Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet
Marian L. Tupy
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Contrary to what many people have been expecting, the growth of the human population from roughly 1 billion in 1800 to 7.8 billion in 2020 has not been accompanied by a lowering of living standards but by an explosion in material abundance. If you approach this volume with an open mind, you will be astounded by the progress that humanity has made, especially over the last 200 years or so. The book will affirm the moral and practical value of every additional human being, leave you appreciative of the abundance that you are enjoying today, and even hopeful about the future fate of humanity”
“What’s needed to address current and future problems is freedom and brainpower, and that leads us to the fourth problem with neo-Malthusian thinking. Limiting population growth not only limits brain power; it also means social engineering and violence.”
“If consumers dematerialize their intensity of use of goods and technicians produce the goods with a lower intensity of impact, people can grow in numbers and affluence without a proportionally greater environmental impact.”52”
“For this new battle we need a new economics. Above all we need an economics that can not only explain economic growth but vindicate it. We need an economics of mind, an economics of information grounded in the truth that the growth of recent centuries has been achieved not by ravishing “natural” resources but by regenerating them, not by accumulating matter but by replacing it with mind, not by wasting energy but by using it more ingeniously. Information theory shows that we accumulate wealth not by stealing from the earth but by adding to our store of knowledge. We need an economics of information. Superabundance is the pioneering text on this new frontier of economic truth. George Gilder”
“that those are in error who say society has reached a turning point—that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason.… On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?138”
“They found that smartphones can reduce material use by a factor of 300.”
“The first letter from Hayek began thusly: “I have never before written a fan letter to a professional colleague, but to discover that you have in your Economics of Population Growth provided the empirical evidence for what with me is the result of a life-time of theoretical speculation, is too exciting an experience not to share it with you.” Another letter included the following: I have now at last had time to read [The Ultimate Resource] with enthusiastic agreement.… Your new book I welcome chiefly for the practical effects I am hoping from it. Though you will be at first much abused, I believe the more intelligent will soon recognize the soundness of your case. And the malicious pleasure of being able to tell most of their fellows what fools they are, should get you the support of the more lively minds about the media. If your publishers want to quote me, they are welcome to say that I described it as a first class book of great importance which ought to have great influence on policy.14”
“The economic historian from Northwestern University Joel Mokyr has this to say: The main logical issue here is that economic growth can be resource saving as much as resource-using, and that the very negative effects that congestion and pollution engender will set into motion searches for techniques that will abate them. Such responses may be more effective in democratic than in autocratic regimes because concerned public opinion can map better into public policy, but in the end the need for humans to breathe clean air is about as universal a value as one can find. Investment in soil reclamation, desalination, recycling, and renewable energy count just as much as economic growth as economic activities that use up resources. Whether or not wise policies will help steer technological progress in that direction, the basic notion that per capita income growth has to stop because the planet is finite is palpable nonsense.55”
“The arrival of modernity was also accompanied by fundamental social changes. The end of old certainties, including rigid hierarchies that limited social mobility and religious beliefs that could not withstand the onslaught of scientific discoveries, proved profoundly disorienting to the public in general and intellectuals in particular. The rise of the bourgeoisie, and the concomitant diminution in the power and prestige of the nobility and the clergy, led to a great deal of envy and resentment. The weakening and the eventual retreat of traditional religion led to the rise of pseudoreligious fads like spiritualism and mesmerism, as well as alternative explanations of history and of “man’s role in the universe.” The void left behind by the collapse of the ancien régime would eventually be filled by a plethora of new theories, including racism, national socialism, communism, and, most recently, an increasingly militant strand of environmentalism.”
“In the words of Scottish historian William Robertson (1721–1793), commerce “softens and polishes the manners of men. It unites them, by one of the strongest of all ties, the desire of supplying their mutual wants.”94 Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689–1755) agreed, writing that “commerce cures destructive prejudices.”
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