Population Control and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

As the millennium approached, one out of the thousands of children born daily became a benchmark in human history. Unknowingly, this baby became the six billionth person to inhabit Earth. Its identity is unknown and even the origin of the child can only be a speculation, yet its impact on the future of humanity is undeniable. As little as two centuries ago, the world's population was estimated to be approximately one billion. Anthropologists have calculated the human species to be have been in existence for roughly three million years, however, it is only within the past two hundred years that its population has increased by six hundred percent.

Many demographers predict that within the next fifty years, earth's population will have reached ten to twelve billion people. Half of the world's population is under the age of twenty four, and three billion young people will have the ability to procreate within the next two decades. While death control has vastly increased worldwide, birth control is still scarce in developing nations and the birthrate is significantly higher than the deathrate in those countries. The snowballing trend of population growth has placed significant strain on the planet's resources, and many have begun to look for a means of population control.

Aldous Huxley created his classic dystopia in his novel Brave New World during the midst of this population surge. His fictional population was strictly controlled in every aspect by its government, and every birth and death would ensure that the optimal number was maintained. Like most aspects of his book though, he merely hyperbolized facets of the real world in an attempt to satirize life. He examined the tendency of demographers to try and establish a point of stabilization for the human population. As the population grew in rapid and uncontrollable rates, he predicted that people looking instinctively look for stability would eventually be willing to forfeit freedoms in exchange. Despite the fact that he wrote his novel less than a century ago, many of his predictions seem to be becoming reality.

The population growth rate in developing nations is going at too fast of a pace for their governments to properly cope with the changes they entail. The Bucharest Population Conference in 1974 emphasized that greater fertility is related to slow economic and social development. In these countries where the growth rate is the most rapid, there are also the greatest instances of starvation, ecological deterioration, infant and child mortality, and malnutrition. They have over ceded sustainable levels, levels that meet the world's capacity for waste disposal and that do not destroy necessary resources. Huxley believed that these nations would need to take greater control in order to formulate solutions to these endless problems, eventually leading to the totalitarian rule of his Brave New World. In his world, distribution of these essential resources was strictly handled by the government, so as to maintain the perfect balance.

Out of the approximately six billion inhabitants of Earth, the world's one billion richest people use eighty percent of its resources, leaving the other five billion with a mere twenty percent. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of these people live in developed nations. According to the UN, if the entirety of Earth were to have the same level of consumption as the average American or Western European, it would require three planet Earths to support the human population. In his story, the failure of the experimental island of all Alphas, the highest caste, was meant to prove that worldwide equality was an impossibility. Huxley knew that a future in which the whole of humanity reached similarly good living conditions was not feasible. Thus, his world created a caste system, and yet, its proportions of Alphas to Epsilons bears a striking resemblance to that of the modern day rich to poor. Huxley did not anticipate that his doomsday would approach so rapidly, and that the "solutions" of his dystopian society would rapidly become more realistic.

Aldous Huxley wrote A Brave New World Revisited several decades after his original Brave New World, and distinguished what he believed to be the three eras of humanity. His fictional creation was a world of too much order, while modern society was one of too little. Somewhere in between these should be a time of a happy medium, however, he stated his fear that he has yet to see its beginning. With the population spiraling out of control, humanity is scrambling for some sense of stability. The intense control of Huxley's society has roots in our own modern world, and humanity's innate necessity for some sense of order. Action is necessary, and the stalemate in this debate is only bringing the world closer to the horror of Huxley's imagination. If nothing is done, the Huxley's middle era will be skipped entirely, and the world may indeed become entirely too similar to that of the Brave New World.