People are world’s greatest asset

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Updated: January 23, 2012 3:58AM

John Denver sang about “more people, more scars upon the land” in “Rocky Mountain High.”

Well, get ready for the seven billionth “scar.”

He or she will be born sometime in the next few weeks, very likely on Halloween, according to the United Nations. Hooray! Pop the champagne. The world can handle it. In fact, it should rejoice at the prospect. Really.

Stephen Moore is an economics writer for the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, as well as co-author (with the late Dr. Julian Simon) of It’s Getting Better All the Time.” Moore told me that “people like living around people, and often in high-density areas. Look at China: One of the reasons for its increase in wealth in recent years is that people are moving out of poor rural areas and into the cities” where wealth is created and sustained.

On the other hand, Moore points out, China is also an example of a country with a looming population problem: There are not enough young people there to financially support an aging population. In China, this is a direct result of a decades-long policy of forced abortion.

So far, the news coverage of the impending arrival of the 7 billionth person has been far less dire than that leading up to the six billionth person some 12 years ago. Maybe that’s because some facts finally have sunk in.

For instance, according to the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development, “During the second half of the 20th century, human numbers and food demand grew at an unprecedented pace, yet food supplies increased even faster.” Around the world, “prices of corn, rice and other staple grains were 75 percent lower in the middle 1980s than in 1950,” proving that they had become more abundant. Real prices have stayed low for decades. Such improvements came as the result of advances in farming and high crop yields, which came from human beings living in free economies.

Who knows? It may be No. 7 billion who cures cancer, writes plays that put Shakespeare’s to shame or develops a cheap fuel that replaces oil. So to No. 7 billion, whoever you are: Welcome to the world, you darling little natural resource!

Scripps Howard