American conservatives have been rightly upset by the vandalizing of statues and monuments over the past couple of years. Make no mistake: Confederate generals and vile colonialists deserve no honor. But the way to remove those monuments is through proper legal action instead of mob violence.
Yet some conservatives are thrilled by the recent vandalizing of the mysterious Georgia Guidestones, erected in 1980 in rural Georgia. The granite monument was recently bombed by unknown persons, and its structure was left unstable. This prompted authorities to demolish the monument to prevent accidents.
The Georgia Guidestones have long been the subject of far-right conspiracy theories. For example, Republican candidate Kindiss Taylor has alleged that the monument was a site for Satanic rituals and led a campaign to demolish it. Alex Jones has also commented on the Georgia Guidestones’ alleged connection to the globalist New World Order. The fact that the designer of this monument remains anonymous and unconfirmed (though widely suspected) further adds to the suspicion.
As with most conspiracy theories, claims about the Georgia Guidestones are grounded on some measure of truth. The stones are engraved with ten inscriptions in various languages (English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian), one of which reads: “Unite humanity with a living new language.” There is nothing controversial about this, but to a conspiracist mind, it can be taken as part of a wicked plot to establish a global dictatorship.
More controversial, however, is the very first inscription: “Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.” Whoever came up with this message had an obvious demographic concern. This has been a favorite topic among right-wing conspiracy theorists. The New World Order is allegedly obsessed with reducing the world population and will go to great lengths to accomplish its goal. To do so, elites are using chemtrails, fluoridating water, financing wars, etc. Until they see the world population reduced to 500 million, they will not stop.
Such conspiracy-mongering is of course nonsense. But it is important to acknowledge that the demographic concerns expressed in the Georgia Guidestones are unwarranted. This can be traced back to Thomas Malthus, who in his 1798 An Essay on the Principle of Population wrote that “population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence on the other hand increases only in an arithmetical ratio.” As a consequence—so Malthus believed—“the power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”
These apocalyptic musings were further developed by Paul Ehrlich in his influential 1968 book The Population Bomb. In an interview in 1970, he infamously said: “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100–200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
Ten years passed, and no such catastrophes happened. But very much as with participants in apocalyptic cults, cognitive dissonance has done its part. Ehrlich and his followers—presumably the anonymous benefactor of the Georgie Guidestones was one of them—refuse to change their minds, even though their predictions have failed.
There are good reasons not to be overly concerned with demographic growth; ultimately, overpopulation is unlikely. It is true that industrialization brought accelerated demographic growth over the past two centuries, but the United Nations estimates that after 2100, the world population will become stable. A team of experts concludes that “there is a high probability, around 85 percent, that the population of the world will reach a peak sometime during the current century.”
The so-called “demographic transition” allows us to understand how this will take place. As per this model, when nations become fully industrialized, they tend to have lower birth rates and lower death rates. This comes as a result of increased levels of technological development and education quality.
The demographic transition goes through four phases. First, in the preindustrial world, birth rates and death rates are high, and, therefore, population size remains stable. Second, as industrialization begins (as in most of the developing world today), infant mortality is reduced; in these cases, there are population booms, as indeed we currently see in much of Africa. Third, as industrialization thrives, people are now pressured to have fewer children, because in the industrial setting, having more children is not necessarily an economic advantage. Fourth, improvements in healthcare extend life expectancy, but birth rates further decline because of intense urban and industrial lifestyle changes. In some cases, a birth rate may even be below the replacement rate (2.1), as is indeed the case in various industrialized nations.
When the infant mortality rate is reduced, people are less pressured to have more children, given that parents can rest assured that the risk of their children dying is low. As industrialization progresses, manual labor is less needed, and, therefore, having more children is not necessarily an advantage. In industrial society, the welfare state provides for people in old age, so as opposed to the agricultural past, there is no urgent need to have more children as an economic safety net for retirement.
Furthermore, in industrial society, most people live in cities, and housing becomes a challenge for large families. Consequently, urban settings add pressure to have fewer children. With industrialization, women have expanded labor opportunities, and as a result, they delay pregnancy until they find more stable economic positions. This also stabilizes population growth.
From these well-established demographic facts, it can be safely assumed that although the world population will not be under 500 million, no doomsday scenario is coming. Global warming is of course a problem, but an excessive alarmist approach is not reasonable, as we can safely assume that emerging clean energy technologies will sustain the world population at its current levels, and the population growth rate is likely to become stable relatively soon.
The message of the Georgia Guidestones could have been confronted with reasoned democratic debate. Instead, conspiracy theorists got in the way. Their absurd claims motivated acts of vandalism, and now the monument is gone. Unfortunately, this may play into the narrative that the demographic bomb is so obviously imminent that the only people unconcerned with demographic growth are right-wing extremists.
There is a lesson to be learned by skeptics: whenever dubious claims are made, skeptics must quickly take the lead in the reasonable pushback against such claims. Otherwise, conspiracy theorists will fill the void, and even more, absurd claims will be made.
Dr. Gabriel Andrade is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine at Ajman University.