The Ultimate Resource 2

by Julian L. Simon

Book Overview

Arguing that the ultimate resource is the human imagination coupled to the human spirit, Julian Simon led a vigorous challenge to conventional beliefs about scarcity of energy and natural resources, pollution of the environment, the effects of immigration, and the "perils of overpopulation." The comprehensive data, careful quantitative research, and economic logic contained in the first edition of The Ultimate Resource questioned widely...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691003815
• ISBN13: 9780691003818
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 784 Pages
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

An accessible, brilliant magnum opus on population economics

Simon's premise is simple: direct measures of material, human well-being correlate positively with population growth and there is no theoretical upper limit. Simply put, things are getting better and better, not in spite of population growth, but because of it! The reason is simple as well: the "ultimate resource" is human imagination and we will not only never run out of it, but we will get more of it as population increases.This sounds crazy (and I thought Simon was a kook the first time I heard of him), but Simon lays out his theory in detail and shows the overwhelming empirical evidence in favor of it. Simon is not a lone nut, either. The scholarly work in the field of population economics solidly supports his view, even if he may overstate his case sometimes.This is an update of the original book, so Simon has a chance to answer the critics of the first edition. The poor quality of the critics' arguments, along with their ad hominem attacks, reveals why environmentalist doomsaying is a sad, pathetic, quasi-religion that bitterly opposes examining the facts.

A wonderul celebration of the human mind.

The title of this book refers to the human mind. When people are free, and when secure private property rights exist, and when consenting individuals are free to enter into voluntary contractual agreements, and when government activity is limited to proptecting these freedoms and property rights, then human existence will exist in its best possible state.Julian Simon uses huge amounts of facts, evidence, data, and empirical evidence to show that the overpopulation doomsayers have been wrong about all of their predictions. For example, throughout the 20th century, the average per-capita calorie consumption for the world has been going up. In addition, throughout the 20th century, the real prices of natural resources have been going down, which means that these things have become more abundant.The problems of hunger and poverty that exist in places such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh are not caused by overpopulation. Instead, these problems are caused by political factors. Thus, reducung the populations of these countries will do nothing to improve the quality of life for the inhabitants of these countries.Hong Kong is the most densely populated country in the world. And it is also one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Several decades ago, Hong Kong was a slum. But then it adopted a free market economy. As a reult, Hong Kong became wealthy. If countries such as Ethiopia and Bangladesh would adopt free market economies, then they would become wealthy, too.Julian Simon placed a very high value on the human mind. And it shows in this book. This book is a celebration of life. Julian Simon held a very deep love for the human race. He will be missed by many people.

An uplifting and splendid book by a true humanist

This book is a bombshell. It remorselessly devastates the current ecology doom mongers' shibboleths: population density, resource depletion, pollution, deforestation and species loss. Julian Simon was vilified in his life by the vocal ecology campaigners (special and dishonourable mention should be made of the egregious Paul Erhlich, he of the 'Population Bomb' and other wholly fictitious disasters). Why did Simon attract this venom from people who dub themselves 'scientists'? Simply this: he dared to challenge the orthodoxy that human beings are an ecological cancer that is busy raping the planet and drowning in its own filth. How did he do it? Not with invective, selective quotation and flat-out lies, like the 'deep ecologists' or the Zero Population Growth fanatics, but with facts - cold, hard facts and lots of them. He pointed out that the only economic variable that can properly describe the scarcity of a resource in the absence of full knowledge of its true abundance is price. And he points out that the prices of all resources have been falling relentlessly. This observation led to the well-known $1000 bet with the aforementioned Paul Erhlich, effectively a futures contract, which saw the sadly unchastened Erhlich hand over nearly $600 to Simon. Simon's model for resource usage is that scarcity temporarily drives the price of a commodity up, at which point it is either used more efficiently, or a suitable substitute is discovered. After all, the sole economic value of a commodity is its utility. We value copper for its high conductance. But with the increasing substitution of fibre optics (made from sand - even the environmentalists would concede there is no imminent shortage of this) copper has declined in usefulness, and its price has dropped.Simon acknowledges that the notion that resources are not finite in any meaningful sense runs counter to intuition, and then shows with a host of examples that intuition is a poor guide to formulating economic and social policy. The book is packed with graphs, charts and tables, all bolstering his point. Perhaps it is this that explains the fury that his ideas received from the radical ecologists - facts are indisputable, and do not fit with the coercive political agenda of those who wish to circumscribe our reproductive capabilities.Throughout the whole book, a sense of Julian Simon's love of people can be felt. He asks who are we, beneficiaries of the greatest gift of all, life, to decide from our privileged position who shall have life in the future? Pervading the anti-growth movement is the miasma of racism, as evinced by this extract from The Population Bomb, quoted in The Ultimate Resource: "I came to understand the population explosion emotionally one stinking hot night in Delhi...The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping, people visiting, arguing and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window,

Magnificent--a tribute to humanity; a rubuke to Malthusians

Now in a second edition, and what a treat that is, because now the unquenchable optimism and sound forcasting of the first volume is backed up by decades of confirmatory data. Resources of all kinds--foods, metals, energy--are more abundant and cheaper, life expectancy is up, and so is the worldwide standard of living. Why is this so, in spite of the dire warnings (The Population Bomb, Famine: 1975!) of the latest crop of doomsayers? Read the book and find out. Find out also, why these trends show no signs of turning around--why the world will be even richer and more prosperous in the next century.A reader, in an earlier review, suggests that Simon's ideas are "ridiculous" (in spite of the fact that he has been proven right, time and time again, and the doomsayers have to come out with new books every few years, adjusting forward their predictions of a doomsday that never comes), and goes on to say some very stupid things about "limits to the food supply." Go read them, then consider--that review, like most doomsayers, admits startling progress in increasing food yields, then assumes that such progress is over, or nearly so (six millennia of agricultural advance to the contrary). Why? In the first hundred pages of this book, Simon details cutting-edge technologies being employed commercially _today_ that could raise worldwide food production by orders of magnitude. But the eco-tastrophe crowd keeps talking about "closed systems," in spite of the fact that every new technological innovation keeps making the "system" effectively larger and larger.

The doomslayer falls

On Sunday, February 8th, psychologist and economist Julian L. Simon succumbed to a heart attack in Maryland. It is difficult to overstate the damage his death will cause the world debate on overpopulation, natural resources, and the environment. Dr. Simon's prolific and energetic mind gave rise to fourteen books and countless papers and lectures, dedicated to overthrowing the dogma that underlies so much of today's environmental discourse. Simon, still considered a maverick after thirty years of relentless data-gathering, impeccable empirical work, and well-thought out conclusions, questioned the unquestionable. He maintained that the earth is in good shape by every conceivable measure, and that the environmental situation continues to improve each year. Every index of human happiness - food prices, net income, infant mortality, life expectancy, disease rates - has steadily improved. He documented those claims with reams of data, culminating in his 1996 tour de force The State of Humanity. It is absolutely comprehensive, and contains enough obscure data to make the most jaded Trivial Pursuit fan squirm (if you ever want to read about the average lower-class Brazilian's annual starch intake, look no further). Constantly vilified by his critics, Simon always had a small and devoted following. He was dubbed 'the Doomslayer' by Wired magazine for his repeated skewering of environmental fanatics and 'Birkenstock Puritans.' Perhaps the most memorable episode happened in 1980. Simon wrote exasperatedly in an article that he was sick and tired of environmentalists' insistence that large-scale natural starvation was right around the corner. He invited them to put their money where their mouths were. Paul Ehrlich, the influential author of The Population Bomb and predictor of worldwide famine and resource scarcity for the 1980s, stepped up to the plate. Simon invited Ehrlich and any of his colleagues to choose any five non-government-controlled resources, purchase $1000 worth in any combination, and specify a later date. If the resource bundle went up in price (implicating that they had become more scarce), then Simon would have to pay the difference. If they went down in price, signifying greater abundance, then Simon would receive the difference. Ehrlich and company jumped at this proposition, writing that they were looking forward to cashing in 'before other greedy people see this opportunity.' They chose five heavy metals used as inputs for industry, and specified ten years as the time to wait. And thus it occurred that Ehrlich and his colleagues wrote a check to Julian Simon for $576.80 in 1990. When Ehrlich claimed that it was a fluke, Simon offered to repeat the bet on the same terms, with a new bundle and a new time period. Ehrlich refused, and no one ever stepped up to take his place. In 1996 Simon updated his classic The Ultimate Resource, in which he claimed that the human mind and human creativity are our best bet to overcome the world's proble