rivation and starvation as growing populations outstripped the food supply" (Bongaarts 37). Simon makes the case that history has never borne out this dire prediction and that all previous predictions that population would overtake food have been wrong. In a modern, technology-driven society, it would be impossible for the world to contain too many people.
Controversy surrounds Simon's view of this issue. Chesnais cites figures supporting the theory of "'demographic transition'--that as people become more prosperous, they want more comfort and have fewer children" (32). This theory contradicts Malthus's linking increased prosperity with increased fertility. Simon cites this as sufficient refutation of Malthusian theory in general, but he passes over demographic-transition data per se. He repeatedly declares that those who do not share his population views or who criticize them fail to use data and the scientific method to make their argument (e.g., 9-10). Instead, he focuses on what he takes to be the need for more people irrespective of whatever comfort the more prosperous people of the world might take in not having to raise more and more contributions to the supply of human capital.
Simon's analysis of the birth-control work of Margaret Sanger illustrates his belief in the need for more people in the world. He passes over the birth-control advocacy of Sanger and focuses on Sanger's view that overpopulation was a cause of World War II (Simon 426). That notion of war is simply not true in a technology-driven modern world, says Simon.
Simon (543f) also deplores the moral hazard of Sanger's attraction to eugenics, or organized efforts to prevent reproduction by those deemed mentally or physically defective, citing in this regard Nazi policies of forced sterilization and involuntary euthanasia in this regard.
Simon's larger point is that population growth is not only not an imminent problem facing the world but is also somet...