Prosperous Paupers and Other Population Problems

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In current intellectual and public discourse, the entire modern world-from the affluent United States to the poorest low-income regions-is beset today by a broad and alarming array of "population problems." Around the globe, leading scientists, academics, and political figures attribute poverty, hunger, social tension, and even political conflict to contemporary demographic trends. These... Read more

In current intellectual and public discourse, the entire modern world-from the affluent United States to the poorest low-income regions-is beset today by a broad and alarming array of "population problems." Around the globe, leading scientists, academics, and political figures attribute poverty, hunger, social tension, and even political conflict to contemporary demographic trends. These authorities assert that the size, composition, and growth rate of population routinely pose direct and major threats to human well-being. They argue for interventions aimed specifically at altering society's demographic rhythms. In this wide-ranging and carefully reasoned book, renowned demographer and social scientist Nicholas Eberstadt challenges these ideas and exposes their glaring intellectual -shortcomings.Eberstadt makes the case that the very conception of "population problems" is inherently ambiguous and arbitrary, lending itself to faulty analysis and inappropriate diagnoses. Careless thinking about population is typically a result of inattention to, or indifference toward, the fundamental unit in all populations: the individual human being. In our time, Eberstadt writes, problems attributed to demographic trends are actually rooted in political and ethical situations. The brave new world of economic reform, far from bringing about the good society, serves only to postpone that society by a cavalier disregard of social and culture factors in human evolution. Eberstadt warns against a melodramatic approach to issues such as hunger and malnutrition. Material advances in the economy and cultural advances in the polity are safeguards against the worst outcomes of current problems in population. His reversal of cause and effect marks this as a volume apart, provocative, controversial, but surefooted in its scholarly sensibility and methods. In an academic world in which demographers are now speaking of the peaking of population rather than its infinite expansion, Eberstadt moves the discussion to family ties and common bonds. Demographers and family planners alike have much to learn from an approach that takes seriously the pitfalls as well as blessings of so-called zero-growth in the world -population.

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Introduction Part I: Population Problems in the United States 1. Prosperous Paupers and Affluent Savages: The New Challenges to Social Policy in America 13 2. Why Babies Die in D.C. 33 3. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Epidemiologist 51 Part II: Population Problems Under Communism 4. Mortality and the Fate of Communist States 77 5. The Soviet Way of Death 107 6. Health and Mortality in Eastern Europe: Retrospect and Prospect 119 7. Demographic Shocks in Eastern Germany, 1989-1993 153 Part III: Global Population Problems 8. Justifying Population Control: The Latest Arguments 175 9. Starved for Ideas: Misconceptions that Hinder the Battle Against World Hunger 187 10. Population Prospects for Eastern Asia to 2015: Trends and Implications 201 11. What If It’s a World Population Implosion? Speculations about Global De-Population 239 Index

Author(s)

Biography

Nicholas Eberstadt holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a senior adviser to the National Board of Asian Research, a member of the visiting committee at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a member of the Global Leadership Council at the World Economic Forum. His previous works on Korean affairs include The Population of North Korea(co-author), Korea Approaches Reunification, A New International Engagement Framework for North Korea?, Korea's Future and the Great Powers (co-editor), and The End of North Korea.

Prosperous Paupers and Other Population Problems

Description

Table of Contents

Author(s)

Biography

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