786 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
large, relatively untapped pool of intellectual and tech- pregnant single women to marry or have abort
nical talent; tapping that pool effectively could help
reduce population growth and also would provide many
other direct benefits to any society.
Social pressures on both men and women to marry anoL
have children must be removed. As former Secretary of_
Tptprjnr Stewart Udall observed, "All lives are not
enhanced by marital union; parenthood is not necessarily
a fulfillment for every married couple."98 If society were
convinced of the need for low birth rates, no doubt the
stigma that has customarily been assigned to bachelors,
spinsters, and childless couples would soon disappear.
But alternative lifestyles should be open to single people,
and perhaps the institution of an informal, easily dis-
solved "marriage" for the childless is one possibility.
Indeed, many DC societies now seem to be evolving in
this direction as women's liberation gains momentum."
It is possible that fully developed societies may produce
such arrangements naturally, and their association with
lower fertility is becoming increasingly clear. In LDCs a
childless or single lifestyle might be encouraged deliber-
ately as the status of women approaches parity with that
of men.
Although free and easy association of the sexes might
be tolerated in such a society, responsible parenthood
ought to be encouraged and illegitimate childbearing
could be strongly discouraged. One way to carry out this
disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies
be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors,
who generally are not capable of caring properly for a
child alone.100 If a single mother really wished to keep
her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption
proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and
care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should re-
main more difficult for single people than for married
couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising
children alone. It would even be possible to require
**&1976: Agenda for tomorrow.
99
Judith Blake, The changing status of women in developed countries;
E. Peck and J. Senderowitz (eds.), Pronatalism, tlie niyth of mom and apple
pie; Ellen Peck, The baby trap.
100
The tragedy of teenage single mothers in the U.S. is described by
Leslie Aldridge Westoff in Kids with kids. The adverse health and social
effects of teenage child-bearing in an affluent society have recently been
documented by several studies. One good sample can be found in a special
issue of Family planning perspectives, Teenagers, USA.
perhaps as an alternative to placement for adopticr..
depending on the society.
Somewhat more repressive measures for discouraging
large families have also been proposed, such as assigning
public housing without regard for family size and
removing dependency allowances from student grants at
military pay. Some of these have been implemented u:
crowded Singapore, whose population program has been
counted as one of the most successful.
All socioeconomic measures are derived from knowl-
edge of social conditions that have been associated with
low birth rates in the past. The more repressive sugges-
tions are based on observations that people have volun-
tarily controlled their reproduction most stringently
during periods of great social and economic stress and
insecurity, such as the Depression of the 1930s.101 In a
sense, all such proposals are shots in the dark. Not
enough is known about fertility motivation to predict the
effectiveness of such policies. Studies by demographer
Judith Blake102 and by economist Alan Sweezy103 for
instance, have cast serious doubt on the belief that
economic considerations are of the greatest importance in
determining fertility trends. Sweezy has shown that the
decline of fertility in the 1930s in the United States was
merely a continuation of an earlier trend. If their views
are correct, then severely repressive economic measures
might prove to be both ineffective and unnecessary as a
vehicle for population control, as well as socially
undesirable. At the very least, they should be considered
only if milder measures fail completely.
Involuntary Fertility Control
The third approach to population limitation is that of
involuntary fertility control. Several coercive proposals
deserve discussion, mainly because some countries may
ultimately have to resort to them unless current trends in
birth rates are rapidly reversed by other means.104 Some
""Richard A. Easterlin, Population, labor force, and long swings in
economic growth. Further discussion of Easterlin's ideas can be found in
Deborah Freedman, ed., Fertility, aspirations and resources: A sympo-
sium on the Easterlin hypothesis.
102
Are babies consumer durables? and Reproductive motivation.
""The economic explanation of fertility changes in the U.S.
104
Edgar R. Chasteen, The case for compulsory birth control.

involuntary measures could be less repressive or dis-
criminatory, in fact, than some of the socioeconomic
measures suggested.
In the 1960s it was proposed to vasectomize all fathers
of three or more children in India. The proposal was
defeated then not only on moral grounds but on practical
ones as well; there simply were not enough medical
personnel available even to start on the eligible candi-
dates, let alone to deal with the new recruits added each
day! Massive assistance from the developed world in the
form of medical and paramedical personnel and/or a
training program for local people nevertheless might
have put the policy within the realm of possibility. India
in the mid-1970s not only entertained the idea of com-
pulsory sterilization, but moved toward implementing
it, perhaps fearing that famine, war, or disease might
otherwise take the problem out of its hands. This deci-
sion was greeted with dismay abroad, but Indira Gandhi's
government felt it had little other choice. There is too
little time left to experiment further with educational
programs and hope that social change will generate a
spontaneous fertility decline, and most of the Indian
population is too poor for direct economic pressures
(especially penalties) to be effective.
A program of sterilizing women after their second or
third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the
operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement
than trying to sterilize men. This of course would be
feasible only in countries where the majority of births are
medically assisted. Unfortunately, such a program
therefore is not practical for most less developed coun-
tries (although in China mothers of three children are
commonly "expected" to undergo sterilization).
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule
that could be implanted under the skin and removed
when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities
for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be
implanted at puberty and might be removable, with
official permission, for a limited number of births. No
capsule that would last that long (30 years or more) has
yet been developed, but it is technically within the realm
of possibility.
Various approaches to administering such a system
have been offered, including one by economist Kenneth
I
POPULATION POLICIES / 787
Boulding.105 His proposal was to issue to each woman at
maturity a marketable license that would entitle her to a
given number of children—say, 2.2 in order to have an
NRR = 1. Under such a system the number could be two
if the society desired to reduce the population size slowly.
To maintain a steady size, some couples might be
allowed to have a third child if they purchased "deci-
child" units from the government or from other women
who had decided not to have their full allotments of
children or who found they had a greater need for the
money. Others have elaborated on Boulding's idea,
discussing possible ways of regulating the license scheme
and alternative ways of alloting the third children.106
One such idea is that permission to have a third child
might be granted to a limited number of couples by
lottery. This system would allow governments to regu-
late more or less exactly the number of births over a given
period of time.
Social scientist David Heer has compared the social
effects of marketable license schemes with some of the
more repressive economic incentives that have been
proposed and with straightforward quota systems.107 His
conclusions are shown in Table 13-5.
Of course, a government might require only implan- \
tation of the contraceptive capsule, leaving its removal to
the individual's discretion but requiring reimplantation
after childbirth^ Since having a child would require
positive action (removal of the capsule), many more
births would be prevented than in the reverse situation.
Certainly unwanted births and the problem of abortion
would both be entirely avoided. The disadvantages
(apart from the obvious moral objections) include the
questionable desirability of keeping the entire female
population on a continuous steroid dosage with the
contingent health risks, and the logistics of implanting
capsules in 50 percent of the population between the ages
of 15 and 50.
Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a
suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most
proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this
I05
7°fe meaning of the 20lh century, pp. 135-136.
J
""Bruce M. Russert. Licensing: for cars and babies; David M. Heer,
Marketing licenses for babies; Boulding's proposal revisited.
107
Ibid.
TABLE 13-5
Evaluation of Some Relatively Coercive Measures for Fertility Reduction
Effect Marketable license systems ___ __ Financialjtueutwe^ystems Quota systems

C
CBqby licenses^ ./Monthly subsidy\ Monthly tex\ /" ~\
that may be sold \ to persons jj on persons \ f One-time tax \
Boulding proposal or lent at interest V vi ith no more than I with more than I 1 for excess babies J Identical quota
for baby licenses to the government \^ two children _x two children^/ \_ over two / for all couples

Restriction on Moderately severe Moderately severe Moderately severe Moderately severe Moderately severe Very severe
individual
liberty
Effect on quality Probably Probably Unknown Unknown Probably Slightly beneficial
of children's beneficial beneficial beneficial
financial
support
Effectiveness and Effective Effective Fairly effective Fairly effective Effective Effective
acceptability of enforcement at enforcement at enforcement enforcement enforcement at enforcement at
enforcement possible price possible price possible price possible price
mechanisms of depriving of depriving of depriving of depriving
some children some children some children some children
of a family of a family of a family of a family
environment environment environment environment
Effectiveness for Moderate High Low Low Low Moderate
precise
regulation of
the birth rate
Source: Adapted from David Heer, Marketing licenses.

would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social
questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No
such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be
under development. To be acceptable, such a substance
would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it
must be uniformly effective, despite \videly varying
doses received by individuals, and despite varying de-
grees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it
must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and
it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex,
children, old people, pets, or livestock.
Physiologist Melvin Ketchel, of the Tufts University
School of Medicine, suggested that a sterilant could be
developed that would have a very specific action—for
example, preventing implantation of the fertilized
ovum.108 He proposed that it be used to reduce fertility
levels by adjustable amounts, anywhere from 5 to 75
percent, rather than to sterilize the whole population
completely. In this way, fertility could be adjusted from
time to time to meet a society's changing needs, and there
would be no need to provide an antidote. Contraceptives
would still be needed for couples who were highly
""Fertility control agents as a possible solution to the world popula-
tion problem, pp. 687-703.
motivated to have small families. Subfertile and func-
tionally sterile couples who strongly desired children
would be medically assisted, as they are now, or en-
couraged to adopt. Again, there is no sign of such an
agent on the horizon. And the risk of serious, unforeseen
side effects would, in our opinion, militate against the use
of any such agent, even though this plan has the
advantage of avoiding the need for socioeconomic pres-
sures that might tend to discriminate against particular
groups or penalize children.
Most of the population control measures beyond
family planning discussed above have never been tried.
Some are as yet technically impossible and others are and
probably will remain unacceptable to most societies
(although, of course, the potential effectiveness of those
least acceptable measures may be great).
Compulsory control of family size is an unpalatable
idea, but the alternatives may be much more horrifying.
As those alternatives become clearer to an increasing
number of people in the 1980s, they may begin demand-
ing such control. A far better choice, in our view, is to
expand the use of milder methods of influencing family
size preferences, while redoubling efforts to ensure that
the means of birth control, including abortion and
806 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
existing institutions; there is neither the time nor the
leadership to dismantle them completely and replace
them with others. Today's institutions must be bent and
reshaped but not destroyed.
No one is more acutely aware than we are of the
difficulties and hazards of trying to criticize and com-
ment constructively on such broad areas as religion,
education, economics, legal and political systems, and the
psychology of individuals and societies. We believe,
however, that in order for people to translate into
effective and constructive political action what is now
known about the roots of the crisis, new, far-reaching and
positive programs must be undertaken immediately.
In this chapter and the next, we therefore depart from
the realm of relatively hard data in the physical, biologi-
cal, and social sciences to embark on an exploration of the
many other areas of human endeavor that are critically
important to a solution of our problems.' In doing so we
are making the assumption that many reforms are
essential. The dangers of making the opposite assump-
tion are beautifully set forth in the following quotation
from biologist Garrett Hardin's article, "The Tragedy of
the Commons":
It is one of the peculiarities of the warfare between
reform and the status quo that it is thoughtlessly
governed by a double standard. Whenever a reform
measure is proposed it is often defeated when its
opponents triumphantly discover a flaw in it. As
Kingsley Davis has pointed out, worshippers of the
status quo sometimes imply that no reform is possible
without unanimous agreement, an implication con-
trary to historical fact. As nearly as I can make out,
automatic rejection of proposed reforms is based on
one of two unconscious assumptions: (i) that the status
quo is perfect; or (ii) that the choice we face is between
reform and no action; if the proposed reform is
imperfect, we presumably should take no action at all,
while we wait for a perfect proposal.
But we can never do nothing. That which we have
done for thousands of }'ears is also action. It also
produces evils. Once we are aware that the status quo is
action, we can then compare its discoverable advan-
'Many of these topics are treated in greater depth in Dennis C. Pirages
and Paul R. Ehrlich. Ark II:.SodaI response to environmental imperatives;
its footnotes and bibliographies provide further access to the pertinent
literature, especially in political science.
tages and disadvantages with the predicted advantages
and disadvantages of the proposed reform, discounting
as best we can for our lack of experience. On the basis
of such a comparison, we can make a rational decision
which will not involve the unworkable assumption
that only perfect systems are tolerable.
RELIGION
Religion, broadly denned, would include all the belief
systems that allow Homo sapiens to achieve a sense of
transcendence of self and a sense of the possession of a
right and proper place in the universe and a right and
proper way of life. In short, everyone wants to feel
important and in tune with a right-ordered world. The
attempt to achieve a sense of well-being in these terms is
so pervasive among human cultures that it may be
counted as a necessity of human life. With religion so
broadly denned, political parties, labor unions, nation
states, academic disciplines, and the organized structure
of the environment-ecology movement would have to be
counted among our religious institutions. Certainly, t
representatives of all those groups have struggled to
protect and propagate their views as assiduously (and
sometimes as fiercely) in our time as Genghis Khan, the
Christian Crusaders, or the Protestant Christian mis-
sionaries did in theirs. In this discussion, however, we
limit our attention to those groups customarily called the
world's_great religions, the traditions of belief and
practice belonging to members of the Tudeo-Christian.
Moslem, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions.
Religion must always be viewed in its two parts: the
first and more readily evident element being the formal
structure of authority and administration that in our
Western tradition is called "the church;" and the second,
more elusive, and in the long run more important
element, the system of attitudes called, in the Western.
manner, "die faith," In our treatment of the two parts, we
concentrate upon the relationship between organi/.pH
religion and population control because that is the area
where contemporary social needs and imperatives have
most clearly come into conflict with cherished traditional
values usually promulgated and supported by religions.
Moreover, humane population control calls for the

integration of contraceptive techniques into culturally
accepted sexual practices, and sexual practice is the area
of human activity that is typically most extensively
regulated by taboo. Thus, the acceptance or rejection of
birth control and various methods of carrying it out have
been important issues in organized Western religion for
several decades.
Our treatment of religious attitudes also focuses upon
perceptions of the environment, because how an indi-
vidual perceives and treats the world is determined by his
or her overall view of his or her place in that world. The
Christian concept of life in this world, as voiced by Saint
Paul, that "here we have no abiding city," for example,
conceivably could help explain why some people show
rather little concern for the long-term future of the global
environment or for the well-being of future generations.
Most of our attention is on the Western. Judeo-..
Christian religious tradition because it is primarily
within that tradition that the population-resource-
environment crisis has been engendered.
Organized Religious Groups
and Population Control
Within the theological community in the Western
world, there has recently been a heartening revolution in
thought and action on such varied social concerns as the
quality of life in urban areas, civil rights for minority
groups, and the war in Vietnam. Since the late 1960s,
environmental deterioration and the population explo-
sion have become important concerns. Protestant, Cath-
olic, and Jewish clergy have come more and more to the_^
forefront of public activities in these areas, often at
considerable personal sacrifice and risk.
Conspicuous among clergy who have risked their
careers have been Catholic theologians who opposed the
official pronatalist position of the Vatican. For example,
Father John A. O'Brien, a distinguished professor of
theology at Notre Dame University in Indiana, edited the
excellent book Family planning in an exploding popula-
tion in 1968,. He also was a leader in criticizing Pope Paul
VFs 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which reiterated
the church's condemnation of contraceptives. Com-
menting on the encyclical, Father O'Brien wrote, "Since
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 807
the decision is bound to be reversed by his [Pope Paul's]
successor, it would be far more honorable, proper and
just for the Pope to rescind it himself."2 Ivan Illich, who_
renounced his priesthood after a contrnversy nv^r birth-
control in Puerto Rico^ wrote that the encyclical "lacks
courage, is in bad taste, and takes the initiative away from
Rome in the attempt to lead modern man in Christian
humanism."3 Thousands of others, from cardinals to lay
people, have also spoken out. Since its publication, the
encyclical has caused immense anguish among Catholics,
millions of whom have followed their consciences and
used contraceptives, often after a period of intense
soul-searching.4 Indeed, clergyman sociologist Father
Andrew7 Greeley attributes the recent substantial erosion
in religious practices and church support among Ameri-
can Catholics almost entirely to Humanae Vitae.5
Adamant opposition to birth control by the Roman
Catholic Church and other conservative religious groups
for many years helped delay the reversal in developed
countries (including the United States) of laws restricting
access to contraceptives and the extension of family-
planning assistance to LDCs. Support of outdated dogma
among Catholic spokespeople still sometimes hinders
effective attacks on the population problem in Catholic
countries and in international agencies that support
family-planning programs. Thus, as late as 1969, elderly
Catholic economist Colin Clark claimed on a television
program that India would, in a decade, be the most
powerful country in the world because of its growing
population! He also wrote, "Population growth, however
strange and unwelcome some of its consequences may
appear at the time, must be regarded, I think, as one of
the instruments of Divine Providence, which we should
welcome, not oppose."6
By the mid-1970s, however, the influence of such
persons was on the wane— so much so that a reaffirma-
tion by Pope Paul of his anti-population-contrn], dngrna,
at the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome vyas greeted
by almost universal ridicule. Within the church, Pope
-Reader's Digest, January 1969.
'Celebration oj aizartness.
*F. X. Murphy and J. F. Erhart, Catholic perspectives on population
issues.. Population Bulletin, vol. 30 (1975), no. 6.
^Catholic schools in a declining church, Sheed & Ward, Mission,
Kans., 1976.
6
'Los Angelas Times, November 9, 1969.

about the disappearance of public land and the con-
sequent disappearance of the frontier, Frederick Jackson
Turner, then at the University of Wisconsin and sub-
sequently at Harvard, observed:
American social development has been continually
beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial
rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion
westward with its new opportunities . . . furnish the
forces dominating American character.14
A generation earlier, E. L. Godkin, editor of the
Nation, had written that the American frontier popula-
tion had "spread itself thinly over a vast area of soil, of
such extraordinary fertility that a very slight amount of
toil expended on it affords returns that might have
satisfied even the dreams of Spanish avarice."15
Traditional North American (and, to some extent,
European) attitudes toward the environment thus are not
exclusively products of our religious heritage, although
that doubtless played an important part. These attitudes
may just spring from ordinary human nature, which in
Western culture was provided with extraordinary social,
political, technical, and physical opportunities, particu-
larly connected with the nineteenth-century American
frontier. Such opportunities were bound to engender
optimism, confidence in the future, and faith in the
abundance of resources and the bounty of nature. That
they also produced habits of wastefulness and profligacy
was not noticed. Past institutions in the United States,
rarely dealt with environmental problems; if they were
recognized at all, they were usually considered to be
someone else's responsibility.
In the twentieth century, as the growing population
became increasingly urban and industrialized, the en-^
vironmental effects multiplied, and the nation was rather
suddenly confronted with a crisis. How today's Ameri-
cans ultimately resolve the environmental crisis will
depend on much more than changes in philosophical
outlook, but such changes unquestionably must precede
or at least accompany whatever measures are taken.
Individual conduct is clearly capable of being modified
and directed by an appropriate social environment—the
14
The significance of the frontier in American history, in The early
writings of Frederick Jackson Turner, ed- F. J. Turner.
1
'Aristocratic opinions of democracy.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 811
change in reproductive habits in the United States
testifies to that, as does the great increase in environ-
mental consciousness, t Tnfnrrunately. the e,pvirrmmental
problem may prove more difficult because it requires
changing more than the attitudes and behavior of indi-
viduals: those of firmly established, powerful institu-
tions— primaril business and governmental organiza-
tions— must hp
How large a role organized religion may play in
guiding the needed changes in individual attitudes
toward the environment or in influencing the behavior of _
other institutions is still uncertain. Many religious
groups have already shown leadership, including some
already mentioned in connection with population-
related issues. A particularly hopeful sign was the_
concern expressed in January 1976 by the National-
Council of Churches about the ethics of using and .
spreading the technology of nuclear power, and the
discussion promoted by the World Council of Churches^
on_the mirier ijjgiigjn,^L nr l rhp relation of energy policy _
to the prospects for adjust and sustainable^ world.16
Ecological Ethics
Many persons believe that an entirely new philosophy
must now be developed—one based on ecological reali-
ties. Such a philosophy—and the ethics based upon
it—would be antihumanist and against Judeo-Christian
tradition in the sense that it would not focus on an
anthropocentric universe.17 Instead, it would focus on
human beings as an integral part of nature, as just one
part of a much more comprehensive system.
This is not really a new perspective. In one sense,
Western philosophy has been a continuous attempt to
establish the position of Homo sapiens in the universe,
and the extreme anthropocentrism of thinkers like Karl
Marx and John Dewey has been strongly attacked by,
among others, Bertrand Russell.18 Russell, for example,
1
'See The plutonium economy: A statement of concern, Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, January 1976, pp. 48—49; P. M. Boffey, Plutonium: its
morality questioned by National Council of Churches, Science, vol. 192,
pp. 356—359 (April 23, 1976); Paul Abrecht, ed., Facing up to nuclear
power. Anticipation, no. 21, October 1975, pp. 1-47.
17
See Frank E. Egler, The zcay of science: A philosophy of ecology for the
layman; and George S. Sessions, Anthropocentrism and the environmen-
tal crisis. The latter is a good, brief summary with a useful bibliography.
1B
A hiswry of Wesiem philosophyj the debate is summarized in Sessions,
Anthropocentrism.
828 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
and Donald Lunde, which has enjoyed great success as a
college text and is highly recommended for any adoles-
cent or adult who wants to understand his or her
sexuality.
The Brain Drain
Our educational system is failing to produce not only
those competent to teach sex education, but also the
ecologists, agricultural scientists and technicians, social
scientists, paramedical personnel, and various other
specialists needed to help solve the pressing problems of
the world—especially in the less developed countries.
Indeed, for decades there has been a brain drain. Trained
personnel from the LDCs, especially medical doctors,
are understandably attracted to the United States and
other DCs, where they can earn a good living. Ironically,
this often happens because, despite their great needs for
trained people, LDCs may have no jobs for them. That
many individuals from the LDCs who are educated in
the DCs do not wish to return to their homelands is even
sadder. Although some DCs, notably the Soviet Union,
virtually force a return to the homeland, most do not.
One relatively simple and humane solution would be for
the DCs to establish and help staff more training centers
•within the LDCs. This should have the additional ben-
efits of training local people to work on problems of local
significance and of familiarizing visiting faculty mem-
bers from the DCs with those problems.
Changing the Educational Structure
While a great deal can be done to improve the
educational system within the general framework now
recognized, more fundamental changes will probably be
required if large technological societies are to discover
ways to govern themselves satisfactorily while solving or
preventing the social and environmental problems that
now threaten to destroy them. Ivan Illich has suggested
the abolition of formal education and the making of
educational materials and institutions available to all on a
cafeteria basis.52 To those struggling in the present
system, the idea has considerable appeal; but even Illich
''-Deschooling society.
recognizes the enormous drawbacks inherent in such an
unstructured approach.
We would suggest another strategy, one that expands
on ideas already current in education. First of all, we
think that a major effort should be made to extend
education throughout the life span, rather than attempt-
ing to cram all education into the first fifteen to twenty-
five years. It is becoming widely recognized that maturity
and experience are often a benefit in learning. Students
who have dropped out, worked, and then returned to
school generally do so with renewed vigor and increased
performance. Experience in the real world can lead
students to avoid much wasted effort in the educational
world. A program of encouraging interruption of educa-
tion, perhaps for one or two years during or directly after
high school and another two years after receiving an
undergraduate degree might be a good start. For exam-
ple, a student interested in becoming a physician might
spend two years after high school doing clerical work in a
hospital or doctor's office or serving as an orderly. When
his or her undergraduate education was completed, two
additional years could be spent working with a doctor as
a paramedic. Similarly, individuals going into business,
government, science, bricklaying, plumbing, or what-
have-you should have a chance to try out their chosen
professions and trades at the bottom before completing
their educations."
The benefits of the program would be many, including
better understanding of the problems faced by associates
(a doctor who has been an orderly should have more
insight into the situation of the orderlies), and fewer cases
of people committing themselves to careers too early,
with too little knowledge of what the commitment
involves, and discovering the error too late to make
another choice. Students who, on completing high
school, were unsure of what their futures should be,
could try out several possibilities.
What about youngsters who have no desire to go
beyond high school or vocational school? Should their
educations end at that point? In the United States, for
instance, nearly 1 adult in 5 reportedly lacks "those skills
and knowledges which are requisite to adult compe-
"For a more detailed discussion of restructuring our educational
system, see Dennis C. Pirages and Paul R. Ehrlich, Ark II: Social response
to environmental imperatives, chapter 6.

tence."54 We believe that a technological society, espe-
cially a democracy, cannot afford such a large proportion
of poorly educated citizens.
Every citizen should be drawn into the problems of
societal decision-making. We would suggest that all
people be required to take sabbatical leaves every seventh
year, which could be financed in various ways depending
on the choice of activity (this and the employment
"problems" created by such a program are considered
under "Economic and Political Change"). Each person
would be required to spend the year bettering society and
himself or herself in a way approved by the individual's
immediate colleagues, A physician might petition his or
her county medical society for permission to study new
surgical techniques or anthropology. A garbage collector
might petition coworkers to permit him or her to take a
year's course in sanitary engineering or recycling tech-
niques at a university. A secretary might apply to the
government for a grant to spend a sabbatical serving on
an ad hoc citizens' committee to evaluate the direction of
research in high-energy physics. A business executive
might apply for one of the open sabbatical chairs that
could be established on the city council (as well as in all
other legislative bodies). A flight instructor might per-
suade the local pilot's association to appoint him or her to
one of the exchange positions in the local Federal
Aviation Administration office, with an FAA counterpart
being required (if qualified) to take over the instructor's
job for a year. All bureaucrats should be required to take
some of their sabbaticals as nongovernmental workers in
the areas they administer and all professors to take some
of theirs outside the groves of academe —or at least
outside their own fields.
The details of such a program would be complicated,
but its benefits, we believe, would far outweigh its costs.
A growing rigidity of roles in our society must be broken,
and virtually everyone must be brought into its deci-
sion-making processes. Indeed, the discontent expressed
today by many groups is based on their feeling of being
cut off from participation in important decisions that
affect their lives.
Some moves in dus general direction have been made
in the People's Republic of China, where city people and
54
Based on a U.S. Office of Education study, reported in Time,
November 10, 1975, p. 6.
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 829
academics have been forced to join rural communes and
participate in completely different work from what they
had done before. It would be interesting to know what
success the Chinese have had. We would certainly not
advocate forcing people to change their occupations
against their wishes, any more than we would advocate
adopting the Chinese communist system of government.
But the basic idea behind this policy seems valuable, and
an adaptation of it that fit our political system might well
be worth exploring.
As an example of how citizen participation in political
decision-making can work, a group of scientists led by
ecologist C. S. Holling at the University of British
Columbia have involved local businessmen, politicians,
and private citizens in a computer simulation of a
prospective development project, as an experiment in the
results of citizen decision-making.55 Everyone contrib-
uted to the assumptions of the model, and all were
satisfied with the model created. Then various people
were allowed to try out their pet development plans on
the model. When a politician found that his or her plan
led to environmental disaster, the politician had to
acknowledge the error. The politician could not blame
the model because he or she had been involved in
building what was believed to be a realistic one.
We believe that it is possible, at least in theory, to get
away from a we-they system of running the country, to
give everyone a chance to participate. Grave problems
would unquestionably accompany the attempt, but since
we are both morally committed to some form of democ-
racy and intellectually convinced that the present system
is both undemocratic and lethally ineffectual, we see no
choice but to trv a change.
THE LEGAL SYSTEM
Perhaps the greatest potential for reversing environmen-
tal deterioration in the United States and for bringing our
population growth under control lies in the effective
utilization of our legal system.56 A law may be defined as
'^Personal communication.
56
Much of this section is based on discussions with attorney Johnson C.
Montgomery, whose death in December 1974 was a loss deeply felt bv
people in the ZPG movement.

framework of existing laws and the agencies that admin-
ister them. In some sense the easiest route to improve-
ments in environmental protection would seem to be
the passage of more comprehensive controls and the
establishment of streamlined procedures for administer-
ing them. Almost certainly, the courts would have no
constitutional objections to any reasonable legislative
limitations on the activities of polluting industries—for
example, requirements that effluents be purified, re-
duced, or eliminated. The courts could even sustain
statutes that would put certain corporations out of
business.
There are two major difficulties in getting effective
legislative action. First is the notion that if a higher
government authority (for example, the United States
Congress) enacts a law regulating a certain activity, it
may have preempted the field so that a lesser government
authority (for example, a state) cannot enact legislation
dealing with the same subject. This has led the tobacco
and automobile industries to push for federal regula-
tion in order to avoid the enactment of possibly more-
restrictive state laws. Inconsistencies in laws of different
jurisdictions create a problem for industry, and there is
no easy answer. A national economy does require na-
tional standards; it would be extremely difficult for the
automobile manufacturers to satisfy fifty different statu-
tory schemes to regulate automobile pollution. Yet some
local problems are so severe that they require more
drastic solutions than need be applied to the country at
large. Thus California (and only California) is permitted
tougher automobile emission standards than those es-
tablished by the Environmental Protection Agency for
the rest of the nation.
The second difficulty with legislative action is that
legislators are often not cognizant of new problems, and
some are notoriously at the beck and call of established
pressure groups, such as the automobile manufacturers
and the oil industry. Furthermore, in those situations
where a legislature has taken action, the action has
generally consisted of setting up regulatory agencies like
the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade
Commission, or the Federal Communications Commis-
sion. Such agencies in time have tended to become
dominated by the industries they are intended to regu-
late—ultimately the foxes wind up minding the
CHANGING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS / 833
chickens.61 Nevertheless, as public pressure has grown,
the public has already seen and can expect to see more
results from legislation and from regulatory agencies
than it has in the past.
In the early 1970s steps were taken in the United States
toward placing stricter controls on the release of pollut-
ants into air and water. The Clean Air Act (as amended in
1970) and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act
amendments (1972) set national pollution standards for
air and water.62 As we discussed in Chapter 11, however,
it was clear by the mid-1970s that the high expectations
of environmentalists were not to be realized—at least not
as rapidly as they had hoped. There remains a need for
establishing and implementing a nationwide (to say
nothing of worldwide) program drastically limiting
emissions of harmful materials from industry, automo-
biles, homes, and other sources.
National Environmental Policy Act. A major
landmark in the fight for environmental quality in the
United States was the passage of the National Environ-
mental Policy Act (familiarly known as NEPA)63, which
became law on January 1,1970. The bill was modeled in
large part after the Employment Act of 1946, which
"declared a responsibility in the Federal Government to
maintain a prosperous and stable national economy."64
In a similar vein, NEPA declared a responsibility in the
federal government to restore and maintain environ-
mental quality.
NEPA created in the Executive Office of the President
a three-member Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ), which was charged with assisting and advising
the president in the preparation of the annual Environ-
mental Quality Report and with carrying out a number of
other survey and advisory capacities for monitoring the
quality of the environment and the influence of govern-
ment agencies and actions on it.
6!
For a fascinating description of industry-government "cooperation"
on air pollution, see J. C. Esposito, Vanishing air, which, although
somewhat out of date, gives the flavor of interactions among politicians,
agencies, and businessmen.
"For a useful citizen's guide to these acts, see J. Cannon, A clear view.
"The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, public law 91-190,
January 1, 1970 (42 U.S.C. 4321-4347).
"Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Quality,
1972, p.222.
834 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
The key provision of NEPA, however, is its famous
Section 102(C):
The Congress authorizes and directs that, to the
fullest extent possible: (1) the policies, regulations, and
public laws of the United States shall be interpreted
and administered in accordance with the policies set
forth in this act and (2) all agencies of the Federal
Government shall—
(C) Include in every recommendation or report on
proposals for legislation and other major Federal
actions significantly affecting the quality of the
human environment, a detailed statement by the
responsible official on—
(i) The environmental impact of the proposed
action,
(ii) Any adverse environmental effects which
cannot be avoided should the proposal be
implemented,
(iii) Alternatives to the proposed action,
(iv) The relationship between local short-term
uses of man's environment and on the maintenance
and enhancement of long-term productivity, and
(v) Any irreversible and irretrievable commit-
ments of resources which would be involved in the
proposed action should it be implemented. Prior to
making any detailed statement, the responsible
Federal official shall consult with and obtain com-
ments of any Federal agency which has jurisdiction
by law or special expertise with respect to any
environmental impact involved. Copies of such
statement and the comments and views of the
appropriate Federal, State, and local agencies,
which are authorized to develop and enforce en-
vironmental standards, shall be made available to
the President, the Council on Environmental Qual-
ity and to the public as provided by section 552 of
title 5, United States Code, and shall accompany the
proposal through the existing agency review
processes.
This is the section of NEPA that established the
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which provided
a crucial legal lever for public intervention on the side of
the environment. The vast majority of environmental
suits have been in the area of public law (concerning the
relationship of citizens to the government) in contrast to
private law (which deals with the relationship of citizens
with one another). An early instance was the famous
Storm King case,65 a lawsuit brought by an environmen-
tal group against the Federal Power Commission, which
had granted Consolidated Edison of New York a permit
to build a pumped-storage hydroelectric plant below
scenic Storm King Mountain on the Hudson River. The
1965 decision in the Storm King case helped establish the
standing (a position from which to assert legal rights or
duties) of individuals or groups with records of concern
for the environment—in other words, it established that
environmentalists could sue to protect environmental
values from the adverse effects of administrative
decisions.
That legal step forward was followed by a half-step
back in another public law case (the Mineral King case),
in which the Sierra Club sued to prevent Walt Disney
Productions from turning a lovely part of the Sierra
Nevada into a plastic wonderland.66 In the Mineral King
case, the United States Supreme Court held that mem-
bers of the Sierra Club had to use the area in question in
order to gain standing; the interest of the club members
in preserving the wilderness was not sufficient cause to
stop the Disney project. (For a novel approach to the
question of standing—an approach that would have
served the environment well in the Mineral King case—
see Box 14-2.)
In the context of concerned groups having standing in
environmental cases, NEPA's requirement of environ-
mental impact statements (and the required public airing
of the EIS) has proven to be a godsend. A series of cases
brought by groups such as the Committee for Nuclear
Responsibility, the Environmental Defense Fund, the
Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council
have determined that an EIS is to provide "full disclo-
sure" of the environmental implications of any impend-
ing decision, that it must set forth opposing views on
significant environmental issues raised by the proposal,
that it must contain a full analysis of costs and impacts of
alternatives, and that it must balance adverse environ-
"Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference versus Federal Power
Commission, 1965.354 F 2d 608. For a brief discussion of the case, see J.
Holdren and P. Herrera, Energy, pp. 181-183.
"Sierra Club versus Morton, 1972, U.S.L.W. 4397. For good discus-
sions of the question of standing and environmental law in general, see ].
E. Krier, Environmental law and its administration; and C. D. Stone,
Should trees have standing? Toward legal rights for natural objects.
 BOX 14-2 A Note on Standing
The legal machinery and the basic legal notions
needed to control pollution are already in exis-
tence. Slight changes in the legal notions and
diligent application of the legal machinery are all
that are necessary to induce a great reduction in
pollution in the United States. One change in
those notions that would have a most salubrious
effect on the quality of the environment has been
proposed by law professor Christopher D. Stone
in his celebrated monograph, Should trees have
Standing?* In that tightly reasoned essay, Stone
*Originaliy published in 1972 in the Southern California Law
Review; available as a book, which also reprints the U.S.
mental effects against the benefits of the proposal.67
Failure to conform fully to the requirements has been the
basis of numerous successful lawsuits in which projects
have been stopped until proper environmental impact
statements were prepared.
The strength of NEPA lies in the formal commitment
of the government to environmental quality and the
required public airing of potential impacts by the EIS
procedures. In the five years 1970 through 1974, more
than 6000 impact statements were filed. In the opinion of
the CEQ, by 1974 NEPA had "succeeded in its objective
of incorporating an environmental perspective into the
decision-making process of Federal agencies."68 This
statement seems accurate to us, both because it agrees
with our impressions and because, when it was made,
Russell W. Peterson, one of the brightest and most
straightforward of Washington bureaucrats, was chair-
man of the CEQ.68a In addition, the general approach of
NEPA has been adopted by local and state governments.
By 1974 twenty-one states and Puerto Rico had adopted
the EIS process, as had governments in such nations as
Australia, Canada, and Israel.69 One of the most impres-
sive of the state acts is California's 1970 Environmental
Quality Act (amended), which requires impact state-
67
CEQ Environmental Quality, 1972, pp. 242-246.
'"CEQ, Environmental Quality, 1974, p. 372. This report has a good
brief historical account of the evolution of NEPA (pp. 372—413).
68a
ln 1976 he resigned and in 1977 was succeeded by Charles Warren, a
California State legislator with a thorough understanding of environ-
mental issues. President Carter's appointment of Warren continues the
tradition of excellence in this position.
6
'Ibid., pp. 399-413.
points out the obvious advantages of giving
natural objects standing, just as such inanimate
objects as corporations, trusts, and ships are now
held to have legal rights and duties. If this were
done, questions such as that of the standing of
the Sierra Club in the Mineral King case,
mentioned earlier, would disappear—for, as Jus-
tice William O. Douglas pointed out in his
dissenting opinion in that case, Sierra Club
versus Morton would "be more properly labeled
as Mineral King v. Morton."
Supreme Court's opinions in Sierra Club versus Morton (the
Mineral King controversy).
ments on all projects, private or government, that will
significantly affect the environment. In the mid-1970s
some 6000 statements were being filed annually.70
As far-reaching and successful as NEPA has been in
this context, some weaknesses are also evident. While it
has raised consciousness of the environment in govern-
ment agencies and in the business community, concrete
results in terms of prevention and repair of environmen-
tal deterioration have been less apparent. Thus far,
NEPA has been mainly an instrument for disseminating
information rather than one for guiding policy. It cannot,
in itself, lead to the cancellation of a project—even
though citizens groups have repeatedly employed it to
delay projects where EIS provisions have not been
meticulously followed. Indeed, a key flaw in the act as
first applied was that its enforcement depended entirely
upon the public, and the public could use it only to delay,
not to halt, projects that would have massive negative
impacts on the environment.71 As far as NEPA was
concerned, the Army Corps of Engineers legally could
plow the United States under, or the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission could permit the country to be totally
contaminated with lethal amounts of radioactive wastes,
as long as the EIS requirements of the law were followed
scrupulously. In applying NEPA, the courts seem to be
moving toward substantive rather than procedural re-
70
In California they are technically known as environmental impact
reports (EIR).
"D. W. Fischer, Environmental impact assessment as an instrument
of public policy for controlling economic growth. The appendix to the
article contains an informative critique of NEPA.
836 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
view, however. This means that projects may be halted
for reasons other than failure to follow the EIS provision
meticulously.72
Several landmark court cases have clarified the obliga-
tions of government agencies under NEPA. In Calvert
Cliff's coordinating committee versus AEC (1971), the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia held that the Atomic Energy Commission
could not exclude water quality considerations from its
environmental impact statement merely because the
power plant in question had already received a certificate
of compliance with federal water quality regulations
from the state. The court found that the "crabbed
interpretation" of NEPA by the AEC would prevent the
AEC from making a balanced determination of the best
course of action. In Scientists' Institute for Public Infor-
mation versus AEC (1973), the District of Columbia
Court of Appeals ruled in connection with the liquid
metal fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) that comprehensive
environmental impact statements must be prepared for
acknowledged programs, not merely for individual facil-
ities; that is, the combined impact of many LMFBRs and
the associated facilities had to be examined in advance
since the AEC had acknowledged that it had a program
and not a single facility in mind. In Sierra Club versus
Morton (1974), involving fossil-fuel development on the
Great Plains, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals
defined requirements for a programmatic environmental
impact statement in certain circumstances even where an
agency had not recognized its actions as a program.
NEPA was one important step in the right direction,
and it may become a prime weapon in the fight for
environmental quality. But it will prove inadequate
unless ways are found to introduce comprehensive
environmental planning throughout the nation, in which
legal standards for balancing environmental values
against other values are applied to all projects with
significant impact, government or private. How this
might be accomplished—and some existing legislation is
leading in this direction—is discussed further in "Eco-
nomics and Political Change." That section also dis-
cusses the possibility that relatively simple legislation
dealing with the consumption of resources might even-
72
J. E. Krier, personal communication.
tually replace much of the cumbersome ad hoc system
that is now evolving for the control of environmental
impact.
Environmental Protection Agency. Contrary to a
rather widespread misimpression, the Environmental
Protection Agency was not created by NEPA but rather
by an administrative reorganization that took place in
December 1970. It consolidated the Federal Water
Quality Administration (formerly in the Department of
Interior); the National Air Pollution Control Adminis-
tration (formerly in the Department of Health, Educa-
tion and Welfare, HEW); the pesticide registration,
research, and standard-setting programs of the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration; the solid-waste management programs of HEW;
and some of the functions of the Federal Radiation
Council and the Atomic Energy Commission for setting
standards for radiation exposure. The EPA was given all
the functions and responsibilities necessary to carry out
the Clean Air Act and the Federal Water Pollution
Control Act; and under its first administrator, William D.
Ruckelshaus, it made a reasonably rapid start at doing
so.73 His successor, Russell E. Train, continued to build
an increasingly effective organization in an often difficult
political environment.
Unlike CEQ, which is a small advisory group in the
Executive Office of the President, the EPA is a large
operating agency with a staff in 1976 of 8800 people and
estimated budget outlays in that year of $3 billion. I:
maintains research laboratories in several parts of the
country. The best concise record of the accomplishments
as well as the shortcomings of the EPA are the CEQ's
annual reports on the state of the nation's environment-
Occupational Safety and Health Act. As noted in
Chapter 10, workers are often exposed to much higher
concentrations of dangerous substances than are consid-
ered acceptable for the population at large. The m&:.~
legal protection for workers is provided under :h;
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which
authorized the Labor Department to establish standard:
for exposure of workers to hazardous pollutants, to
;
See CEQ, Environmental quality, 1970 and 1971.
provide training programs, and to set up a system for
reporting occupational illness and injury. These duties
are carried out by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA). The National Institute of Oc-
cupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) does research for
and recommends standards to OSHA.
Three types of standards for exposure to pollutants can
be set by OSHA: consensus standards adopted from a list
provided by a group of government and industrial
scientists, permanent standards, and temporary emer-
gency standards. Permanent standards generally include,
in addition to the eight-hour limits for worker exposure
provided by consensus standards, regulations covering
work practices, monitoring, and medical surveillance.
Temporary standards are effective only for a six-month
period, an interim during which permanent standards are
developed.
By_1975, consensus standards had been set for about,
400 chemicals, and OSHA and NIOSH were moving to
change them to permanent standards. Permanent stan-
dards had already been established for asbestos, vinyl
chloride, and a group of fourteen carcinogens; and
permanent standards have been proposed for arsenic,
coke-oven emissions, and noise. Some groups feel that
those standards are not strict enough; for example, a
chemical workers union unsuccessfully challenged in
court those established for the fourteen carcinogens.
It seems certain that a constant tug-of-war will ensue
between consideration of the costs (real or imagined) to
industry of lowering workers' exposure to hazards and
consideration of the legitimate desires of workers to
protect their health. In view of the large numbers of
people directly or indirectly involved (remember, haz-
ardous materials like asbestos and plutonium can be
taken home inadvertently by workers, placing their
families and friends at risk), it seems clear that OSHA's
activities are a long-overdue step in the right direction.
Population Law
The impact of laws and policies on population size and
growth has, until very recently, largely been ignored by
the legal profession. Thejirst cojnprehensive treatment
of population law was that of the late Johnson C.
Montgomery.,74 "" arrnrnpy who was president of Zero
Population Growth, and whose ideas are the basis of
much of the following discussion.
To date, there has been no serious attempt in Western
countries to use laws to control excessive population
jrowth^although there exists ample authority under
which population growth could be regulated. For exam-
ple, under the United States Constitution, effective,
population-control programs could be enacted under the
clauses that empower Congress to appropriate funds to
provide for tlie(general welfare and to regulate com-
or under the equal-protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.^5 Such laws constitutionally
could be very broad. Indeed, it has been concluded thaL
compulsory population-control laws, even including
laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained
under the existing Constitution if the population crisis,
became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. Few
today consider the situation in the United States serious
enough to justify compulsion, however.
The most compelling arguments that might be used to
justify government regulation of reproduction are based
upon the rapid population growth relative to the capacity
of environmental and social systems to absorb the
associated impacts. To provide a high quality of life for
all, there must be fewer people. But there are other sound
reasons that support the use of law to regulate repro-
duction.
It is accepted that the law has as its proper function the
protection of each person and each group of people. A
legal restriction on the right to have more than a given
number of children could easily be based on the needs of
the first children. Studies have indicated that the larger
the family, the less healthy the children are likely to be
and the less likely they are to realize their potential levels
of achievement.76 Certainly there is no question that
children of a small family can be cared for better and can
"Population explosion and United States law.
7!
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws."
;6
Joe D. Wtay, Population pressure on families: Family size and
child-spacing, in Roger Revelle, ed.. Rapid population growth: Con-
sequences and policy- implications, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1971;
R. B. Zajonc. Family configuration and intelligence. Science, vol. 192, pp.
227-236 (April 16/1976).
838 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
be educated better than children of a large family,
income axul oti^er tV\\Yvg,s \3*im^, ec\ua\, TVve VaNv CQM\d
properly say to a mother that, in order to protect the
children she already has, she could have no more.
(Presumably, regulations on the sizes of adopted families _
would have to be the same.1
A legal restriction on the right to have children could^
also be based on a right not to be disadvantaged by
excessive numbers of children produced by others.,
Differing rates of reproduction among groups can give
rise to serious social problems. For example, differential
rates of reproduction between ethnic, racial, religious, or
economic groups might result in increased competition
for resources and political power and thereby undermine
social order. If some individuals contribute to general
social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the
need is compelling, they can be required by law to
exercise reproductive responsibility— just as they can be
required to excercise responsibility in their resource-
consumption patterns— providing they are not denied
equal protection.
Individual rights. Individual rights must be bal-
anced against the power of the government to control
human reproduction. Some people— respected legisla-
tors, judges, and lawyers included— have viewed the_
right to have children as a fundamental and inalienable _
right. Yet neither the Declaration of Independence nor
the Constitution mentions a right to reproduce. Nor does
the UN Charter describe such a right, although a
resolution of the United Nations affirms the "right
responsibly to choose" the number and spacing of chil-
dren (our emphasis). In the United States, individuals
have a constitutional right to privacy and it has been held
that the right to privacy includes the right to choose
whether or not to have children, at least to the extent that
a woman has a right to choose not to have children. But
the right is not unlimited. Where the society has a
"compelling, subordinating interest" in regulating pop-
ulation size, the right of the individual may be curtailed.
If society's survival depended on having more children,
women could be required to bear children, just as men
can constitutionally be required to serve in the armed
forces. Similarly, given a crisis caused by overpopula-
tion, reasonably necessary laws to control excessive
reproduction could be enacted.
It is often argued that uie T\g\vx to Yvave ctuldtetv v& so
personal that the government should not regulate it. In an
ideal society, no doubt the state should leave family size
and composition solely to the desires of the parents. In
today's world, however, the number of children in a
family is a matter of profound public concern. The law
regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no
one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time.
Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from
having more than two children?
The legal argument has been made that the First
Amendment provision for separation of church and state
prevents the United States government from regulating
family size. The notion is that family size is God's affair
and no business of the state. But the same argument has
been made against the taxation of church property,
prohibition of polygamy, compulsory education of and
medical treatment for children, and many similar mea-
sures that have been enacted. From a legal standpoint,
the First Amendment argument against family-size reg-
ulation is devoid of merit.
There are two valid constitutional limitations on the
kinds of population-control policies that could be en-
acted. First, any enactments must satisfy the require-
ments of due process of law; they must be reasonably
designed to meet real problems, and they must not be
arbitrary. Second, any enactments must ensure that equal
protection under the law is afforded to every person; they
must not be permitted to discriminate against any-
particular group or person. This should be as true of laws
giving economic encouragement to small families as it
would be of laws directly regulating the number of
children a person may have. This does not mean that the
impact of the laws must be exactly the same on everyone.
A law limiting each couple to two children obviously
would have a greater impact on persons who desire large
families than it would on persons who do not. Thus,
while the due-process and equal-protection limitations
preclude the passage of capricious or discriminatory
laws, neither guarantees anyone the right to have more
than his or her fair share of children, if such a right is
shown to conflict with other rights and freedoms.
890 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
the programs were selfless); American resources have
been devoted mainly to providing additional material
goods for ourselves and to an expensive and dangerous
arms race, rather than to improving the lot of our fellow
human beings.
Latin America and the United States:
Problems of Paternalism
The pattern of relationships among DCs and LDCs
prevailing until recently is exemplified by the behavior of
the United States toward Latin America in this century.
The United States has long claimed a special relf ti^n^'p-
with its neighbors to the south, but this more often than
not has meant a desire for exclusive exploitation rights._
The one-sidedness of the agreement has not gone unno-_
ticed by Latin Americans.
When Sol Linowitz resigned in 1969 as U.S. ambassa-
dor to the Organization of Ampric-iffl Staffis, he warned of
the possibility of "a series of Vietnams" in Latin
America. The same year Nelson A. Rockefeller,,then
governor of New York, was sent on a fact-finding tour
south of the border for President Nixon. He was greeted
with a violence that underlined the Linowitz warning.
Rockefeller was, of course, an especially ironic choice
since his family's association with Standard Oil is so
much a jymbol of U.S. economic imperialism. But one
does not have to look far for more fundamental reasons
for his hostile reception.
Population growth in Latin America was proceeding
at an average of 2.9 percent per year during the first eight
years of the Alliance for Progress, while per-capita
economic growth only averaged about 1.5 percent per
year, a full percentage point below the Alliance target. A
large portion of the Latin American population was
then—and still is—for the most part living in appalling
poverty. For millions, diets were inadequate, infant and
child mortality sky-high, and decent housing often
nonexistent. If 10,000 houses had been built per day in
Latin America between 1969 and 1979, something on the
order of 100 million of our southern neighbors (more
than one-fourth of the expected population there) would
still not be adequately housed. Although land reform has
begun in some countries—most recently in Peru—10
percent of the people in Latin America still owned 90
percent of the land in 1976. And in most Latin American
countries, progress toward an equitable distribution 01
income has been slow, especially for the rural
populations.
Development in most of Latin America has scarcely
touched the poor. The rich-poor gap has widened in
many countries, especially the richer ones such as Brazil
and Mexico, and national economies have tended to
become two-tiered. The upper tier consists of large
landholders and the urban upper and middle classes,
especially in such industrial centers as Sao Paulo and
Mexico City. In the lower tier are The urban poor ancL
peasants, bypassed by modernization. In Mexico City,
for example, a skilled worker in 1976 earned more than
$500 a month, including benefits. But outside the city,
minimum wages for farm workers were $5 a day, and
because of underemployment many earned as little as
$100 per year.12
In several countries, notably Brazil, Peru, and Para-
guay, there is a third, even lower tier—primitive Indians,
who are being systematically exterminated as roadblocks _
in the path of progress. In Paraguay, which is heavik-
under U.S. influence, there have been charges of United
States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA1 complicity' in
those programs.'3 True or not, that such charges are
widely believed south of the border says something about
U.S.-Latin American relations.
Latin America's political instability is legendary (Fig-
ure 15-2). Between 1961 and mid-1976 political changes
were made by military force in Argentina, Bolivia.
Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Sal-
vador, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Peru—in
some countries more than once. This political turmoil
cannot all be blamed on the United States, but American
behavior in Latin America has done little to foster
stability there. Although the days when United States
corporations directly controlled small countries are over,
a huge reservoir of ill will remains from those days, when
those corporations openly took what they wanted of the
mineral and agricultural wealth of the continent. This
12
A no-nonsense mood takes hold in Mexico, U.S. News and World
Report, June 21, 1976, pp. 63-66. For a description of the situation in
Brazil, see Robert Harvey, Brazil: The next nuclear power?
13
John Hillaby, Genocide in Paraguay.
 UNITED STATES
62.3

S1710

110.2

TYPES OF GOVERNMENTS
Constitutional
Military regime
0m Civilian dictatorship

© Number of government
changes since 1944
FIGURE 15-2
Population 1976 est. (in millions)
Latin American summary: population, per-capita
Per capita G.N.P. gross national product, amounts of American
(in U.S. dollars) 1976 investment, forms of government, and numbers
Annual growth •
$1000 of government changes since 1944 (excluding
Private, direct long-term investments, those resulting from elections, unless they have
value at end of 1973 (millions, U.S. dollars) been interspersed with coups).

widespread resentment was deepened by revelation of
CIA involvement in Chile before the 1974 coup that
overthrew the Allende government in Chile. Moreover.
North American economic exploitation of Latin America
is even now far from finished. While some United States
multinational companies are now so well-behaved that
they can serve as examples of benevolence, having made
significant contributions to their host nations, they still
drain vast amounts nf natural-resource capital from those
nations. And the actions of some other United Stales
multinational firms have had dramatically undesirable
effects, especially on the poorest segments of the
populations.14
"For example, see R. J. Earner and R. E. Mullet, Global reach: The
piwurr of the multinational corporations, chapter 7; and Robert J. Ledogar,
Hungry for profits: U.S. food and drug multinationals in Latin America.
 RICH NATIONS, POOR NATIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT
ties, the two most powerful DCs, the United States and
USSR, have approached aid differently. The United
States, with a vast store of capital to draw on, has seen the
problems of the LDCs primarily in terms of a shortage of
capital. The Soviets, on the other hand, because of their
relatively recent history of revolution and the more
recent successful revolutions in two LDCs—China and
Cuba—tend to emphasize the export not of capital but of
political change, of revolution.
Unhappily, many nations threw off the yoke of colo-
nial exploiters after World War II only to have it
replaced by home-grown repressive governments. Polit-
ical scientist Harlan Cleveland put it succinctly: "Nor
did freedom for nations lead directly to freedom for
individuals. Colonial rule was often supplanted by
military rule, Czars were succeeded by commissars,
white domination gave way to black dictatorships, extra-
territoriality was pushed out by totalitarianism."55
The need for dramatic political change in many
countries is obvious—but most recent changes have been
in the wrong direction. Haiti (with a per-capita GNP of
$70 in 1972) had no chance while it was under dictator
Frangois Duvalier, and its present prospects seem no
better. The assumption of "emergency powers" by Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi of India in 1975, including
suppression of dissent, did not encourage optimism for
the political future of that troubled country. The auto-
cratic regimes, military or civilian, in many Latin
American and African nations, many of them beset by
terrorism and revolutionary activity, seem barely able to
keep the peace and their seats in power, let alone do much
to improve the lives of their peoples. Tales of severe
repression and torture of dissidents in Brazil and
Chile—both countries that ostensibly have a great deal
going for them—horrify outsiders and frighten off
tourists (if not foreign investors).
Democracy is a fragile form of government, especially
where it is not backed by appropriate traditions and some
degree of economic equity. Economic equity may be
especially important, and a fundamental aspect of equity
is landholding. In many nominal democracies, land
reform unquestionably is sorely needed to give the
people incentive to improve their agricultural practices
"Our coming foreign policy crisis, p. 11.
/ 905
and a chance to participate in the modernization process.
Revolution is one potentially effective way to achieve
land reform.
Both the capitalist and revolutionary points of view on
aid have a certain validity, but both are also sadly
deficient. If real progress in helping LDCs is to be made,
both superpowers will have to change their ways. The
United States must stop supporting assorted dictators
around the world merely because they claim to be
anticommunist. It must accept that in many countries
most of the people might well be better off under regimes
that the U.S. perceives as communist than under their
present regimes. In Latin America, in particular, the
need for social justice as a first step toward economic
development has been widely recognized (but rarely
implemented). If badly needed reforms do not take place
peacefully, they will sooner or later be attempted by I
revolution. It is imperative that U.S. officials in LDCs
realize that their contacts within those countries are all
too often unrepresentative of the people as a whole. The
attitudes of the governing classes in the capitol cities are
unlikely to resemble those of peasants or of the masses in
urban slums.
There is, of course, no doubt that corporate interests,
sensitive to the resource limits of the United States and
motivated by the desire for profits, play a substantial role
in shaping American foreign policy. The interlocking
directorates of the government and various industrial
giants are well known. Executives move freely from big
business into administrative positions in the government,
while high-level bureaucrats and military leaders are
welcomed into executive positions with corporations
doing business with the government. In 1969, for in-
stance, each of the top twenty defense contractors in the
United States employed an average of 65 retired military
men of the rank of colonel, navy captain, or higher.56 The
military-industrial complex, among other things, wishes
to assure the United States control over the resources it_
deems essential—and in the process often has attempted,
to control the destinies of LDCs.
It is evident that the LDCs can undertake and would
profit from having control over their own resources and
destinies. The contrary view has often been held in the
"Dennis C. Pirages and Paul R. Ehrlich, Ark II: Social response to
environmental imperatives.
906 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
past as doctrine by the DCs. For example, there weredire
(and erroneous) warnings that the Egyptians would be_
unable to run the Suez Canal when they took it over from — international politicoeconomic relationships can be dra-
the British in 1956. The success of OPEC surely has put
that fairy tale to rest once and for all!
Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that there is much tn he
gained in attempting to shatter the power of international
corporations, many of which, among other things, are
heavily engagsjjjn the exploitation of LDC resources.^A ^ rangements that require general consent—nuclear saife
primary reason is that it probably would be impossible in " guards, weather watch, crop forecasting, public health*
the absence of supporting changes in attitude in DC
societies. As long as economic standards reign supreme,
economic power will tend to become concentrated; only
more fundamental changes will suffice. And those
changes must be made with great care. International
corporations supply planning, coordination, capital, and
expertise in their operations within LDCs; considerable
economic hardship could result from a sudden dissolu-
tion of those giants. But they could be quickly stopped
from draining capital away from the LDCs; after all, the
extraction of capital goes against the West's conventional
wisdom of what is required to eliminate poverty in those
nations.
Russia should face the facts of life, too. The Soviets
blame most of the problems of the world on capitalist
imperialism, but that just is not supported by the
evidence. Revolution is at best a partial answer; it cannot
remove the biological and physical constraints upon
development, although it may well remove some of the
social and economic barriers. At worst, as noted above,
revolution only replaces one despotism with another.
Furthermore, the Soviet Union's intervention in other
countries in defense of what it perceives as its vital
interests has been fully as blatant and brutal as that of the Establishment of a New Economic Order, whose stated
capitalist imperialists, as the Soviet invasion of Czecho-
slovakia in 1968 so clearly demonstrated. It is ironic that
the USSR, in Angola and elsewhere, now seems to be
emulating the grand imperialism pioneered in the nine-
teenth century by western European powers and the
United States.
But the differing approaches of the United States (as
well as other Western nations) and the USSR, which
dominated international politics in the first two decades
after World War II, must now share the stage with the
policies of the LDCs themselves, which are increasingly
determined to narrow the gap between the rich and the
poor. The OPEC revolution has shown that traditional
matically and profoundly altered. And even if, as some
claim, the case of oil is unique, the self-interest of the rich*
nations is clearly tied to the condition of the poor. As
Harlan Cleveland has written, "If two-thirds of the
world simply failed to cooperate in international ar-
narcotics control, environmental monitoring, and mea^
sures against hijacking and terrorism— everybody would
lose, but the world powers would likely lose the most."j7
In short, for the world commons to operate for
benefit of all people requires it to be administered
cooperatively —and the poor can demand a price for their
cooperation. More positively, there is general agreement
among the rich that poverty should be wiped out— and
that consensus would make selfishness a more difficult
course (although one that certainly might yet be taken).
International politics in the near future will most
likely he focused on the question of whether the rich and_
the poor can strike a new planetary bargain, to us^Harlan
Cleveland's term. Can the developed countries show the
necessary self-restraint and the less developed countries
die necessary changes in attitudes and organization to
rearrange the relationships among nations successfully?,
There are some hopeful signs.
A group consisting of most Third World nations.
calling themselves the Group of 77, in 1974 presented a
case to the United Nations for a New International
Order. In May 1974 the United Nations General As-^
sembly adopted by consensus a Declaration on the^
aims include: "to correct inequalities andredress existing
injustices and ensure steadily accelerating economic-
development, peace and justice for present and future,
generations."58
The Declaration called for stabilization of commodity
prices and markets for them and for establishment of a
link between those prices and prices paid for manufac-
tured products imported from DCs. It also called for
"Our coming foreign policy crisis, p. 13.
5
"The new economic order. Nae Internationalist, October 1975 '•"-
special issue on this subject).
 RICH NATIONS, POOR NATIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT /
restraint of research into synthetic substitutes for com-
modities, which have already damaged markets for some
products, such as sisal, jute, and rubber. (Higher prices
and diminishing resources of petroleum will eventually
undermine this activity, but that is little comfort to
LDCs today.) Finally, the New Economic Order would
encourage the development of producer associations and
trade unions among LDCs in order to negotiate favorable
trade terms more effectively. Such trade associations,
while not having the clout of OPEC (where conditions
were uniquely suitable for setting up a cartel), have
already been established for several commodities, in-
cluding bananas, cocoa, coffee, copper, phosphates, tea,
and tin.59
The reaction to the New Economic Order among DCs,
especially at first, was generally negative, and the United I
States was the most recalcitrant. But it soon became
obvious that the demands of the Group of 77 could not be
ignored. United Nations Secretary General Kurt Wald-
heim told a later United Nations conference in Lima,
Peru: "the New Economic Order is the price of peace."60
In September 1975, in an address before the United
Nations, by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the
United States officially took a stand favoring new bar-
gains, including a "fundamental structural improvement
in the relationship of the developing countries to the
world trading system . . . such as preferences, favor-
able concessions, and exceptions which reflect their
economic status."61 Kissinger also urged the world
community to address the basic problems of access of
LDCs to capital markets, the transfer of technology, and
"the principles to guide the beneficial operation of_
transnational enterprises." He pointed out the need for
controlling population growth, for increasing food re-
serves, and for reducing food wastage, and he pledged the
United States to contribute to a program of action if all
nations "met in a spirit of common endeavor/' The
speech ended with some interesting rhetoric:
My government does not offer these propositions as
""New Internationalist" guide to UNCTADIV, New Internationalist,
April 1976, pp. 6-7.
M
The New Economic Order, New Internationalist, 1975.
'''Address by Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinyer (delivered bv
Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan), seventh special session of the United
Nations General Assembly, New York, September 1,1975. Reprinted in
the Nevi York Times, September 2, 1975, p. 20.
907
an act of charity, nor should they be received as if due.
We know that the world economy nourishes us all, we
know that we live on a shrinking planet. Materially as
well as morally, our destinies are intertwined. . . .
There remain enormous things for us to do. We can
say once more to the new nations: We have heard your
voices. We embrace your hopes. We will join your
efforts. We commit ourselves to our common success. 1
Although the speech did not indicate awareness of
many of the concerns of this chapter, it did indicate a
growing power within the United States government of
persons who realize the degree to which all nations are__
interdependent and understand that the future of the
United States depends on how well the entire world deals _
with the population-resource-environment crisis.No
doubt the success of the OPEC cartel's embargo and
raising of oil prices also had much to do with the United,
States change of heart toward trig aspirations of poor
countries. History makes it difficult to he)ieve that the.
change in attitude could have been accomplished without
the bludgeon of OPEC oil or some similar weapon in the __
control of the nonindustrial nations.
How much action will follow the rhetoric remains to
be seen. And how ready the LDCs are to put aside their
own rhetoric and join in common solutions to common
problems also is in doubt. Unfortunately, less than three_
months after the Kissinger speech, the use of the United
Nations as a forum for divisive propaganda on the part of
the Eastern and Third World blocks reached an extreme
with the unfortunate ^'Zionism is racism/62 declaration.
That declaration strengthened, at a critical time, isola-
tionist forces in the United States who already
ered both the United Nations and foreign aid utterly _ .
useless. The declaration was followed a few months later _j
by a failure of Third World and communist nations to
join the Western nations in a worldwide condemnation
of international terrorism or to agree to oppose it and
refuse cooperation with extortionists.
Thereis £eal danger that the past colossal failures of
both the\ United Nations] and foreign-assistance efforts
will lead to a withdrawal of the United States from
efforts to help solve vital international problems. It
would behoove all governments to remember that, with-
"Time, November 24, 1975.
908 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
out the wholehearted collaboration of the United States,
western Europe, the USSR, and the People's Republic of
China, any resolution of world problems is extremely
unlikely. And failure to resolve them will most likely lead
to war.
POPULATION, RESOURCES, AND WAR_
Desmond Morris some years ago observed, " . . . the
best solution for ensuring world peace is the widespread
promotion of contraception and abortion . . . moraliz-
ing factions that oppose it must face the fact that they are
engaged in dangerous war mongering."63 As he sug-
gested, population-related problems may be increasing
the probability of a thermonuclear Armageddon. Avoid-
ing such a denouement for civilization is the most
pressing political-economic problem of our time.
In 1969 the world saw in a microcosm what may be in
store: Two grossly overpopulated Central American
countries, El Salvador and Honduras, went to war against
each other. El Salvador had an estimated population of
3.3 million, a population density of 160 people per square
kilometer, with a doubling time of 21 years. Honduras
had a population of 2.5 million, a density of only 22 per
square kilometer, and the same doubling time as El
Salvador. More significant statistics have been provided
by the Latin American Demographic Center; they show
that in El Salvador the population density per square
kilometer of arable land was 300 persons, while in
Honduras it was only 60 persons.
Almost 300,000 Salvadorans had moved into Hon-
duras in search of land and jobs because of overpopula-
tion and resulting unemployment at home. Friction
developed among the immigrants and the Honduran
natives; El Salvador accused Honduras of maltreating the
Salvadorans; and the problem escalated into a brief but
nasty war. The conflict was ended by the intervention of
the Organization of American States (OASV In a prece-
dent-shattering move, the OAS recognized demographic
factors in its formula for settling the dispute—an inter-
national body acknowledged that population pressure
was a root cause of a war.64
'"'The naked ape, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967.
"Population Bulletin, December 1969, pp. 134-135.
Systematic analyses of the role of population pressures
in generating wars, carried out by political scientist
Robert C. North and his colleagues at Stanford Univer-
sity, have supported earlier conclusions based on anec-
dotal evidence. Statistical studies of the involvement of
major European powers in wars in modern times have
revealed very high correlations among rates of popula-
tion growth, rising GNP, expanding military budgets,
and involvement in wars, although technical consider-
ations make drawing conclusions about causes and
effects hazardous. In more detailed multivariate analyses.
Professor North found a complex causal chain involving
population growth in relation to static or slowly growing
resources, technological development, a tendency to
invest energy beyond previous boundaries of society, and
increases in the presumed needs and demands of a
populace.
Writing about the root causes of World War I, North
and political scientist Nazli Choucri of the Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology concluded:
Our most important finding is that domestic growth
(as measured by population density and national
income per capita) is generally a strong determinant of
national expansion. Our investigations have identified
strong linkages from domestic growth and national
expansion to military expenditures, to alliances, and to
international interactions with a relatively high poten-
tial for violence.65
In ancient times such tendencies were somewhat
buffered by oceans, mountain ranges, deserts, vast dis-
tances, and slow means of travel. Rome could raze
Carthage but not China or the cities of South American
and Central American Indians. Today, however, with
vast increases of population and unprecedented develop-
ments in technology, transportation, and communica-
tions, the peoples of the world are cheek by jowl, and
there is little geographical buffering left. North pointed
out that states in nonaggressive phases, like modern
Sweden, tend to share certain characteristics: "A rela-
tively small and stable population, a relatively high and
steadily developing technology, and good access to
^Nations in conflict: National growth and intertiational violence.
 RICH NATIONS, POOR NATIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT
In our view, the most serious risk associated with
nuclear power is the attendant increase in the number
of countries that have access to technology, materials,
and facilities leading to a nuclear weapons capabil-
ity. . . . If widespread proliferation actually occurs,
it will prove an extremely serious danger to U.S.
security and to world peace and stability in general.860
The Ford group recommended that the U.S. defer the
recycle of plutonium and the commercialization of the
breeder reactor and that it seek "common supplier action
to ban the export of such technology." It recommended
also that the U.S. and other supplier nations provide
assured supplies of slightly enriched uranium to other
countries at favorable prices, a plan whose drawbacks we
have already mentioned above. In April 1977, President
Carter announced a nuclear policy for his administration
essentially congruent with the Ford Study's recommen-
dation.
While we applaud the progress represented by the
positions taken by the Flowers, Ranger, and Ford reports
and by the Carter administration's position, our own
preference is for a stronger stance. We believe there
should be an absolute embargo on the export of enrich-
ment and reprocessing technology by any nation.86d The
United States should cajole and, if necessary, coerce its
allies into compliance, using every incentive and/or
peaceful sanction at its disposal. (The possibilities are
considerable, not least of which is the fact that West
Germany and France will be dependent on U.S. enriched
uranium for their own nuclear power programs into the
1980s.) Since the Soviets are also intensely concerned
about proliferation, there is a chance that they would
cooperate. Countries that have power reactors but no
enrichment or reprocessing capability could be supplied
with low-enriched uranium by the sort of consortium
mentioned above, but there is reason to question whether
any additional power reactors should be exported by
anyone. A universal embargo on reactor exports may
seem a drastic measure—certainly drastic enough to
require rewriting the NPT—but lowering the probability
of a nuclear holocaust is a desperately important task.
"""Spurgeon Kceny et al.. Nuclear power issues and choices.
8sd
See also the chapter on proliferation in A. Lovins, Soft energy paths:
Toward a durable peace.
/ 91 7
The sort of pussyfooting that characterized attempts to
stem proliferation before 1977 was not merely a scandal
but a threat to the survival of civilization.
Chemical, biological, and environmental weap-
ons. Even if humanity does manage to stop the proli-
feration of nuclear weapons, it still must deal with the
ever-increasing deadliness of conventional weapons and
the prospective horrors of chemical and biological war-
fare (CBW) and environmental warfare. Biological and
chemical weapons, which could be nearly as destructive_
of lives as nuclear arms, seem to have some prospects of
being eventually considered "conventional."87 Environ-
mental warfare is newer and potentially perhaps even
more threatening.88
Achieving disarmament. The third element of
difficulty in changing the rules of international relations
is uncertainty about the best way to achieve disarmament
and security in a world where in the past security has_
usually been provided by brute force^either threatened
or overtly exercised. Unfortunately, the effort going into
the study of peaceful means to world security has been
infinitesimal compared with that going into military
research, although almost no area needs greater immedi-
ate attention. The basic requirement is evident: once
again it is a change in human attitudes so that the
in-group against which aggression is forbidden expands
to include all human beings.
If this could be accomplished, jjeciirity might HP
provided by an armed international organization, a
global analogue of a police force. Many people have
recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains
obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything,
to be increasing. The first step necessarily jnyn1'""'
partiaj (surrender of sovereignty^ to an intematinpal
organization.JJut it seems probable that, as long as most
people fail to comprehend the magnitude of the danger,-
that step will be impossible. At the very least, societies
87
J. P. Perry Robinson, The special case of chemical and biological
weapons; see also Bo Holmberg, Biological aspects of chemical and
biological weapons.
88
For example, see Chapter 11 and Frank Barnaby, The spread of the
capability to do violence: An introduction to environmental warfare:
Jozef Goldblat, The prohibition of environmental warfare; and Bhupen-
Ctra M. Jasanij Environmental muUificauon; New weapons of war?
91 8 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
must learn to weigh the risks inherent in attempting to
achieve controlled disarmament against the risks of
continuing the arms race. An attempt at disarmament
could lead to a war, or to the destruction or domination of
the United States through Chinese or Soviet "cheating."
But, if disarmament were successfully carried out, and if
an international police force were established, the reward _
would be a very much safer world in which resources
would be freed for raising the standard of living for all
people.81} No problem deserves more intensive study and
international discussion.
The dynamics of disarmament appear to be even more
complex than those of arms races. Nevertheless, in 1970
the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA),
the only United States agency charged with planning in
this area, had a budget of only a few million dollars
(contrasted with $80 billion for "defense"). Representa-
tive John F. Seiberling of Ohio put it succinctly: ^'The ,
Pentagon has 3000 people working on arms sales to other
countries while the Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency has 12 people monitoring arms sales. That gives
you an idea of where the executive branch priorities
are."90 Moreover, the ACDA is heavily influenced by the
Department of State bureaucracy, still a stronghold of
cold-war thinking.
It has been suggested that an important step toward
disarmament could be taken by the pstahHshmpnT nf an
internationaljiisarmament control organization, which
would serve as a clearinghouse for informtinn nn the
quantity and quality of weapons in various nations and
would thus help to detect cheating on international--
agreements.91 As a semi-independent Unir*^ Nflfi""'
agency, such an organization could play a vital role— buL
so far there has been no significant effort to establish one.
Diverting the military to peaceful purposes. The-
fourtfa element of difficulty involves economics and the
89
See, for example, Ronald Huisken, The consumption of raw materials
for military purposes; and Ruth L. Sivard, Let them eat bullets! The
military budgets of the United States and USSR in 1973 were greater than
the combined annual income of more than 1 billion people in thirty-three
of the poorest nations and almost 20 times the value of all foreign aid from
all sources.
90
Quoted in San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, November 9.
1975.
"Alva Myrdal, The international control of disarmament.
military establishment. Although this will be discussed
in terms of the United States, there is every reason to
believe that an analogous situation exists in the Soviet
Union, the other military superpower. Civilians should
realize that peace and freedom from tension are not
viewed as an ideal situation by many members of the _
military-industrial-government complex. By and large,
professional military officers, especially field grade and
higher, hope for an end to international tensions about as
fervently as farmers hope for drought. When there is an
atmosphere of national security, military budgets are
usually small, military power minimal, and military
promotions slow. The founders of the United States,
recognized that the military services were unlikely Jo,
w_ork against their own interests, so they carefully,
Established ultimate civilian control over the army and
navy^ It worked rather well for a long time.
But times have changed. Wars are no longer fought
with simple, understandable weapons like axes, swords,
and cannon. Now a nation needs weapons systems with
complex and often arcane components, such as acquisi-
tion radar, VTOL fighters, Doppler navigators, MIRVs,
cruise missiles, and nuclear submarines. Such systems
cannot be produced rapidly, on demand, by a few
government contractors. Long-term planning is re-
quired, involving not only the military services but also a
large number of industrial organizations that supply
various components.
Those organizations, not unnaturally, often hire re^
tired military officers to help them in their negotiations,
with the government; where decisions on appropriations
for armaments are made. The necessary intimacy of the
military and industry in development and procurement,
of weapons led Dwight D. Eisenhower to "~"'" rhp ff m _
military-industrial complex^ The term military-
industrial-labor-government complex sometimes seems
more accurate. In his heavily documented 1970 book.
Pentagon capitalism, industrial engineer Seymour Mel-
man of Columbia University showed that even that term
is inadequate to describe the Frankenstein's monster that
has hppn created.92
This complex seems to have an aversion to peace, but it
'2See especially Melman's chapter 7.
 RICH NATIONS, POOR NATIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT /
uses of outer space and Antarctica. More recently, there
have been extensive negotiations on a treaty to control
the use of oceans.
[ j.aw of the Seap What has been described as "the
greatest international conference ever held"126 met in
Caracas in summer 1974 to begin work on a treaty
dealing with the control of the oceans. The second
session of the third United Nations Conference on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)127 reached no final agree-
ments, but in its tortuous proceedings several trends
could be discerned. The emphasis was on dividing up the
pie—on how to allocate rights to exploit the oceans rather
than how to protect their vital functioning in the
ecosystems of Earth. The less developed nations were
anxious to "augment their meager natural resources with
none of the unpleasant connotations of economic aid."128
The overdeveloped countries, on the other hand, were
primarily trying to retain as much as possible of their
hegemony over the seas (which they, far more than the
LDCs, have the ability to exploit).
A dominant trend has been toward establishing a
200-mile economic zone, which would effectively bal-
kanize most of the oceans' known wealth. One view is
that this would lead to having humanity's common
heritage decimated piecemeal as individual nations exer-
cised dominion over all living and nonliving resources
within their zones. About the only good thing that can be
said about the 200-mile zone is that its establishment
might lead eventually to more rational use of those
resources since their individual ownership by nations
would at least tend to avoid the problems involved in
multilateral exploitation of a commons.
Other topics discussed in detail at the ongoing confer-
ence have been rights of passage through straits, the
rights of landlocked nations to a share of oceanic
resources, the establishment of an international authority
'"Elizabeth Mann Borgese, Report from Caracas, the law of the sea,
Center Magazine, November/December, 1974.
I27
The first session in New York in 1973 dealt only with procedures:
the first and second conferences in 1958 and 1960 had accomplished little
but reveal the complexities of the problems and the diverse positions of
states and blocs (see Edward Wenk, Jr., The politics of the ocean, chapter
6).
13S
C. R. Pinto of Sri Lanka, quoted in Time, July 29,1974. It has been
suggested that "The uses of international commons should be taxed for
the benefit of the poorest strata of the poor countries" (Barbara Ward, The
Cocoyoc Declaration}, but there is thus far little sign that this will occur.
941
for the mining of seabed minerals outside the economic
zones, the responsibility of nations to control pollution
originating from their shores and to protect the marine
environment, and the establishment of means of settling
disputes and enforcing agreements.
A third eight-week session of UNCLOS in Geneva in
May 1975 produced a draft treaty, which was not voted
on by the participating nations but was instead consid-
ered the basis for further negotiation.12'' The draft
extended the territorial waters of all nations to 12 miles
from shore, provided for a 200-mile economic zone,
specified means to control polluting activities, and en-
couraged the transfer of technology from rich to poor
nations. The most controversial provision was for an
International Seabed Authority, controlled de facto by
the LDCs (who would be a majority in the agency), that
would regulate deep-sea mining. The United States has
held out for "private initiative" to share in managing the
seabed resource.
Further negotiations are scheduled for 1977. In part,
their success will depend on what unilateral actions are
taken by nations in the meantime. The United States, for
example, has extended its jurisdiction over fisheries up to
200 miles from shore, which conforms with the draft
treaty. Several other countries, including Mexico and
Canada, have followed suit. But legislation being con^
sidered by Congress on deep-sea mining does not
conform to the draft treaty. This places U.S. negotiators,
who have tried to dissuade other nations from taking
unilateral action, in an awkward position. If Congress
passes such legislation, it could have a less than salu-
brious effect on future negotiations—especially if Amer-
ican firms are permitted to begin deep-sea mining before
the treaty is finally passed and ratified. On the other hand,
these unilateral actions may be pushing negotiators to
examine other alternatives. By 1977, Elizabeth Mann-
Borgese was envisioning a third possibility for the
Seabed Authority as "a comprehensive and flexible
system of joint ventures, acceptable to states and compa-
nies under the control of the [Ajuthority and for the
benefit of all countries, especially the poorer
"'.Material in this paragraph is based primarily on Deborah Shapley,
Now, a draft sea law treaty: But what comes after?
'"•Quoted in Claiborae Pell, The most complex treaty ever negotiated
in history, World Issues, vol II, no. 1 (February/March), 1977.
942 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT
The complexity and comprehensiveness of the treaty
account for the lengthiness of the negotiations. But,
unfortunately, even a definitive treaty may fail to pro-
vide the kind of apparatus required to administer,
conserve, and distribute the resources of the seas in a way
that is equitable and that fully protects the vitally
important ecosystems of the oceans, just because an
exploitative view of the environment continues to domi-
nate all such discussions.
U.N. Environment Program. The exploitative view
of the environment first surfaced explicitly at the inter-
national level at the United Nations Conference on the
Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972. That gath-
ering featured platitudes from the ODCs, who are busily
engaged in looting the planet and destroying its ecologi-
cal systems, and demands from the LDCs that they get a
piece of the action. One could only take heart that the__
world's nations even took the condition of the environ-
ment seriously enough to attend such a conference. That
they did was a tribute to the brilliance, persuasiveness,
and persistence of one man, Canadian businessman,
Maurice Strong, secretary general of the conference.
Strong became the first executive director of the
United Nations Environment Program (UNF.P). the,
major positive result of the Stockholm conference.
UNEP was given only a small budget, and its head-
quarters was tucked away in Nairobi, perhaps in the hope
that it would not make waves. Under Strong's leadership,
it nevertheless began to serve several vital functions. For
instance, it has established the Earth Watch monitoring
system to serve as an international clearinghouse for
environmental information. Earth Watch is explicitly
designed also to help bridge the gap between scientists
and technologists on one hand and political decision-
makers on the other.130 The kinds of information to be
collected include an international register of toxic chem-
icals, which list properties of those chemicals, their uses,
their effects, and their known or inferred pathways in the
environment.
UNEP's very location in Nairobi (the first such United
Nations agency headquartered in an LDC) has resulted
in its first major contribution—an enormous and growing
''"Maurice Strong, A global imperative for the environment.
interest and concern in poor nations about environmental
problems.131 This concern was already well established
in some areas among the people132 but had been notably
absent in most LDC governments.
Under Strong's leadership a list of high-priority areas
was established at UNEP: (1) human settlement, health,
habitat, and well-being; (2) land, water, and desertifica-
tion; (3) trade, economics, technology, and the transfer of
technology; (4) oceans; (5) conservation of nature, wild-
life, and genetic resources; (6) energy.
A program has been started in each area, and by early
1975 more than 200 projects had been initiated, projects
that according to Strong were designed "to create a
leverage to move the programme towards our prjor--
ities."U3 Unfortunately for UNEP. Maurice Strong left
theagency in 1975; whether the<acorri)bf UNEP will ever
grow into the^reat oakjpf ari^iernationaTenvironmental)
protection organization^ so
depend on many things—not least of which will be the
quality of its leadership.
Toward a Planetary Regime
International attempts to tackle global problems— or at
least to start a dialogue among nations— have proliferated
in recentjear|. Besides(the UNCTAPLaw ofthe Sea,^
and(EnvIroninenTal conference^ the United Nations has
sponsored World Population and World, Food confer-
ences (discussed earlier) in 1974, a conference on the
Status of Women in 1975. the pahirat Crmferpnrp nf
1976 (dealing with the problems of cities), and^a, confer-
ence on Water Resources in 1977. A Conference on
Science and Technology is scheduled for 1978, and it is
expected to create a new agency for World Science and.
Technplogv Development. The agency's mission will be
to facilitate the transfer of needed technologies to LDCs
and to foster development of indigenous scientific and
technological education and research in those \
~coun tries.134
n
'Rogcr Lewin, Environment in a developing world; Jon Sigurdson,
Resources and environment in China; Conor Reilly, Environmental
action in Zambia.
132
For example, see Amil Agarvval, Ghandi's ghost saves the Himala-
yan trees.
'"Lewin, Environment in a developing world, p. 632.
134
Salam, Ideals and realities.
 RICH NATIONS, POOR NATIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT /
Superficially, it usually appears that such conferences
do little more than highlight the political differences
between rich and poor countries, but in fact they can lead
to constructive action on the problems discussed. Be-
cause of the diversity of interests and viewpoints of
individual nations, and because of the inequities of the
world economy, it seems to take an unconscionably long
time to reach a consensus on dealing with each problem.
But an important Step often is tn nhtain agreement that a
ttrpblem exists, first of all, and, second, that international
action is appropriate and necessary. Each of the confer-
ences named has been the culmination of this process;
but what counts for the future is whether agreement can
be reached on solutions to the problems and whether
controls can be established before it is too late.
»^P (Regulation of one vital global common^ has not yet
been seriously discussed—that commons is the atmo-
sphere. Even more than the resources of the oceans, the_
atmosphere is shared by all human beings—and other
organisms as well. It is crucial to preserve the atmo-
sphere's quality and the stability of global climate.135 But
that these are now threatened and should be protected by
international agreement is only beginning to be recog-
nized in a few quarters.
Should ^Law of theSelftbe successfully established, it
could serve as a model for a future(Law of the Atmoj
(^sphere)to regulate the use of airspace, to monitor climate
change, and to control atmospheric pollution.} Perhaps^
those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United,
Rations population agencies, might eventually be devel^
oped into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international
superagency for population, resources, and environment.
"Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control
the development, administration, conservation, and dis-
tribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonre-
newable, at least insofar as international implications
exist. Thus, the Regime could have the power to control
pollution not only in the atmosphere and the oceans, but
also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that
cross international boundaries or that discharge into the
oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central
agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps
including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including
S. H. Schneider and L. E. Alesirow, The genesis strategy.
943
all food on the international market. ^^^~ ^r
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility
for determining the optimum population for the world
and for each region and for arbitrating various countries'
shares within their regional limits. Control of population
size might remain the responsibility of each govern-
ment, but the Regime should have some power to enforce
the agreed limits. As with the Law of the Sea and other
international agreements, all agreements for regulating
population sizes, resource development, and pollution
should be subject to revision and modification in accord-
ance with changing conditions.
The Planetary Regime might have the advantage over
earlier proposed world government schemes in not being
primarily political in its emphasis—even though politics
would inevitably be a part of all discussions, implicitly or
explicitly. Since most of the areas the Regime would
control are not now being regulated or controlled by
nations or anyone else, establishment of the Regime
would involve far less surrendering of national power.
Nevertheless, it might function powerfully to suppress
international conflict simply because the interrelated
global resource-environment structure would not permit
such an outdated luxury.
What the Human Community Can Do
Humanity has reached a critical point in its history.
Either the fissioning of societies into two distinct
groups—rich and poor—will proceed, leading inevitably
to conflict and possibly to economic collapse of some
regions, at least; or serious efforts will be made to bring
the two groups closer together. With regard to the latter
course, as we have discussed at some length, there are
plenty of ideas on how to go about it. The main obstacles
are, as usual, social, political, and economic. Too few
people in ODCs are convinced of the absolute necessity
of reducing their consumption of material and environ-
mental resources—of de-development. Too few people
in all countries appreciate the environmental and re-
source constraints within which society must operate.
And too many people with power oppose changing the
present course because, for the time being, they are
profiting from the status quo. And it may not be possible
944 / THE HUMAN PREDICAMENT: FINDING A WAY OUT

to change the course of human society until those 4. The use of nuclear and biological weapons is
powerful people are fully convinced that their benefits unacceptable; and
will vanish unless they do. 5. Political, cultural, and ideological diversity—
Assuming that the formidable obstacles can neverthe- within some limits—ought to be tolerated.138
less be overcome and the two separate "worlds" started
Managing the ttansition-itL-what some people ha^e-
on the appropriate paths—the rich world begins to
called atystainable worlds9 without; a. major catastrophe
de-develop, and the poor world undertakes grass-roots
of some kind (war, mass famine, pandemic, ec-nlngical
development—full cooperation between the two groups
disaster, or economlccollapse), will require far more than,
will be required to make it work. Biologist Charles Birch,
good luck. It will require careful planning and hedging
paraphrasing Garrett Hardin, described such coopera-
against such unpredictable eventualities: Schneider and
tion as "mutual concern mutually agreed upon."136 The
Mesirow's "Genesis strategy." (The Genesis strategy is
LDCs cannot succeed without substantial assistance
based on the biblical story in which Joseph warned the
from ODCs, and the ODCs will continue to need
pharaoh of Egypt that seven fat years would be followed
commodities and resources from LDCs to maintain their
by seven lean years, and he advised the pharaoh to store
industrial structures, even if those structures are made
up grain during the fat years to tide the population over
vastly more efficient and are partially transferred to
when famine came.) Thus, high priorities must bf given,
LDCs. The most crucial decades are those just ahead, in
by the international community to building up food
which there must be a transition to a size-controlled
reserves,topreventing and repairing major environment
(eventually declining) population, an internationally
tal damage, tp^ protecting the ocean and atmospheric
regulated Planetary Regime for the global commons, and
commons, to preventing high casualties from natural
something resembling the "dynamic equilibrium econ-
disasters (earthquakes, volcanic explosions, hurricanes,
omy" espoused by Herman Daly and Emile Benoit.
and such), to protecting populations against disease, to
Certain guiding principles for national behavior have
avoiding conflict between nations, and to that essential
been proposed by many individuals as being essential to
concomitant of all of these {^population controjp There is
the establishment of a genuine world community in
movement toward these precautionary measures, but so
which such cooperative measures could be carried out.
far the movement is dishearteningly slow.
As outlined by United States Assistant Secretary of State
Humanity cannot afford to muddle through the rest of
John Richardson, Jr., a consensus is emerging:
the twentieth century; the risks are too great, and the
stakes are too high. This may be the last opportunity to
1. Governments ought to promote the general welfare
choose our own and our descendants' destiny. Failing to
of those they govern, not merely enlarge their own and
choose or making the wrong choices may lead to catas-
the nation's power;
trophe. But it must never be forgotten that the right
2. Starvation anywhere is unacceptable;
choices could lead to a much better world.
3. Torture by governments anywhere is unacceptable;
'"Preparing for a human community, Department of State News
Release, May 18, 1976.
^'"Confronting the future, p. 348. '"Birch, Confronting the future; Dennis Pirages, A sustainable society:
Social and political implications.

have often slipped into the work uncredited. Their assis-
tance has been extraordinary. The help of our good friend
and attorney, Johnson C. Montgomery, was sorely missed
after his death in December 1974. Much of the material
on legal matters still bears the stamp of his thinking—
especially his pioneering work on the legal aspects of
population control.
Peggy Craig, Claire Shoens, and other staff members
of the Falconer Biology Library at Stanford have once
more been of enormous assistance to us. Their highly
competent and cheerfully given help has time and again
permitted us to solve difficult bibliographic problems.
Reuben Pennant has patiently Xeroxed reference materi-
als and several drafts of manuscript. Thanks for invalu-
able reference work are also due Mari Wilson, librarian
for the Energy and Resources Information Center at the
University of California at Berkeley.
Typing chores for this edition have been handled ex-
pertly by Darryl Wheye at Stanford and Sue Black, Linda
Elliott, Linda Marczak, George Moon, Becky New, Deb-
bie Tyber, and Denise Wior at Berkeley. Seemingly end-
less proofreading of galleys was accomplished with the
able assistance of Robert Wise and Kim Binette (in
Hawaii), and Susan Mann, Glenn Lunde, Jennifer
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS / 1003
Montgomery, and Julia Kennedy (all of Palo Alto and
Stanford). We are especially grateful to Julie, who
devoted many hours of spare time for six weeks to the
job. Julie, Jenny, and Glenn also helped in assembling
the chapter bibliographies. Jane Lawson Bavelas at
Stanford once again helped us with myriad aspects of
the work.
Judith Quinn, our project editor, has done a superb job
of polishing the manuscript, dealing cheerfully with the
numerous crises inevitable in the final stages of a project
of this scale. Her skill and patience have made our task
much easier. The reader doubtless will appreciate the
skill and attention to detail that Jean Mclntosh devoted
to the indices, as we appreciated her good humor in the
face of preposterous time pressures.
Fina re would like to express our deep appreciation
tcftheri Holdren^ who put up with many "social" even-
ings that were long working sessions on the manuscript _
of this book. She cheerfully gave us aid and comfort while
continuing to balance with great success the needs of her
children and the initial stages of her own career as a re-
search biologist. We hope now that the book is in hand
she will think the effort worth it.