The Case for Chilling Out About Birth Rates

Was there ever a time when people were not panicking about population? In 1798, the English economist Thomas Malthus wrote that “the power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.” Humanity, then just 1 billion strong, did not fall into the Malthusian trap. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, it instead underwent a huge expansion in both size and living standards. More than a…