While browsing the comments section for Mackinac Center articles, I came upon a startling comment from a guy who is working on a documentary called "Growth Busters Presents - Hooked on Growth, our misguided quest for prosperity". The gist of his comment was that Michigan's decline in economic growth and population is a good thing, and should be encouraged by state lawmakers.
His film's website, www.growthbusters.com, is a bizarre place. As the film's title suggests, the filmmaker believes that human prosperity and growth (whether in population or wealth) are very bad things. The thinking goes that all this human growth will overload the planet. I guess I'm not sure what exactly is supposed to happen after we reach that point, or why to an anti-growth advocate the ensuing disaster would be bad.
The site bemoans our lust for growth and the resulting global climate disaster sure to befall us because of it. But if stopping population growth and prosperity is a good thing, wouldn't "natural" population controls like flood, famine, fire, and disease be welcome?
He's entitled to his opinion that humans attempting to grow and prosper is a bad thing. My only question is, who does he suggest should be forced to stop having babies? Who should be forced to stop trying to become wealthier and healthier?
His gloomy view of the future is an unlikely scenario. Today we have an abundance of resources that were previously thought to be all but exhausted. It used to take several acres of land for one family to survive; now we can do it with just square feet. Those who fear we're fast running out of resources would do well to remember Julian Simon's famous wager with Paul Ehrlich.