ruled a place's subjects and even eliminated its elite often realized later with regret that in order to share the local interests, they had to do as the locals did. capitalism keeps the proletarian alive In the remaining space we may wish to summarize our main arguments and point out some of their implications. If we ask those who are called capitalists what one owes most to their moral practice, the answer is: people's existence.The socialists' explanation for the existence of a proletariat because of the exploitation of groups that would otherwise be able to sustain themselves is a fantasy.The great majority of the people who make up the present proletarians simply could not have existed without others providing them with the means of subsistence.Although these people may feel exploited, and politicians may incite and exploit this feeling to gain power, most of the proletariat in the West, and most of the tens of thousands of proletarians in the developing world, Both attribute their survival to the opportunities that developed countries have created for them.All this is not limited to Western and developing countries.Communist countries like Russia would be starving by now if it weren't for the West to keep their citizens alive, although it would be difficult for the leaders of these countries to publicly admit that as long as we succeed in maintaining and improving the extended order that is possible We can feed the current population of the world, including the communist countries, on the basis of private property. Capitalism also introduced a new way of generating income from production, which liberated people, and often their descendants, from their families or tribes.That is the way it is, although capitalism sometimes fails to offer to those who wish to take advantage of it all the benefits it can, because of the monopoly of organized groups of workers such as "unions" which prevent those willing to work for low wages. Do these jobs. The general advantages of substituting abstract rules for concrete goals are evident in these examples.No one can predict what will happen.Neither a conscious desire for the fastest possible human growth, nor a concern for concrete life as we know it, would have produced that result.The offspring of those who are the first to adopt new behavioral patterns (savings, private property, etc.) do not always have a better chance of survival as a result.Because these behavioral patterns don't maintain a particular life, it just increases the chance (or prospect, or likelihood) of that population population to reproduce more quickly.This result can only be predicted, not forced.There are patterns of behavior that actually result in the loss of dignity of the lives of some individuals, even the readiness to kill infants, discard the old, the sick, or kill dangerous individuals, all in order to improve the prospects of survival and growth for others . It is difficult for us to say that the increase in population is an absolutely good thing.We simply think that the result, the increase of a particular population following particular rules, leads people to choose those modes of behavior whose advantages promote further population growth. (Nor, as we saw in Chapter 1, does this mean that advanced morality, which restricts and suppresses certain innate feelings, should replace them entirely. Our inborn instincts, in our dealings with our neighbors, and in other case, is still important.) If it is said that the market economy has the upper hand over other orders because it can enable groups that adopt its basic rules to reproduce better, then the calculation of value becomes the calculation of life: individuals guided by this calculation are in the To do what is most beneficial to increase its membership, although it is difficult to say that is their intention. Cost accounting is life accounting Although the concept of "life accounting" is not to be taken literally, it is much more than a metaphor.In the maintenance of human existence by economic activities, there may not be a simple quantitative relationship, but the importance of the final consequences of market activities cannot be overestimated.However, several restrictions must be added.To a large extent, only those unknown beings are counted as units of many when the question is to sacrifice a few to meet the needs of a greater number of others.We often have to make this decision even if we don't want to face it.In public or private decisions, each life unknown is not of absolute value, and the builders of roads, hospitals, or electrical equipment never take precautions to minimize fatal accidents, because avoiding them would cause them elsewhere. The overall risk to human life will be greatly reduced.When an army surgeon adopts the "principle of emergency care" after a battle—he lets one person who might be saved die because in the time it takes to save that person, he can save three others (see Harding, 1980: 59 , Harding defined the "principle of emergency care" as "the procedure that saves the most lives")—he was doing life accounting.Here's another example of how we might choose between saving more and fewer, though it may just be a vague sense of what to do.Demanding the protection of as many human lives as possible is not the same as valuing all individual lives equally.In the example we mentioned above, saving the doctor's life was probably more important than saving the life of any of his patients: otherwise no one would have survived.Some lives are clearly more important because they are able to create or sustain other life.A good hunter or guardian in a pack, a fertile mother, and a wise old man are probably more important than most babies and most elderly people.When the life of a good chief is secured, the lives of many others are secured.能干的人可能比其他成年人对群体更有价值。进化趋势的影响，并不在于人口的现有数量，而是未来人口的出生率。如果一个群体中的所有育龄男女，以及保护他们并给他们提供衣食所需的人有了保障，未来人口增长的机会就不会受到影响，而所有45岁以下妇女的死亡将会毁灭传种接代的所有可能性。 如果由于这个原因，所有的未知生命在扩展秩序中必须被平等相待（就政府行为而言，在我们的理想中我们已经接近这个目标），但是在小团体或我们的固有反应中，这个目标却从来没有支配过行为。于是有人提出了这个原则的道德或善恶的问题。 就像其他每个有机体一样，人类的生理构造和他的传统的主要“目标”，就是生育后代。在这一点上他做得异常成功，他的自觉努力，不管他知道还是不知道，只有对这一结果有所贡献才会具有最持久的效力。他那些促成这一结果的行为是不是真正的“善”，这种问题，尤其当这样做的意图是要问我们是否喜欢这些结果时，便是毫无实际意义的。因为正如我们所看到的，我们从来都不能够选择我们的道德观。尽管有人倾向于从功利主义角度解释“善”，认为凡是能带来理想结果的，就是“善的”，但是这种主张既不正确也没有用处。即使我们把自己限制在通常的含义上，我们也会发现，“善”这一概念一般是指传统告诉我们应该做的，我们不必知道为什么要这样做——这并不是否认对特定的传统总是要找出一些正当的理由。我们完全可以问，在传统视为善的许多相互矛盾的规则中，哪一些规则在特定条件下能保障遵循它们的群体的生命并使其人口增长。 生命只以本身为目的 生命只有在能够维持自身的延续时才存在。不管人们活着有什么目的，今天的大多数人所以活着，仅仅是因为有市场秩序。我们因为人口的增长变成了文明人，而造成这一增长的正是文明：我们可以做人口稀少的野蛮人，也可以做人口众多的文明人。如果将人口数量减少到10000年前的水平，人类也保不住文明。实际上，即使将已获得的知识储存在图书馆里，如果没有足够的人从事广泛的专门化和劳动分工所要求的各种工作，人们也不能够利用这些知识。书本知识不能使某个地方的10000人在原子弹浩劫后免于退回到狩猎采摘的生活，尽管书本知识能缩短人类在这种状况下生存的时间。 人们开始取得超出他们所知范围的成就，是因为他们开始让具体的共同目标服从一些抽象的规则，这使他们能够参与一个有序合作的过程，对于这个过程，没有人能够进行鉴定或安排，也没有人能够预测。这时，他们会创造出一些意外的、往往没人需要的条件。我们的规则所以能够形成，主要是由于它们适合于让我们增加人口，对这个事实我们可能感到不快，但在这一点上我们现在几乎没有别的选择（即使我们曾经有过），因为我们必须应付一个已经出现的局面。现在已经有这么多人活在世上，只有市场经济能够让他们生存下去。由于信息的迅速传递，各地的人现在都知道生活水平能够达到多高的水平，生活在一些人口稀少地区的大多数人有望达到这种水平，只能依靠增加人口并提高居住地的人口密度——这就会使人口进一步增加，而只有市场经济能够维持他们的生存。 我们只有遵守相同的普遍原则，才能确保现有人口的生存，因此，除非我们真希望成千上万的人饿死，我们就有责任反对宣扬那些有可能摧毁像分立的财产制度这样的基本道德原则的信条。 总之，我们的愿望和追求在很大程度上与此无关。不管我们是否愿意让人口进一步增加，仅仅为了维持现有的人口数量和财富，尽我们最大的努力保护现有的人免受贫困，我们也必须在有利的条件下为今后会继续发生的事情而奋斗，尽管至少在一段时期以及在许多地方它仍会导致人口的进一步增长。 我不打算对这样的问题做出评价，即如果我们可以选择的话，我们是否还愿意选择文明，但这里所评价的人口问题却涉及到两个相关的要点。首先，正如我们所知，人口爆炸会使大多数人陷入贫穷的恐怖景象看来毫无根据。一旦这一危险被消除，如果再想一下“资产阶级”生活的现实，而不是摆脱各种矛盾和痛苦、没有责任和道德的乌托邦要求，人们就会认为，文明的乐趣与激励对于还无缘享受的人来说，应是一笔不坏的交易。但我们是否因为变成了文明人就会更加善良，是不能通过这样的思考最终得到回答的。第二点是，惟一接近于对这个问题的客观评价的做法是，当人们能够选择的时候，看他们会做些什么——因为我们已不能做出这种选择。与西方受过教育的知识分子相反，第三世界的平民百姓似乎欣然接受扩展秩序提供给他们的机会，即使这意味着有一段时间要住在边缘的城市贫民窟里，这种态度为欧洲农民对引进城市资本主义做出反应的事例提供进一步的佐证，它表明，人们如果有选择权的话，他们通常会选择文明。