Today’s Wall Street Journal includes an article by Jeremy Page entitled, “China’s One-Child Plan Faces New Fire–Census Shows Slowing Growth as Population Ages, Giving Critics Ammunition.” China should end end the policy, regardless of the population growth rate.
Immorality of Government Population Control
State control of population—a particularly invasive form of central planning–is immoral, since it cruelly steals precious personal freedom. The effect of the one-child policy is also immoral–the encouragement of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide.
People have the right to have as many children as they wish. While the state sees people as a burden, each individual’s life is valuable, and people are a resource.
Public Choice Economics at Work
Consistent with public choice economics, government is sacrificing the public good—personal liberty and economic well-being–for its own benefit:
“China’s leaders vowed again this week to maintain the … policy. This despite the census results and a decade-long campaign by … top Chinese academics and former officials who have risked their careers to argue the policy is based on flawed science and vested bureaucratic interests. China’s policy is enforced by the National Population and Family Planning Commission, which employs a half-million full-time staffers and six million part-timers. It collects millions of dollars a year in fines from people who violate family-planning rules.”
Government Rationalization vs. Economic Reality
This is the government’s position: “Chinese leaders credit the [one child] policy with preventing 400 million births, helping to lift the country out of poverty and limit its carbon emissions.” The rationalization of the policy on the basis of fighting poverty and limiting carbon emissions just reflects that government does not need sound reasons to oppress people.
Population growth encourages economic growth. The way to reduce poverty is to increase freedom, not to limit the population. China’s population would naturally moderate, though, with the prosperity that follows freedom, since prosperity leads to declines in population growth.
Limiting carbon emissions is pointless, since this is intended to prevent mythical anthropogenic global warming. The best way to address environmental concerns, however, is through allowing for prosperity, the prosperity that comes with freedom.
Conclusion
The freedom to have any number of children is one of the individual liberties that the people of China should aspire to restore. Human dignity requires freedom, and freedom allows individuals and society to flourish.
