by Sheldon Richman

About the author: Sheldon Richman is a senior editor at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. He has written frequently on
population and economic issues.

A central tenet of the pop creed is that there are too many people in the world. One cannot go through a week of watching television, listening to radio talk
shows or reading newspapers and magazines without seeing mournful references to overpopulation.

Overpopulation is never far from the minds of our leaders. State Department Counselor Tim Wirth told the United Nations in 1993 that President Bill Clinton “understands the cost of excessive population growth to the health of women, to the natural environment and to our hopes for alleviating poverty.” In his best-selling book, Earth in the Balance, Vice President (then-Sen.) Al Gore...