presidential commission reports on population growth

Back in March, after completing a two-year study on population growth in the United States, a presidential commission issued its report. The commission’s chairperson wrote in the report’s “letter of transmital”:

After two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that, in the long run, no substantial benefits will result from further growth of the Nation’s population, rather that the gradual stabilization of our population through voluntary means would contribute significantly to the Nation’s ability to solve its problems. We have looked for, and have not found, any convincing economic argument for continued population growth. The health of our country does not depend on it, nor does the vitality of business nor the welfare of the average person.

Only those particularly interested in population issue will have heard of this commission or its report. After providing a rather extensive list of excerpts, I discuss why that’s so and why the president has disavowed both its conclusions and recommendations.

Note: The excerpts below are lengthy. (The report itself is 15 good-size chapters plus other material.) I’ve used bold text to highlight some passages so you can skim those to get a sense of the report’s contents. [Yes, Ellen, I did mean skim not scan.]

Chapter 1: Perspective on Population

In the brief history of this nation, we have always assumed that progress and “the good life” are connected with population growth. In fact, population growth has frequently been regarded as a measure of our progress. If that were ever the case, it is not now. There is hardly any social problem confronting this nation whose solution would be easier if our population were larger. Even now, the dreams of too many Americans are not being realized; others are being fulfilled at too high a cost. Accordingly, this Commission has concluded that our country can no longer afford the uncritical acceptance of the population growth ethic that “more is better.” And beyond that, after two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that no substantial benefits would result from continued growth of the nation’s population.

It is a problem which can be interpreted in many ways. It is the pressure of population reaching out to occupy open spaces and bringing with it a deterioration of the environment. It can be viewed as the effect on natural resources of increased numbers of people in search of a higher standard of living. It is the impact of population fluctuations in both growth and distribution upon the orderly provision of public services. It can be seen as the concentration of people in metropolitan areas and depopulation elsewhere, with all that implies for the quality of life in both places. It is the instability over time of proportions of the young, the elderly, and the productive. For the family and the individual, it is the control over one’s life with respect to the reproduction of new life — the formal and informal pronatalist pressures of an outmoded tradition, and the disadvantages of and to the children involved.

Unlike other great public issues in the United States, population lacks the dramatic event — the war, the riot, the calamity — that galvanizes attention and action. It is easily overlooked and neglected. Yet the number of children born now will seriously affect our lives in future decades. This produces a powerful effect in a double sense: Its fluctuations can be strong and not easily changed; and its consequences are important for the welfare of future generations.

There is scarcely a facet of American life that is not involved with the rise and fall of our birth and death rates: the economy, environment, education, health, family life and sexual practices, urban and rural life, governmental effectiveness and political freedoms, religious norms, and secular life styles. If this country is in a crisis of spirit — environmental deterioration, racial antagonisms, the plight of the cities, the international situation — then population is part of that crisis.

Although population change touches all of these areas of our national life and intensifies our problems, such problems will not be solved by demographic means alone. Population policy is no substitute for social, economic, and environmental policy. Successfully addressing population requires that we also address our problems of poverty, of minority and sex discrimination, of careless exploitation of resources, of environmental deterioration, and of spreading suburbs, decaying cities, and wasted countrysides. By the same token, because population is so tightly interwoven with all of these concerns, whatever success we have in resolving these problems will contribute to easing the complex system of pressures that impel population growth.

Consideration of the population issue raises profound questions of what people want, what they need — indeed, what they are for. What does this nation stand for and where is it going? At some point in the future, the finite earth will not satisfactorily accommodate more human beings — nor will the United States. How is a judgment to be made about when that point will be reached? Our answer is that now is the time to confront the question: “Why more people?” The answer must be given, we believe, in qualitative not quantitative terms.

One of the basic themes underlying our analysis and policy recommendations is the substitution of quality for quantity; that is, we should concern ourselves with improving the quality of life for all Americans rather than merely adding more Americans. And unfortunately, for many of our citizens that quality of life is still defined only as enough food, clothing, and shelter. All human beings need a sense of their own dignity and worth, a sense of belonging and sharing, and the opportunity to develop their individual potentialities.

For the population problem, and the growth ethic with which it is intimately connected, reflect deeper external conditions and more fundamental political, economic, and philosophical values. Consequently, to improve the quality of our existence while slowing growth, will require nothing less than a basic recasting of American values.

The numbers of people and the material conditions of human existence are limited by the external environment. Human life, like all forms of life on earth, is supported by intricate ecological systems that are limited in their ability to adapt to and tolerate changing conditions. Human culture, particularly science and technology, has given man an extraordinary power to alter and manipulate his environment. At the same time, he has also achieved the capacity virtually to destroy life on earth. Sadly, in the rush to produce, consume, and discard, he has too often chosen to plunder and destroy rather than to conserve and create. Not only have the land, air, and water, the flora and fauna suffered, but also the individual, the family, and the human community.

A new vision is needed — a vision that recognizes man’s unity with nature, that transcends a simple economic definition of man’s identity, and that seeks to promote the realization of the highest potential of our individual humanity.

Our immediate goal is to modernize demographic behavior in this country: to encourage the American people to make population choices, both in the individual family and society at large, on the basis of greater rationality rather than tradition or custom, ignorance or chance. This country has already moved some distance down this road; it should now complete the journey. The time has come to challenge the tradition that population growth is desirable: What was unintended may turn out to be unwanted, in the society as in the family.

Chapter 4: The Economy

Our overall conclusions from this research are:

1. Major economic changes are on the horizon regardless of future changes in population growth rates.

2. The nation has nothing to fear from a gradual approach to population stabilization.

3. From an economic point of view, a reduction in the rate of population growth would bring important benefits, especially if the United States develops policies to take advantage of the opportunities for social and economic improvement that slower population growth would provide.

In [30 years], the difference in GNP resulting from different population assumptions amounts to as much as one-fourth of the total GNP today. Rapid population growth will cause more rapid growth in the size of the economy, and correspondingly greater demands on resources and the environment. People will not be better off economically with more rapid population growth — we have already seen that income per person is higher under the slower population growth assumption. Rather, increases in the number of people simply multiply the volume of goods and services produced and consumed.

It seems clear that labor-force trends under the 3-child projection can be expected to generate greater pressure for increased production, employment, and consumption, and correspondingly greater problems associated with the social and environmental consequences of such increases. The 2-child projection does not imply that these problems can be avoided, only that they will be less pressing. It implies not only smaller numbers to be accommodated, but also a context in which the urgency of competing priorities will be muted.

Here is the Board Chairman of Atlantic-Richfield, testifying at our public hearing in New York:

There is a habit of thinking in some segments of the business community, of course, that population increase is somehow essential to the maintenance of vigorous demand and economic growth, just as there is an instinctive reaction against any important new cost factors being added to the processes of production and distribution. But our economy has already, and in many ways, shown its tremendous adaptability to new social demands and necessities. I have not the slightest doubt that it can meet this new challenge.

Chapter 5: Resources and the Environment

Several general conclusions* emerge from our research:

1. Population growth is one of the major factors affecting the demand for resources and the deterioration of the environment in the United States. The further we look into the future, the more important population becomes.

2. From an environmental and resource point of view, there are no advantages from further growth of population beyond the level to which our past rapid growth has already committed us. Indeed, we would be considerably better off over the next 30 to 50 years if there were a prompt reduction in our population growth rate. This is especially true with regard to problems of water, agricultural land, and outdoor recreation.

3. While the nation can, if it has to, find ways to solve the problems growth creates, we will not like some of the solutions we will have to adopt. With continued growth, we commit ourselves to a particular set of problems: more rapid depletion of domestic and international resources, greater pressures on the environment, greater dependence on continued rapid technological development to solve these problems, and a more contrived and regulated society. So long as population growth continues, these problems will grow and will slowly, but irreversibly, force changes in our way of life. And there are further risks: Increasing numbers press us to adopt new technologies before we know what we are doing. The more of us there are, the greater is the temptation to introduce solutions before their side effects are known. With slower population growth leading to a stabilized population, we gain time to devise solutions, resources to implement them, and greater freedom of choice in deciding how we want to live in the future.

4. The American future cannot be isolated from what is happening in the rest of the world. There are serious problems right now in the distribution of resources, income, and wealth, among countries. World population growth is going to make these problems worse before they get better. The United States needs to undertake much greater efforts to understand these problems and develop international policies to deal with them.

The pressure that this nation puts on resources and the environment during the next 30 to 50 years will depend on the size of the national population, the size of population in local areas, the amounts and types of goods and services the population consumes, and the ways in which these goods and services are produced, used, and disposed of. All these factors are important. Right now, because of our large population size and high economic productivity, the United States puts more pressure on resources and the environment than any other nation in the world.

With no major changes in technology, oil and gas supplies could become a problem for the United States … — we would be importing more and paying higher prices; and supplies would certainly be a problem for some world regions. These problems could be averted if we found inexpensive means of using such potential sources as oil shale and tar sands, but using these sources is likely to have environmental consequences as serious as those from the strip-mining of coal.

Water requirements already exceed available flow in the southwestern United States. Our research shows that growing population and economic activity will cause the area of water shortage to spread eastward and northward across the country in the decades ahead. Such deficits will spread faster if population growth follows the 3-child projection than if it follows the 2-child projection. This will occur despite large expenditures on water treatment, dams, and reservoirs during the next 50 years. Population growth will be more important than economic growth in causing these growing problems.

[In 30 years], incomes will nearly double and hours of leisure will rise. More and more people will be inclined to get away and will be able to do so. However, our research on some 24 outdoor recreation activities and the facilities for these activities indicates that population growing at the 3-child rate will exert great pressure on outdoor recreation resources — so great that, rather than “getting away” to the outdoors, people will be applying for admission to it.

In the face of rising congestion, many people will substitute organized sports, sightseeing, foreign travel, and artistic and cultural activities, if they so desire. Rising incomes and the increase in man-made facilities will make these alternatives possible. For many, these will be adequate alternatives, but for others they will not.

As the gross national product goes up, so does the production of pollutants. An irony of economic measurement is that the value of goods and services represented by GNP includes the cost of producing the pollutants as well as expenditures for cleaning up afterward. We may fill our tank with gasoline, but due to engine inefficiency, some portion of that ends up in the atmosphere as air pollution. Such pollutants are not free — we had to pay good money to put them in the air. Yet the cost of putting them there is included in our principal measure of national economic well-being.

If we clean up the pollutants, the cost of the cleanup effort is also added to GNP. But many of the costs, such as poorer health and deteriorated surroundings, are never counted at all. It is an indictment of our ignorance and indifference toward what we do to the environment, that in our national economic accounts we count so few of the “bads,” and that even when we do count them, we count them as “goods.”

The total volume of pollutants in the United States responds, as we have seen, to the size of the national economy, which in turn depends heavily on the size of the national population. People consume resources wherever they live. Whether in New York City or a small town in the midwest, people still drive an automobile made of steel using coal mined in West Virginia. In the process, the air in cities is fouled by smoke and the scenery and the streams of West Virginia are spoiled by strip mining. Wherever Americans live, they make huge demands on the nation’s and the world’s resources and environment.

From the standpoint of resources and the environment, [coping with population growth] will become an increasingly unpleasant and risky business — unpleasant because “coping” with growth means adopting solutions we don’t like; risky because it means adopting solutions before we understand them. Within the United States, the risks are ecological and social. And, there are risks which involve our relationship with the rest of the world.

We in this country are tampering with the ecosystem in many ways, the consequences of which we do not begin to understand. The crude methods used to estimate the effect of emissions on air quality and the damages and costs of urban pollution illustrate our ignorance all too well. Worse yet is our understanding of the second class of pollutants, bypassed in our analysis precisely because we know so little about them. Because such pollutants endure longer, because they are highly poisonous in small doses, because new pollutants are continually being introduced, and because there are long time lags between emissions and the appearance of damages, we shall not quickly improve our knowledge in this area.

Beyond pollution, there are profound ecological impacts:

the simplification and destabilization of ecosystems associated with modern one-crop agriculture; the reduction in the variety of gene pools in our most important plants; the threat to the productivity of the sea through the filling-in of salt marshes; the unknown consequences of climate changes caused by man’s activities; and many more.

Population growth is clearly not the sole culprit in ecological damage. To believe that it is, is to confuse how things are done with how many people are doing them. Much of the damage we do results from efforts to satisfy fairly trivial preferences — for unblemished fruit, detergents, rapidly accelerating cars, and bright colored paper products. We can and should cut back on frivolous and extravagant consumption that pollutes. The way things are done can, to a significant degree, be changed regardless of how many people are doing them. But the overall effect is a product of numbers [of people] times styles of life taken together. One multiplies the other to produce the total impact.

The real risk lies in the fact that increasing numbers press us to adopt new technologies before we know what we are doing. The more of us there are the greater is the temptation to introduce solutions before their side effects are known. It might be far better environmentally to postpone the introduction of nuclear power plants until the inherently cleaner fusion reactors are developed. When one pesticide or food additive is found to be dangerous to man, it is replaced with another about which we know less. We undertake the expenditure of billions on water treatment, without knowing whether the benefits outweigh the costs of other opportunities foregone. Slower population growth will not eliminate this situation, but it will reduce the urgency, the “crash program” character of much that we do. It will buy time for the development of sensible solutions.

We can cope with population growth for another half century if we have to; the question is whether we want to. We can cope with resource shortages — if we cannot mine a resource, we can import, design around it, find a substitute, or reduce consumption. Where water deficits threaten, we can choose between charging more for its use, transferring people and industry to other parts of the country, and constructing longer and larger canals. If pollution emissions cannot be tolerated, we can change production processes, improve treatment, separate polluters from their victims, treat the symptoms, or simply produce less of the commodity causing the pollution. Congestion during commuter hours can be handled by restricting the use of private cars, developing mass transit, and staggering work hours. Congestion at recreation sites can be handled by building additional facilities, improving management, encouraging substitutes such as foreign travel, and if necessary, by staggering vacations. Even land shortages for agriculture can be handled, given sufficient lead time, through farming the sea, changing our diet, developing synthetic foods, and so forth.

Such changes pose physical, technical, and managerial challenges that we can probably meet if we must. But in so doing, we shall pay a cost reckoned not in dollars but in our way of life.

Population growth forces upon us slow but irreversible changes in life style. Imbedded in our traditions as to what constitutes the American way of life is freedom from public regulation — virtually free use of water; access to uncongested, unregulated roadways; freedom to do as we please with what we own; freedom from permits, licenses, fees, red tape, and bureaucrats; and freedom to fish, swim, and camp where and when we will. Clearly, we do not live this way now. Maybe we never did. But everything is relative. The population of [50 years in the future] may look back with envy on what, from their vantage point, appears to be our relatively unfettered way of life.

Another price we pay for having to cope with continued population growth is the pressure to keep on postponing the solution of social problems. While growth continues, top priority will be given to finding the necessary resources, controlling pollutants, correcting the damages they have done, and building ever larger water canals, highways, and mass transit systems. A large and perhaps growing fraction of our physical and intellectual capital is directly or indirectly devoted to these tasks — to finding ways to cope with the problems that continued growth generates. From past experience, we can predict with a fair degree of confidence that such priorities will continue to subordinate efforts devoted to resolving fundamental social problems.

The point is that continued population growth limits our options. In the case of the larger population, with less land per person and more people to accommodate, there are fewer alternatives, less room for diversity, less room for error. To cope with continued growth, technology must advance; lifestyles must change. Slower population growth offers us the difference between choice and necessity, between prudence and living dangerously.

The Commission has been deeply impressed by the unprecedented size and significance of the looming problems of resources and environment on a world scale. We see the need for much greater efforts than are underway now to analyze and understand these problems, and to develop international policies and programs to deal with them. We foresee potentially grave issues of clashing interests among nations and world regions, which could have very serious effects on the United States.

Chapter 6: Government

Regardless of how our population grows in the coming decades, we are going to spend more on public services, simply because of rising demands for new types of services and improved quality of existing services. Even if population were to remain at its current level, we would have to spend more just to satisfy present demands for better housing, education, transportation, health services, environmental improvements, and the elimination of hunger and poverty. Conversely, even if no new services or improvements in quality were demanded, costs would rise because, even at the slow growth rate, we will have a larger population requiring public services.

Our political institutions were designed originally to govern a much smaller society, organized and oriented differently from what we have today. These institutions have changed as the society has changed. They have demonstrated remarkable flexibility and adaptability, but they also have shown some serious inadequacies. Are they capable of accommodating still more population growth in the future?

Representation at the national level is diluted by population growth. The constituency of an individual congressman has grown enormously since the size of the House of Representatives was fixed at 435 members in 1910. Then, each congressman represented 211,000 citizens, on the average. In 1970, a congressional constituency averaged 470,000 citizens. [In] the year 2000, each congressman in a 435-seat House [represents 690,000] persons….

The size of the constituency is clearly not the sole factor determining excellence in government. Perhaps it may not even be very important, compared with the quality of the representatives, the size and professionalism of their staffs, the size of the governing body itself, and other factors. But, it cannot be denied that the individual constituent’s voice will be diminished under such circumstances. And, no increase of Congress’s ability to communicate with constituents by mass media can disguise or make up for that diminution.

The administration of justice stands as a fundamental role of government in our society. The fact that this system today is under pressure is too obvious to require demonstration. Congested court dockets, long waiting periods before trial in criminal and civil cases, the torment of the correctional system — all bear evidence to the troubles. No matter what the circumstances may be in [30 years], the gravity of the current situation requires an immediate and aggressive effort to improve the present system of justice.

The Supreme Court of the United States is the final arbiter at the apex of the judicial system. In the nature of things, we can have only one of these. In 1824, when our population was 11 million, Daniel Webster could argue an important case before the Supreme Court for several days. Today, oral arguments are usually limited to one hour or less, and the Court hears only a very small percentage of the several thousand cases that arise through the expanded lower court system and the increasingly popular appeals procedures. The same type of pressure extends to the single supreme court in many states.

Chapter 8: Population and Public Policy

We rely largely on private market forces for conducting the daily business of production and consumption. These work well in general and over the short run to reduce costs, husband resources, increase productivity, and provide a higher material standard of living for the individual. But the market mechanism has been ineffective in allocating the social and environmental costs of production and consumption, primarily because public policies and programs have not provided the proper signals nor required that such costs be borne by production and consumption activities. Nor has the market mechanism been able to provide socially acceptable incomes for people who, by virtue of age, incapacity, or injustice, are poorly equipped to participate the market system for producing and distributing income.

Our economy’s use of the earth’s finite resources, and the accompanying pollution or deterioration of the quality of water, air, and natural beauty, has neglected some of the fundamental requirements for acceptable survival. Often the time horizon for both public and private decisions affecting the economy has been too short. It seems clear that market forces alone cannot be relied upon to achieve our social and environmental goals, for reasons that make exchange, though the main organizing principle, inadequate without appropriate institutional and legal underpinnings.

In short, even if we achieve the stabilization of population, our economic, environmental, governmental, and social problems will still be with us unless by will and intelligence we develop policies to deal with the other sources of these problems. The fact that such policies have shown little conspicuous success in the past gives rise to the skepticism we have expressed above in our discussion of the relations between government and population growth.

The problem is not so much the impact of population on government as the adequacy of government to respond to the challenge of population and the host of issues that surround it. Long-term planning is necessary to deal with environmental and resource problems, but there are only beginning signs that government is motivated or organized to undertake it.

Chapter 13: Immigration

Because population growth has rarely been a concern of immigration policy makers, it is especially important to study immigration from the perspective of population policy. In the years 1861 to 1910, the average annual immigration rate per 1,000 total population of the United States was 7.5; the rate for the period 1911 to 1970 dropped to 1.8. The rate for the recent period reflects a rise from the 1930’s, when there was a net outflow of migrants, to the 1960’s when the rate was 2.2. [The current (2007) rate of legal immigration is 2.7; total legal and illegal immigration is estimated at 3.3.]

Because the immigration issue involves complex moral, economic, and political considerations, as well as demographic concerns, there was a division of opinion within the Commission about policies regarding the number of immigrants. Some Commissioners felt that the number of immigrants should be gradually decreased, about 10 percent a year for five years. This group was concerned with the inconsistency of planning for population stabilization for our country and at the same time accepting large numbers of immigrants each year. They were concerned that the filling of many jobs in this country each year by immigrants would have an increasingly unfavorable impact on our own disadvantaged, particularly when unemployment is substantial. Finally, they were concerned because they believe that immigration does have a considerable impact on United States population growth, thus making the stabilization objective much more difficult.

The majority felt that the present level of immigration should be maintained because of the humanitarian aspects; because of the contribution which immigrants have made and continue to make to our society; and because of the importance of the role of the United States in international migration.

The Commission recommends that Congress immediately consider the serious situation of illegal immigration and pass legislation which will impose civil and criminal sanctions on employers of illegal border-crossers or aliens in an immigration status in which employment is not authorized.

Chapter 16: Organizational Changes

A paradox exists within the federal government with regard to population. Although many departments and agencies administer programs which influence and are influenced by population growth and distribution, these subjects have not, until very recently, been of specific concern to either the executive or legislative branches. This Commission has made a number of recommendations directed toward: (1) increasing public knowledge of the causes and consequences of population change; (2) facilitating and guiding the processes of population movement; (3) maximizing information about human reproduction and its consequences for the family; and (4) enabling individuals to avoid unwanted fertility.

We … recommend the establishment, within the National Institutes of Health, of a National Institute of Population Sciences to provide an adequate institutional framework for implementing a greatly expanded program of population research.

We … recommend the creation of an Office of Population Growth and Distribution within the Executive Office of the President.

We … recommend the immediate addition of personnel with demographic expertise to the staffs of the Council of Economic Advisers, the Domestic Council, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Office of Science and Technology.

We … recommend that Congress approve pending legislation establishing a Council of Social Advisers and that this Council have as one of its main functions the monitoring of demographic variables.

about the 35 year old report

This post begins with “Back in March…” and the report excerpted above was issued back in March — March 1972. Its title is Population And The American Future, The Report Of The Commission On Population Growth And The American Future, John D. Rockefeller III, Chairman, March 27, 1972. [Full text at that link.] It’s sometimes referred to as the report of the Rockefeller Commission.

On July 18, 1969, in a Special Message to the Congress on Problems of Population Growth President Richard Nixon urged the US Congress to commission the study that resulted in the Rockefeller report. His remarks concluded with these words,

One of the most serious challenges to human destiny … will be the growth of the population. Whether man’s response to that challenge will be a cause for pride or for despair … will depend very much on what we do today. If we now begin our work in an appropriate manner, and if we continue to devote a considerable amount of attention and energy to this problem, then mankind will be able to surmount this challenge as it has surmounted so many during the long march of civilization.

When future generations evaluate the record of our time, one of the most important factors in their judgment will be the way in which we responded to population growth. Let us act in such a way that those who come after us — even as they lift their eyes beyond earth’s bounds — can do so with pride in the planet on which they live, with gratitude to those who lived on it in the past, and with continuing confidence in its future.

Nixon appointed 20 of the 25 members of the commission, yet, soon after their work was published, he rejected it. The 1972 elections were coming up that November, and its stance on abortion and access to birth control for minors was too much for the religious right and social conservatives, constituencies Nixon thought he needed to get re-elected. (He beat George McGovern handily, winning 60% of the popular vote, 520 of 538 electoral votes, 49 states to McGovern’s 1 state + DC. Two years later Nixon resigned from office in disgrace.)

What I find striking about the report is how accurate its projections were and how well it covered the breadth and depth of population issues. Sadly, it was the last word heard from the federal government on population pressure in the United States.

other references

• Nixon and American Population Policy: [25th] Anniversary of a Missed Opportunity by David Simcox, March 1998.
• The Rockefeller Commission Report, March 27, 1972, Thirty Years Later by M. Boyd Wilcox, March 2002.
• Population Explosion: Is Man Really Doomed?, a Time Magazine article from Monday, Sep. 13, 1971 By Otto Friedrich.