PERSPECTIVEnIrJ,n1nAmerica, From Republic to Ant FarmnIn July I took my four children back to the South Carolinanvillage in which they had spent their earliest years. Thenmost frequent topics of conversation were still, in order,nHurricane Hugo and its aftermath, a public school controversynthat appeared to pit blacks against whites but reallynconcerned the ambitions of a New York “intellectual” whonwanted to change the character of a community that hadnaccepted him into its midst, and, finally, the inevitablengrowth of the village as Charleston, swollen with refugeesnfrom Ohio, spreads up along the coast.nI spoke with an artist who had been given the task ofndrawing up a plan for controlled development, and henexpressed the hope that the village could retain its characternas a community that mixed black and white, rich and poor,nshrimpers and lawyers. What the artist really wanted to talknabout was a series of paintings depicting the activities ofnshrimpers, crabbers, and oystermen whose way of life wasnrapidly disappearing. “The problem is,” he explained,nwaving his hand across a vista of palmettos and oaks, flowersnand marsh grass as if it were a painting, “the problem is, wenare in the midst of all this beauty. Everybody wants to livenhere, but there is a finite supply of prime coastal property.”nIt was the Rev. Thomas Malthus who first recognizednthat population growth exacerbated the competition fornscarce resources. His theory was expressed in a pair of simplen14/CHRONICLESnby Thomas Flemingnft:nnn:^nsentences: “Population, when unchecked, increases in angeometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmeticalnratio.” Although Malthus’s formula failed to consider thenconsequences of technological change and economicngrowth, his insight gave Charles Darwin the key to understandingnthe process of natural selection. In the competitionnfor scarce resources, it is the winners who survive, propagate,nand pass on their characteristics.nToday, the population debate is dominated by twonopposing views, neither of which fully appreciates thensignificance of Malthus and Darwin. On one side are thenPollyannas, led by Julian Simon, who think that modernnman can continue to stay one step ahead of the Malthusiannsheriff, so long as he continues to develop new technologiesnand devote himself to economic growth. On the other sidenare the Chicken Littles, whose champion is Paul Ehrlich,nwho have set themselves against all human increase to thenpoint that they are against life itself For Simon, it doesn’tnmatter whether America grows by having babies or importingnaliens, while Ehrlich points the finger of blame at thenVatican (particularly the profound encyclical humanaenvitae) and refuses to distinguish between the Americannmiddle class and the beggars of Calcutta.nNeither Simon nor Ehrlich is asking the right question,nwhich is not. What is good for the world or for the globaln