The Influence of a Stagnating Population on the Rate of Technological Change

For years scholars have expressed concerns over the growing world population rate and its implication on the limited resources that humanity requires for its sustenance. These concerns are informed by the inverse relationship between population rates and resource availability. Proponents of the Malthusian model believe that increased population pressure will deplete the earth's resources, generating a state of acute deprivation and conflict that will reduce the population to sustainable levels. In contrast, economist Julian Simon has a more optimistic view of the impact of population pressure on the earth's limited resources in this age of technology.

According to Julian Simon's theory of population growth, technological advancement provides human beings with unlimited growth potential. Simon strongly opposed the Malthusian model of population growth, which posited that population growth would eventually exceed resource production resulting in warfare and severe starvation that would reduce the human population to sustainable levels (Simon 475). In his book entitled "The Ultimate Resource," Simon notes that the scarcity of a resource causes its price to rise. The high prices create an incentive for people to create alternatives or turn to substitute products (Simon 683). The decreased demand for the high-priced good due to the availability of substitutes causes its price to decline, making it affordable once more (Simon 683). Due to the intellectual capacity of human beings and the availability of technology, as the population increase puts a strain on resources, people will continually leverage these two things to innovate new solutions and create new resources.

Having Simon's theory in mind, one can rightly argue that a stagnating human population will impede technological change. Notably, the growing scarcity of resources resulting from population pressure provides an incentive and the rationale to advance technologically continually. Technological advancements help bolster earth's resources that are crucial for human survival. Without the incentive for innovation emanating from population pressure, there would be no agency for technological advancement. Therefore, a stagnant world population will result in a reduced rate of technological change.

Analyze and discuss The Influence of a Stagnating Population on the Rate of Technological Change.

Simon, Julian. The Ultimate Resource 2. Princeton University Press, 1998.