University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Symposium Tagged A 'Scientific Sham'

In universities across the
country today, quackery
parades as science as a growing
legion of "learned men"
attempts to compute how
many years longer man can
survive on TODAY's economic
resources, and how many
people should be eliminated in
order to prolong the survival
period – organized under the
twin banners of "zero
economic growth" and "zero
population growth."

The core of the zero growth
argument is that the world's
population is rapidly
exhausting finite power,
mineral and agricultural
resources, while polluting itself
into oblivion. The proffered
"solution" is to strangle all
further economic growth,
prevent population increase,
and attempt to thereby stretch
current resources.

These are the general
recommendations of the MIT
report, "The Limits to
Growth," the scheduled subject
of a panel discussion on
Saturday, April 28, concluding
a two-day symposium on "The
World as System" at the
University of Virginia. The
organizer of the symposium,
Professor James Simmonds of
the Zero Population Growth
organization and the
Department of Applied
Mathematics, has refused a
formal request by the National
Caucus of Labor Committees
to participate in this panel,
remarking that "ZPG has given
the NCLC ample opportunity
to broadcast its views."

But without the presence of
the Labor Committees, whose
pamphlet "Blueprint for
Extinction" is the sole
competent critique of "The
Limits to Growth" and
like-minded studies, the U.Va.
symposium will be a scientific
sham. The last fig leaf of
objectivity was torn away by
Simmonds himself, who wrote
that our members may join in
the floor discussion only with
"questions, as opposed to
statements." Simmonds'
testiness may stem from the
fact that when I debated him
on March 8 at Newcomb Hall
he was unable to present any
scientific defense of Zero
Growth and went home before
the end of the question period!

The real issue at stake is,
what is the condition for actual
human development in this
period. People may adhere to
ZPG out of what they conceive
as humanitarian concern, but
by a cruel irony the Zero
Growth ideology coheres with
the needs of a capitalist class to
impose austerity on the
working class during this
period of worldwide economic
breakdown. The solution to
the present energy and
resource crisis lies in the rapid
development of fusion power
technology, which can solve
the energy crisis, allow for
nearly total recycling of
materials, and through
desalination on a large scale
solve the food shortage. Bill
Warren, a physicist and
member of ZPG, agreed with
the NCLC in our debate over
Radio WELK on March 9 that
fission power should be
scrapped at once and fusion
power more heavily funded.
Privately he admitted that
fusion power is within twenty
years of implementation, given
the adequate investment which
is at present criminally lacking.

The promise of fusion
power is the alternative to Zero
Growth and the key to the
future of humanity. In this
depression period, the
straightforward answer to an
"ecology crisis" induced by
capitalist waste is for a
politically organized working
class and its allies to take over
the economy and operate it for
human use. Employed and