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Coercive
population control: from the mouth of Frank Notestein
Old-thinker news | Dec. 19, 2007
By Daniel Taylor
Frank Notestein
(1902 - 1983) was one of the most influential population control
activists and demographers of the 20th century. His work led to the
establishment of demography as an academic discipline. He worked as
the first director of the population division of the United Nations,
was instrumental in the founding of John D. Rockefeller's Population
Council in 1952, and was a director of population research at
Princeton University. [1]
In a paper written
by Notestein in 1969 titled "The Problem of Population Control," he
outlines a strategy of quickening the pace of depopulation. Notestein admits that economic modernization would "...bring
the birthrate down automatically." However, he goes on to state that
more drastic measures must be taken because in his opinion this
method would not be fast enough. "coercion" and the "institution of
a totalitarian regime" are Notestein's solutions.
"...The need
for an early reduction of the birthrate is acute. Birthrates in
the past have fallen most rapidly in the context of
modernization and social-economic change. But there is nothing
in the European experience to suggest that we must rely solely
on gradual and automatic changes in society. One often meets the
glib generalization, particularly in the underdeveloped
countries, that it is only necessary to concentrate on social
and economic modernization since it is well known that we can
rely on these processes to bring the birthrate down
automatically. The argument neglects the time-span required for
such an adjustment... Even if we could be assured of rapid
social and economic development the lag in transition between
reduction of death rates and the reduction of birth rates poses
enormous problems of population growth."
Notestein
continues,
"...even if
successful, voluntary family planning programs cannot be
expected to resolve the world population dilemma. Even in the
more developed countries, and notably in the United States,
surveys show couples desiring more children than are necessary
for replacement... Thus we cannot rely on the self-interested
choices of individual couples to met society's needs. The only
acceptable goal is zero rate of growth because any rate of
growth continued long enough leads to astronomical figures.
Given existing preferences in family size, governments must go
beyond voluntary family planning. To achieve zero rate of
population growth governments will have to do more than cajole;
they will have to coerce."
"The logical
target for legal and institutional pressures is the family:
pressures to postpone marriages; economic pressures and
inducements for married women to work outside the home;
provision of free abortions for all women requesting them;
downgrading of familial roles in comparison with extrafamilial
roles; and restriction of housing and consumer goods... Such
institutional changes supply motivation for family limitation
and the provision of free abortions affords a means. The
implications of such major institutional changes go far beyond
population control. The family is the basic social unit of
society and its major institution for the socialization of the
children... to impose more drastic changes on a large scale
implies many risks, not least to the regime that undertakes
them. The price for this type of population control may well be
the institution of a totalitarian regime."
[2]
Citation:
[1] "Notestein,
Frank W." Encyclopedia of Population. Ed. Dennis Hodgson. Vol
2. p. 696-697. Available online at: <http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so184/popdocs/EofPNotestein.pdf>
[2] Ed.
Hauser, Philip Morris.
The Population Dilemma.
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
1969. pages 145 - 166
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