Garrett Hardin Quotes
No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.
Garrett Hardin, Human Ecologist, Board Member Emeritus, Federation for American Immigration Reform, The Tragedy of the Commons, 1968
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The logic is that communities and areas—even countries have finite resources. Since we have a welfare society in which we will not allow people to starve, society must provide for children whose parents cannot. Therefore, individuals ought not to be allowed to breed beyond their ability to care for the children for if many would do so, the capacity of the community could be overwhelmed. A middle ground is that while the final decision should be left to the individual family, the society ought to educate and persuade members to limit their breeding.
In Burundi, family land is divided among the male children of a family. The average Burundian woman has 6.3 children, nearly triple the international fertility rate. With this fertility rate, the plots of land for each person inevitably get smaller and smaller over time. At 10,745 square miles, Burundi is slightly smaller than the U.S. state of Maryland, but it holds nearly twice as many people: about 10 million. The small plots of land are inefficient to farm and provide subsistence. So the nation was in a crises as there was little industrialization and land was essential for existence for most Burundians. See {35808} and {35809}.
History has shown that as girls and women get educated and learn about family planning, their children are healthier and have better chances of survival and despite the lower death rate the population trend slows as a result of family planning.
The relationship of population increase economic growth is a critical one. If an underdeveloped country manages to have a 3% annual economic growth rate and also has a 3.2% population growth, at the end of the year, the average person is actually poorer than he was the previous year. South Korea, China, Thailand and India implemented successful population control and family planning programs before they were able to take advantage of economic development. To modernize, the country must be able to have a surplus of funds which can be invested in roads, schools, hospitals, and other facilities which can produce even more growth later. Too many new mouths to feed, clothe and care for can be a barrier to development even if the economy is reasonably good.
The Clinton Administration decided not to issue the directive. To do so would have embroiled the administration in a huge abortion debate as the NSC has previously observed that no nation has ever reduced its population growth without using abortion as one of the techniques. India, for example, utilized both abortion and sterilization—both offensive to segments of American public opinion.
Garrett James Hardin was an American ecologist who warned of the dangers of human overpopulation. He is most known for his exposition of the tragedy of the commons, in a 1968 paper of the same title in Science, which called attention to "the damage that innocent actions by individuals can inflict on the environment". He is also known for Hardin's First Law of Human Ecology: "We can never do merely one thing. Any intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable.":112 He is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white nationalist, whose publications were "frank in their racism and quasi-fascist ethnonationalism".
