We Need More Crazy Rich Asians?

Are there “Too Many Asians?” as (believe it or not) fearmongering progressives once worried or, are there “Not Enough Asians” as now suggested? Example of how “history” & “current events” are invariably intertwined?

It was a remarkable op ed by WSJ’s William McGurn. He begins by reminding us of John Robbins book “Too Many Asians” that “would never fly today [yet argued] “if humanity is to have a future,” the West would have to see to it that fewer Asians were born in the years ahead. “That was 1959.” And, for those of us who were alive can still REMEMBER … “Robbins was but one voice in a chorus of think tanks, government aid organizations, international development specialists, environmentalists, zero-growthers, doom mongers and do-gooders who all saw population control as the cure for poverty.” Hello. As the columnist goes on to observe, the world’s population has zoomed since, while so has the percentage of people pulled out of poverty.

If only Communist China, Mr. McGurn waxes, had seen how wrong the progressives of the 1960s & beyond had been in urging them and all governments to push if not impose birth control on its citizens. The Marxist PRC (btw: Another “Western Ideological Import) obeyed as did its people, and now what? China’s aging population, McGurn notes, had its first shrinkage ever and the nation’s economy is struggling to find workers to man its factories. Last week, the New York Times published “Why China’s Shrinking Population Is Cause for Alarm.” Never mind the devil in the details. As McGurn marvels: “If only that were the message [the progressives at the Times & elsewhere] were sending 50 years ago – when it might have made a difference.”

Davd Soul