A defense of the Invisible hand

Today in class we talked about the global ramifications of continuing the global trends of over population and straining our finite supply of natural resources. We talked a lot about the global ramifications of continuing to squander our limited resources, but we did not focus on the consequences that apply only to us Americans.

One of the interesting points that I found in commoner that we didn’t get a chance to go over in class is the idea that at the current rate of population growth Americans will soon be overshadowed by the soon to be much larger populations of third world countries. This perspective interests me because when talking about overpopulation and the limitations of our earth sustainability, we normally do so from a global perspective. The argument made by some might be that because over population is a global problem that it affects everyone equally. This would be true if we were to limit ourselves to the lack of natural resources, and not also on massive over population in certain areas of the globe.

A nationalistic perspective on the issue of over population brings to mind a threat presented to the United States from third world countries. If third world countries continue to overpopulate, the United States and all other industrial countries around the globe are directly in danger of these populations, which the industrial world has exploited for so long. Therefore, even from a nationalistic perspective, it is in the best interest of individual nations, as well as the globe on the whole to control population growth.

This brings me back to another concept we discussed today in class: the invisible hand argument presented by Adam Smith in the wealth of nations. Smith argues that by a person acting in their own selfish interest, they inadvertently help the whole. We discussed today in class that the invisible hand model doesn’t work because of the problem of the tragedy of commons, or the idea that in a society where there is a limited amount of resources being used by an entire population, and that if one person in that population takes advantage of the supply of resources, the other people in that population will suffer.

My point is this, it is in the best interest of industrial nations to control the population growth of these third world countries so that they do not begin to outnumber those members of industrial countries and rebel against industrial nations. Thus it is in the best person interest of industrial nations to stagnate the population of third world countries, and at the same time by limiting the population of these countries industrialized nations would inadvertently help these countries achieve a higher standard of living and reduce the strain on the globes natural resources. This is how the invisible hand works and I contest that it applies just as well to this problem of overpopulation as it does in our nation, and Smith’s Wealth of Nations.