Letters: where did St Blaise go?

Too many not too few

Sir: I have to disagree with your article ‘The people problem’ (3 February). There is a ‘people problem’ in the world but it is – globally – not too few, but too many people. In my own lifetime the world’s population has approximately tripled. This rate of increase is manifestly unsustainable. It has only been sustained to date because of the globalised and technologically sophisticated world order we have developed, an order which cannot necessarily be counted on. Yes, population levels are in gradual decline in some relatively affluent countries. So what? Perhaps there may be too few young people, but your piece ignores one important piece of the jigsaw: technological change.

The view that economic output is fundamentally affected by the presence or absence of labour (an argument curiously resonant of Marx’s labour theory of value) leaves technology out of account. Advances in artificial intelligence and technology generally will mean human labour, whether by hand or brain, will count for less and less in the future.