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Demographics is pretty complex...

... accounting for birth rates, death rates, life expectancies, migration, education, economic productivity, and a host of other factors.

But understanding what to do isn't really that difficult. There is plenty of land and resources in the world to support virtually unlimited population growth. Necessity is the mother of invention and any time we face a scarcity of resources like housing or food or energy, we either invent new technology, find alternatives, become frugal, move on, or something. We never would have had or needed high rise buildings without population growth. We never would have developed mechanized intensive farming without population growth. And on the up side, without population growth, we may not have ever had the inventors and entreprenuers who have improved our lives. In this regard, imagine life without modern medicine, air-conditioning, automobiles and airplanes, television, computers, washers and dryers, and a host of other things that simply weren't available 100 years ago, or if they were, they were virtually unavailable to most and substantially inferior to the things available today.

The interesting part of the issue for me is how do we encourage the development of entreprenuers and inventors and others who will help make life better whether our population grows or stabilizes or even if it declines. I can't see how using government to redistribute wealth and restrain innovation is going to contribut to anything but a death spiral. On the other hand, when people are left more or less to their own devices, their own survival instincts and desires kick in and they work to make their lives better. Unless they try to hurt others in the process by theft, fraud, assault, etc, then the government should let them be. If there is no gravy train for immigrants, they will be less inclined to come and when they get here, more inclined to assimilate. We don't need to limit immigrants to foreign professionals, we just need to stop subsidizing them from the public till when they arrive. Until and unless the government finally becomes completely socialized in this country, ambition and a work ethic combined with some common sense and some book learning will lead to prosperity and a good life. The values promoted by most major religions and family ties and community relations they foster will improve ones prospects and make the country a better place to live. That doesn't mean it will be a bad place to live when a large part of the population denies the wisdom of the ages and focses on short term self-gratification and sloth. It only means we need to take steps where we can to ensure that our government focuses on enforcing and protecting property rights and stops becoming the agent theft through taxation and entitlement programs that simply redistribute wealth.

The reason socialist governments have never succeeded in the long run is because they cannot control human emotions and desires. They cannot innovate and, in fact, end up discouraging innovation through increased control over existing processes, trying to make incremental improvements in our economy and lives without the knowledge that is distributed in each and every person. No matter how elite, the elite class may be, it is the fatal conceit for them to believe they understand better than the rest of the world how the world should operate. It is too bad that Hayek and his ilk are not more widely taught in public schools and more widely understood and admired by the politically powerful and so called elites.