The birth dearth

National Review, Oct 9, 1987 by Wayne Lutton

The Birth Dearth

by Ben Wattenberg (Pharos Books, 182 pp., $16.95)

NEARLY twenty years ago, the biologist Paul Ehrlich wrote a book, The Population Bomb, which argued that mankind's future was endangered by overpopulation. Ehrlich's book led, at least indirectly, to efforts in this country and elsewhere to limit population growth through various government-sponsored programs, including tax-supported abortions. Now Ben Wattenberg, in The Birth Dearth, wants to employ the power of big government to encourage people to have more babies.

Wattenberg, a professional optimist long associated with the American Enterprise Institute, believes that the future of the West in general--and America in particular--is threatened by the failure of middle- and upper-middle-class people to raise enough children. He confesses that "it scares the hell out of me' when he considers that "fertility has been falling in most of the Western world for more than a century.' If present trends continue, he warns, by the end of the next century the "free, modern world' will contain only 5 per cent of the global population, down from approximately 15 per cent today. Another 5 per cent will be living in the Communist bloc. The Third World will account for fully 90 per cent of the earth's population.

There is, admittedly, a certain specious logic to Wattenberg's arguments. Westerners, along with the Japanese and the Israelis, are undoubtedly outnumbered by the inhabitants of the less-developed and never-to-be-developed portions of our planet. But this has always been the case. (Even Wattenberg cautions "that it may well be that the current fertility rates are not an "aberration,' but "normal.'') As Paul Gottfried has remarked elsewhere (cf. "Notes on Neoconservatism,' The World & I, September 1986), Wattenberg tends to view history as "the bad old times.' His lack of understanding of the past leads him to misread what is wrong now.

From Wattenberg's perspective, high rates of population growth have been "associated almost invariably' with Western economic success and have thus contributed to the West's predominance in world affairs. Yet Western man has always constituted a minority of the earth's population. It has been the West's unique ability to combine inventiveness with the widespread application of technology that has enabled Western man to exploit resources and foster national power. This particular talent is well illustrated by Robert Clive's victory at Plassey in 1757, where 784 European soldiers, along with 2,100 Indian auxiliaries trained and equipped according to European methods, routed the fifty thousand troops of the Nawab of Bengal. This led to the British conquest of the rest of the Indian subcontinent and, for a span of nearly two hundred years, Western domination of the rest of the Orient. And there are no indications that the West, Japan, and Israel are in danger of losing their technological lead.

What really sems to trouble Wattenberg is that the New Deal/Great Society world of the "mixed economy' supporting a "benevolent' welfare state depends on growing numbers of productive, middle-class "milk cows' to keep it running. He actually says that if the myriad statist welfare programs were someday eliminated, the United States "would not be a country I would choose to live in.' And, as "a lifelong admirer and booster of Social Security,' he opposes the establishment of a fully funded private pension system, preferring instead the current "pay as you go' method that requires ever higher taxes--and/or a growing number of taxpayers--to defray future outlays. In fact, "The Birth Dearth thesis confirms what conservative economists have said for years,' observes Robert McBurney Jr. of Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business, "namely the fact that Social Security is a terminally ill Ponzi scheme. It is probably the greatest financial fraud ever inflicted on a people by their government.'

Two chapters are devoted to out-lining various "Remedies' and "Practical Plans' to avert at least some of the consequences of the "Birth Dearth.' Of course, if the 1.6 million babies who are aborted every year in this country were permitted to be born, the perceived birth shortfall would be eliminated. However, pro-life activitists should take note that, in friendly Ben's view, "the illegalization of abortion should be ruled out as a means to try to raise fertility.'

What, then, is to be done? Following an intensive propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the economically productive that they have a patriotic duty to bear more babies, Wattenberg would have the U.S. Government emulate Soviet-bloc "pro-natalist' policies; fiddle with the tax code to encourage third and fourth children; raise taxes; forgive college loans to students who have babies after graduation; urge private business to grant liberal maternity leave; push for higher levels of legal immigration. Wattenberg concedes that "no matter how you cut it, this is a very expensive program, adding up to annual expenditures of hundreds of billions of dollars over time.' Lest you get a bit faint-hearted as Ben reaches for your wallet, he asks you to "remember what we're trying to do: prop up the West, keep the American economy vigorous, and diminish human unhappiness. Let's pay for it if we have to.'