Lately I have begun to notice an odd strain of thought in much of my fellows on the Right when it comes to the issue of immigration and jobs.
Simply put, many people who otherwise consider themselves strong, consistent conservatives (and occasionally, but much less often some self-described libertarians) are quite vocal about the importance of protecting “Americans jobs” from the threat of being held by immigrants (most of the time illegal, but in some cases legal as well).
Frankly this mystifies me. Most of these people would readily agree on how much the were opposed to using government stimulus money to try and stop unemployment or what a terrible idea it would be to bring back the WPA. Now, I’m not endorsing either, I think they are bad ideas as well, but I fail to see how it makes sense to be for defending “American jobs” from being held by non-Americans but against defending “American jobs” from being held by no one.
Likewise, to paraphrase Don Boudreaux, if it is so important to ensure that only Americans hold “American jobs,” then why isn’t there an equally loud outcry to take actions to prevent Virginians or Delewareans or Pennsylvanians from holding “Maryland jobs.” After all, if the economic logic that it is better for an American to do a job, even if it costs more, is true, then the same will hold true at smaller levels.
If the Right truly cares about the free market like it claims to, then it is necessary that it support the free market in everything, including labor. You don’t get to pick and choose and still say you support the free market.
Follow on Twitter
Add on Facebook
E-mail Me
[...] See the article here: Immigration, The Right, and American Jobs « Questing for Atlantis [...]
[...] more: Immigration, The Right, and American Jobs « Questing for Atlantis Related PostsNASSSblog: CFP: Leisure and the Politics of the EnvironmentIs Jobs looking to overhaul [...]
[...] the rest here: Immigration, The Right, and American Jobs « Questing for Atlantis Share and [...]
Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. Immigration, both legal and illegal, are fueling this growth. I’m not talking about environmental degradation or resource depletion. I’m talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.
I am the author of a book titled “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some critical level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management, especially immigration policy. Our policies of encouraging high rates of immigration are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once a critical population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight third world countries – India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China – as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050. It’s absolutely imperative that our population be stabilized, and that’s impossible without dramatically reining in immigration, both legal and illegal.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit my web site at http://PeteMurphy.wordpress.com.
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
Pete,
Thanks for commenting. I hadn’t heard of your book before, so I obviously haven’t read it. Just operating off of what you’ve noted of your theory here, it seems that while it may be logical on the face of it, it doesn’t really hold up to the observed data.
Looking at two different measures of national economic health, nominal GDP and GDP at Purchasing Power Parity per capita, there is only one nation that ranks higher than the U.S. and holds a higher population density.
Breaking it down for nominal GDP, the U.S. is exceeded only by the European Union according to the IMF and the CIA World Factbook.
Meanwhile, for GDP at PPP per capita:
According to the IMF:
1. Qatar
2. Luxembourg
3. Norway
4. Brunei
5. Singapore
6. U.S.
According to the World Bank:
1. Luxembourg
-. Macau
2. Norway
3. Singapore
4. U.S.
According to the CIA World Factbook:
1. Liechtenstein
2. Qatar
3. Luxembourg
-. Bermuda
4. Norway
-. Jersey
5. Kuwait
6. Singapore
7. Brunei
8. U.S
Now, looking at the world’s nations by population density, we find that the order goes (only listing the countries and certain other entities like the EU above):
1. Macau (18,534.247 people/km^2)
3. Singapore (7,022.81 people/km^2)
8. Bermuda (1,226.415 people/km^2)
13. Jersey (789.078 people/km^2)
56. Liechtenstein (224.881 people/km^2)
65. Luxembourg (194.202 people/km^2)
71. Kuwait (167.527 people/km^2)
85. Qatar (128.091 people/km^2)
93. European Union (~114 people/km^2)
132. Brunei (69.384 people/km^2)
178. U.S. (32.072 people/km^2)
212. Norway (12.623 people/km^2)
That this many nations have population densities higher than that of the U.S. and still have GDP rankings stronger than that of the U.S. certainly seems to suggest population density isn’t that helpful a measure.
Further complicating the issue, the native population of the U.S. has a declining net reproduction rate. If we go and restrict immigration even more than it is already we will quickly find ourselves with a steadily declining population, something most economists agree to be a bad thing.
Now, I haven’t read your book, so I don’t want to go too far, but it seems to ultimately be a strain of neo-Malthusian thought. Malthus was mistaken during his time, and subsequent proponents of the idea have been consistently mistaken as well. If you’re not familiar with it, I highly recommend you read about Julian Simon and the wager he made with Paul Ehrlich, a neo-Malthusian.
Kevin, since any viable economy is dependent on activities associated with both rural and urban areas – resource production and activities like manufacturing that require the assemblage of labor forces into an urban environment, my theory applies only to larger nations – not the tiny city-states that populate most of the lists you compiled above. Nor does it apply to tiny island nations that almost universally enjoy unique economies based upon tourism. Nor does it apply to oil exporting states like Qatar, Brunei, etc.
Once you exclude those nations, which still leaves about 150 nations, you find that the majority of them who have high per capita purchasing power parity and are densely populated rely upon manufacturing for export to power their economies. Otherwise, virtually all densely populated nations who don’t have a trade surplus in manufactured goods are poor nations.
I’m working on analyzing your response, but I need to know what your basis is for determining a country to be geographically large.
Just from a cursory examination, there are only 5 other nations that can be considered roughly analogous to the U.S. in terms of size. Of these, 2 are energy exporters (Russia and Canada), 2 more are service-driven economies (Brazil and Australia).
Far as I can tell, that only leaves China. And while China is geographically large, the fact that it still has huge swathes of the population that are effectively subsistence farmers and is ultimately still a government controlled economy make it extremely difficult to use China as a real comparable to the U.S., at least with regards to the intersection of population density and economic outlook.
Considering the lack of comparables, I assume you’re using some other metric for what constitutes a large nation. I arbitrarily chose a size of 250,000 square miles or greater, which puts it at 47 countries (which I’m still running numbers for the details on). However, if you’re using some other metric it would be helpful to know it.
Note: The EU isn’t considered in either sets of countries I just listed.
I ran through some numbers and found the following:
-Of those nations with an area greater than 250,000 sq. miles only 11 are within the top 50 nations in terms of GDP-PPP per capita.
-Of those 11, 4 (Russia, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Libya) are energy exporters, thus ruled out by your theory
-Of the remaining 7, another 3 (Argentina, Greenland, and Chile) are resource exporters and are presumably excluded on the same basis as the energy exporters
-Of the remaining 4 (U.S., Australia, Mexico, and France) their GDP is overwhelmingly driven not by manufacturing, but by services. Manufacturing makes up no more than about a quarter of GDP in all of these nations.
Perhaps you have additional data I haven’t seen, but all the data I’ve looked over since you first commented here points to there being no causal relationship between population density and national economic health.
Insofar as any relationship does exist, I think the evidence strongly suggests it is merely correlational. It’s a widely recognized fact that there is a strong correlation between lower economic status and larger family size. As a result it’s simple logic that areas that are poor are likely to have higher population density.
I think you have to do more to prove that the inverse is also true. Even harder will be proving that free trade and immigration exacerbate it, rather than mitigate it by increasing economic well-being amongst the less well-off and decreasing the pressures that drive them to have larger families.
Kevin, like I said above, I ruled out all small (less than 100 square miles) island nations. The data for all tiny city states was rolled into the larger surrounding countries.
If you divide the nations of the world equally around the median population density, the more densely populated nations have a trade surplus in manufactured goods of nearly $1 trillion, while the less densely populated nations have a corresponding trade deficit. Even if you divide the nations such that the population of both groups is equal, which leaves 27 nations in the more densely populated group and 127 nations in the less densely populated group, the results are the same.
A closer examination of these 27 most densely populated nations reveals that only ten actually have a surplus of trade in manufactured products, and that every bit of the trade surplus in that group of ten nations can be attributed to three: China, Germany and Japan. Their combined trade surplus in manufactured products is $1.07 trillion. Seven other nations contribute to the total surplus of trade in manufactured goods for that group of 27 nations: South Korea, The Netherlands, Italy, Taiwan, Switzerland, Belgium (including Luxembourg) and Israel. Their contribution is offset by a trade deficit in manufactured products by 17 other nations, led by the United Kingdom, India, Nigeria and Kuwait.
A couple of observations are in order:
1) It’s no surprise that China has the largest surplus of trade in manufactured goods since it is the world’s most populous nation, more than sixteen times the size of Germany (in terms of population), the nation with the next largest trade surplus. It would be more meaningful to analyze this data in per capita terms. Germany’s per capita surplus of trade in manufactured goods of $4,414 dwarfs China’s per capita surplus of $351.
2) The fact that only ten of these twenty-seven densely populated nations has a surplus of trade in manufactured products doesn’t disprove the theory. Remember that the theory predicts that a densely populated nation, due to its theoretically low per capita consumption, will either experience a high rate of unemployment or it will turn to manufacturing products for export in order to gainfully employ its excess labor capacity. A “high rate of unemployment” means that either a large percentage of the labor force will be unemployed or, if the unemployment rate is low, they will be working at a low level of productivity. Either case describes a poor nation. So we should expect that if one of these nations does not have a trade surplus in manufactured products, then it’s likely that it’s a very poor nation. In fact, that’s exactly what we find. Of the ten densely populated nations with a surplus of trade in manufactured products, only China (PPP = $6,208) has PPP of less than $25,000. Of the seventeen densely populated nations with a trade deficit in manufactured products, only two have a per capita purchasing power parity greater than $25,000 – Kuwait and the United Kingdom. Only two others are above $10,000 – Trinidad and Tobago (PPP = $23,600) and Lebanon (PPP = $11,100). All of the remaining 14 nations are among the poorest nations on earth.
Thus, of the 27 most densely populated nations on earth, there are only four whose economies seem to defy the predictions of the population density / per capita consumption theory: China, Kuwait, the U.K. and Trinidad and Tobago. Regarding China, it must be noted that, although it is still a relatively poor nation in terms of PPP, its relatively recent entry (within the past decade) into the global economic community and its explosion of manufacturing capacity has transformed it into the fastest growing economy in the world. So, in actuality, it does not defy the theory, but is a nation in transition from one of the theory’s predicted outcomes – high unemployment and poverty – to the other – a prosperity dependent upon manufacturing for export.
The seeming departure of Kuwait and Trinidad and Tobago from the predictions of the theory can be explained by the fact that both nations are oil and gas net exporters. A large surplus of trade in oil and gas is the source of their wealth, providing the income required to be net importers of manufactured products. The fact that both are very tiny countries (with populations of less than three million people) plays a role as well. Generally, most net exporters of oil and gas are larger, sparsely populated nations, like Canada and Saudi Arabia. They have vast resources with relatively few people to consume them. But, because Kuwait and Trinidad and Tobago are so tiny, they too have few people to consume their oil and gas in spite of their very high population densities. (It should be noted that Nigeria is also a major oil and gas exporter, yet remains very poor due to political instability and corruption.)
That leaves only the U.K. as the one nation among the 27 most densely populated nations of the world that seems to defy the theory – a very densely populated nation with a large trade deficit in manufactured products, but one that is also prosperous, with PPP of $36,700. Perhaps this can be at least partly explained by the fact that the U.K. is also rich in oil and gas from its North Sea fields (though no longer a net exporter), thus relieving it of some of the need to manufacture for export in order to fund the purchase of energy. The U.K.’s economy also holds a unique position as a global supplier of financial services.
Pete,
Using accounting magic tricks like rolling small nations into the totals of large nations is all but guaranteed to give strange, distorted results.
That problem is pretty minor in comparison to the fact that I know see your theory is rooted in trade deficit concerns. It’s a common misconception, but the idea that trade deficits are bad is pretty much something invented by the media.
As the Cato Institute’s Daniel Ikenson has explained:
“media and politicians often characterize imports as a sign of profligacy. They argue that balanced trade or a trade surplus should be an objective of economic policy, and that policies designed to slow import growth can accomplish more balanced trade. But imports and exports are also very much positively correlated. They rise and fall together. Imports are contained in domestic output, and a good chunk of domestic output is exported. Buy more from abroad, and foreigners can afford to buy more from us. Sell more abroad and we can afford to buy more from foreigners. Stymie imports and you get stymied exports.”
And for a more detailed explanation:
“Some of the misunderstanding can be traced to the famous National Income Identity, which expresses gross domestic product, as: Y = C + G + I + (X-M). That is, national output (Y) equals personal consumption (C) plus government spending (G) plus investment (I) plus exports (X) minus imports (M).
The expression clearly lends itself to the wrong interpretation. The minus sign preceding imports suggests a negative relationship with output. It is the reason for the oft-repeated fallacy that imports are a drag on growth. Here’s why that conclusion is wrong.
The expression is an accounting identity, which “accounts” for all of the possible channels for disposing of our national output. That output is either consumed in the private sector, consumed by government, invested by business, or exported. The identity requires subtraction of aggregate imports because consumption, government spending, business investment, and exports all contain, in various amounts, import value. Americans consume domestic and imported products and services, the aggregate of which shows up in Consumption. Likewise, Government purchases include domestic and imported products and services; businesses Invest in domestic and imported machines and inventory; and, eXports often contain some imported intermediate components. Thus, the identity would overstate national output if it didn’t make that adjustment for iMports. After all, imports are not made on U.S. soil with U.S. factors of production, so they shouldn’t be included in an expression of our national output.
To reiterate, it is a simple matter of accounting: as an expression of national output, the National Income Identity subtracts imports only because imports are that portion of consumption, government spending, investment, and exports that are not produced on U.S. soil with U.S. factors of production. If we did not subtract an aggregate import value, then national output would be overstated.
But what unnecessary confusion that identity has created. Economists are often indecipherable, but here was an opportunity to actually connect with the public and describe a relatively easy concept in relatively easy terms. Why has it not been commonplace to use notation that conveys in no uncertain terms that C and G and I and X include some amount of imports? Maybe something like this:
Y=C(d)+C(m)+G(d)+G(m)+I(d)+I(m)+X(d)+X(m)-M,
where (d) connotes domestic; (m) connotes imported; and M=C(m)+G(m)+I(m)+X(m).
Again, imports are subtracted, not because they are a drag on output, but because imports are included in the other constituent elements of the identity. I’ve always found it misleading that the parentheses go around X-M – which isolates the expression “net exports,” but in the process can obscure the fact that imports are subtracted from the whole expression.
Finally, if the description above makes sense, then you’ll agree that imports have NO impact on national output. Regardless of how large or small, the import value embedded in the four constituent elements of national output is fully deducted by subtracting M. Thus, imports are neither a drag on GDP, nor can they cause GDP to rise. That conclusion may sound like it contradicts one of my assertions in yesterday’s post—that imports are pro-cyclical—(at least that was the claim of a NBER economist responding my post yesterday), but I think the conclusions are harmonious. To say imports are pro-cyclical means that they rise when the economy is growing and fall when the economy is contracting. It says nothing about causation. That pattern has been amply and consistently demonstrated through expansion, recession, and recovery.”
Additionally, as economist Mark Perry has noted, it is ultimately improper to think about trade as occurring between countries. Countries do not trade with each other, individuals and individual firms trade with each other.
If we are to embrace tariffs as a means of balancing trade (a bad idea as explained above), we will be forcing people to purchase products of less value to them at a higher cost in order to shield the jobs of a select few inefficient industries here in America. The government has no business boosting American industry on the backs of all American consumers.
And after all that, it’s also highly questionable whether such a move would in fact even benefit American industry. A significant chunk of the imports that make up the trade deficit are raw materials. Put a tariff barrier on them and you will likely eat away a huge chunk of whatever gain industry makes from the reduction in competition.
Finally, I would point out that you’re theory is flawed in how it deals with the issue of consumption.
Unless you have strong data to suggest otherwise, I know of no logical reason to think that increased population density, at least of the sort we see in most of the world, should lead to people consuming less, simply because they have less space to keep things. While increasing density could plausibly have an impact on consumption, it seems far more probable that they will simply alter the pattern and shape of their consumption, moving towards smaller size items of equal or greater value. Considering the ever advancing revolutions in electronics technology, which allow more and more to be done with smaller and smaller amounts of space, it certainly seems that technological innovation will easily account for any loss of space for larger size consumable goods.
And looking beyond that, I think you’re making a critical mistake in focusing exclusively on consumption. Money not exchanged for consumables doesn’t simply vanish. It is saved, and those savings are the necessary basis for the investment that economic expansion requires. Ignoring the relationship between consumption and savings is only going to hamstring any insights your theory does have.
Finally, you still have yet to address my point that the phenomena you’ve noted are equally well explained by the simple fact that poor people have bigger families.
As you noted, most of the densely populated nations, that aren’t tropical vacation destinations or the beneficiaries of large energy reserves, are very poor. Since you haven’t listed them, I have had to guess which ones they are and I assume they are mostly African nations.
For the most part these nations have always been poor. To observe that a place like Rwanda is poor and that it has a high population density does nothing to show that a high population density made it poor rather than being the natural result of the people of Rwanda being poor.
Likewise, a poor nation with limited resources for exporting is likely to focus on manufacturing since that is the only specialty it can really have. To observe that those poor, densely populated nations that lack manufacturing are poor and suggest it’s because they don’t manufacture without recognizing they have also consistently been wracked by poor and exploited by corrupt governments so they lack the necessary social infrastructure is to prove nothing.
Unless it can overcome the fact that it certainly appears to be observing a correlation and then attempt to invert it and suggest causality (as well as deal with the aforementioned weaknesses), it seems to me that the theory isn’t actually accomplishing that much.
Kevin, there’s a number of issues here to respond to, so I’ll take them in order.
First of all, you’ve quoted the Cato Institute, a pro-free trade “think tank” that is paid by its corporate sponsors to promote free trade policies. I could quote just as many opposing “think tanks,” sponsored labor unions, that would refute your quote. Free trade is merely one end of a spectrum of trade trade policies. The blind application of free trade makes no more sense that a blanket application of protectionism. Each has its place. Free trade works well in trade in natural resources and in trade in manufactured goods between nations of roughly equal population density. When applied to trade in manufactured products with nations that are much more densely populated, it is virtually assured to produce a trade deficit and loss of jobs.
Anyone who suggests (including the Cato Institute) that a trade deficit isn’t harmful is being disingenuous. If a balance of trade is of no consequence, why do nations like China, Japan and Germany guard their surpluses so jealously?
Those who suggest that global trade imbalances don’t matter need to revisit the economic collapse of 2008 and review the statements made in the wake of that collapse by the heads of the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, the Federal Reserve and by the president of the U.S., all noting the role of persistent global trade imbalances in collapsing the economy and the need to rectify those imbalances going forward.
And if protectionism is such a terrible trade policy, why does the World Trade Organization enforce protectionism in favor of two thirds of their member states? Check out the WTO’s web site and you’ll find they admit to this. Their agenda is not the promotion of free trade, but the use of trade policy to enhance the economies of undeveloped and developing nations. (It admits as much.) It begs the question: If protectionism works to the benefit of an economy, how and at what point does it suddenly become bad trade policy?
Rolling tiny city-states’ trade data into the larger, surrounding nations doesn’t distort the data. In fact, not doing so causes distortions, since the economy of such cities are entirely dependent on the surrounding nation. Wall them off and they would almost instantly collapse.
Regarding per capita consumption, you say “… unless you have strong data to suggest otherwise …” I do. It’s all presented in my book – per capita consumption data from around the world for a wide range of products including housing, vehicles, boats, appliances, lawn and garden equipment, personal computers, phones and more. My theory is not rooted in trade data. It is rooted in per capita consumption data. The effect upon trade in manufactured products is a predicted effect of the theory and further bosters the theory.
Also, the data does not support the notion that people in a densely populated environment simply consume more of something else. Even the consumption of personal computers is slightly diminished in high population density environments. Only the consumption of very small electronics is unaffected. It’s not lower, but it’s also not higher. The idea defies logic. Prosperous people who live in uncrowded circumstances are able to purchase everything they need. To suggest that people who are forced into crowded conditions will then buy something in excess of what they need in order to make up for low consumption of other products just doesn’t make sense and isn’t supported by the data.
The validity of theories can always be tested by examining the limits. Imagine a world so crowded that all available land is literally carpeted with human flesh, a world so crowded that a basketball tossed into the crowd could never hit the floor. (The nation of Bangladesh is our closest approximation.) Now try to imagine just how such people could live in nice-sized homes and own automobiles. They couldn’t. All they could own is the clothes on their backs. So just exactly what would all these people do for a living?
That’s an extreme scenario, but if the theory is that people will always be able to consume just as much (and thus provide themselves with means of employment), no matter how crowded they become, the theory fails when tested at its limit. If it fails any test, then it’s invalid. If it fails at its limit, then it’s obvious that per capita consumption diminishes as the limit is approached.
Obviously no nation has reached that limit but, for the ones most densely populated, they face only two options – exist in abject poverty or manufacture for export. The latter option requires a trade deficit somewhere else. Nations with a surplus of natural resources can finance a trade deficit in manufactured goods with the sale of those resources. And, if they are below the critical population density, then no loss of jobs will ensue. The problem is that there are very few nations that fit such a description. The U.S. is certainly not one of them. As the world population rises, the number of nations dependent on manufacturing for export grows ever more out of balance with those able to consume them. Rising unemployment and poverty is the inescapable result.
Pete,
I simply don’t have the time to continue this debate, at least in this piecemeal fashion, so this comment will be my last one on the topic. As I said in my e-mail to you though, if you’d like to send me a copy of the book I’ll gladly read it and give it a proper review, being able to see the entirety of the theory and your evidence for it.
On the trade deficit, there’s a simple way to determine if removing them would make things better – look at America. America is really a compilation of 50 states. Of those, over half of them are 50,000 sq. miles in area or larger, making them more than comparable to most nations of the world.
Right now, each state has complete and total free trade with every other state. But, as George Mason University economist Don Boudreaux has noted, if trade deficit alarmists are right, then each state could be made richer by imposing tariffs on all the others. Consider California – it is 163,696 sq miles in area with a population density of 234.4 people per sq. mile, almost 3 times the density of the U.S. as a whole. According to the theory, by imposing sharp tariffs, California would protect and grow its economy by limiting the ability of the less dense Michigan to compete with California manufacturers on cars. The same should hold true for all other manufacturing industries as well.
If blanket free trade is such a bad idea, why is it practiced within the borders of the United States?
As for the question of shifting patterns of consumption, perhaps you address it in your book, but I believe you misunderstood my point. It wasn’t that people buy things in excess to make up for things they can’t get. It is that people adjust their spending priorities to their realities. For example, a person living in Manhattan is pretty likely to consume an equal portion of their income, but to spend more of it on non-physcial consumables (for example, going to the opera or out to dinner) as opposed to physical consumables that are both more available and more feasible for people in less dense areas.
Finally, taking something to its absolute limit can be helpful, but you’re example is flawed in three significant ways.
First, it fails to account for human ingenuity. The primary reason Malthus and his followers have been wrong every time has been that humans figured out ways to innovate past the foreseen problems. It’s certainly possible that this might not happen, but the track record has been very good for human innovation thus far, so I wouldn’t bet against it. The creation/discovery of new areas to live (space colonization and seasteading being two good examples of these), finding drastic ways to do more with less, and other possible innovations that reduce or render irrelevant the pressures of population density (a shift to virtual reality and cryostasis as two possibilities discussed by futurists).
Second, it fails to account for socio-economic trends. You have described population as an inevitably growing total. However, it has been observed many times, in different eras and different cultures, that as income increases family size decreases. Most of the developed world faces reproductive replacement rates that are near zero or negative. As the developed nations become more prosperous (and they have) it is to be expected that their reproductive replacement rates will fall as well. We cannot logically assume that the rate of population increase will continue to follow a steady upward progression if nothing is done. It is far more likely that population will continue to grow, but the rate of increase will decline until it is nearly flat.
Third, even if neither of the first two were true, such an extreme limit as you have described is not a helpful guide for shaping government policy. As you admit, no nation is anywhere near this point. Unless there is a specific population density point at which significant negative effects (such as would outweigh the increased benefits of population growth) can be expected to appear, such an extreme limit is of basically zero value; on immigration for example, we are so far away from that population density point and the benefits of increased immigration are clear enough that it would be foolish to increase immigration limits because of such a far off concern.
I’ll address your points in order and then this will be my last comment on the subject too.
No, not all 50 states would be enriched through the use of tariffs to balance trade. Those who currently experience a trade deficit would be enriched while the remainder would suffer. The blanket application of free trade with other nations is a bad idea. It’s practiced among the 50 states simply because we wouldn’t be one nation without it and I have no problem with that. However, consider one state: New Jersey, a state more densely populated than India. It thrives on manufacturing and the export of manufactured products to the rest of the states. If New Jersey were eliminated, the work of manufacturing would be distributed among the other states while the loss of total consumption would be relatively low, due to low per capita consumption in New Jersey. The result would indeed be a net gain for the remaining 49 states.
Platitudes about human ingenuity don’t cut it. While we have demonstrated the ability to stretch resources and mitigate environmental degradation, there is no solution to the finiteness of land space and the need to use it more efficiently (which means crowding together) that won’t erode per capita consumption and thus per capita employment.
You said “Most of the developed world faces reproductive replacement rates that are near zero or negative.” That’s simply not true. Of the 233 nations of the world, only 31 have declining populations, mostly eastern European and other formerly communist nations that made up the Soviet Union, but also including Japan, Germany and Italy. All others have growing populations. Prosperity is not the solution to population growth. It’s the cause. Development drives down death rates much faster than birth rates, resulting in population explosions. That’s not to say that development should be avoided but rather that it’s potential for exploding populations needs to be recognized and accompanied by other programs to to reduce birth rates just as quickly as death rates.
I did not admit that no nation is near the critical population density that drives per capita consumption and per capita employment into decline. What I said was that no nation is near the limit that approaches infinite population density. The U.S. and most other nations are likely already beyond the critical population density. It’s been a long-held tenet of economics that economies always return to “full” employment following recessions. But now economists are beginning to speak of “structural unemployment” that may never be relieved. Rising population density and trade with badly overpopulated nations lies at the root of this new phenomenom.