My 1986 letter to Dr. Sprinkel might be the best letter I’ve ever written on a policy issue. I’d like to know what reactions it provokes when you read it.
In 1986 I was living in Paris with my family while working as the junior US Treasury Department attaché in the office of the US Ambassador to the OECD. In this position, I had the good fortune of making the acquaintance of Beryl Sprinkel when he was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) and came to the OECD for meetings with his counterparts from other member countries. I had previously been in a few meetings with Dr. Sprinkel, a well-known conservative economist, when he was Under Secretary for Monetary Affairs in the Treasury Department in the first Ronald Reagan Administration.
These connections gave me the courage to write directly to Dr. Sprinkel after reading the 1986 annual report of the CEA and deciding that the last chapter in the report, on immigration, was misguided. In my view, it was too positive about the benefits of immigration for the US economy. It could even be interpreted as implying that more immigration (without limits) would be a good thing.
You will see in my letter a connection to the story I co-authored on China’s demographic future that was published by Scientific American on 1 May 2024. The connection is my experience in the Office of Population Research at Princeton University in my senior year (1962-63). This experience shaped my view on immigration, and it has become stronger over the years since then.
My provocative view has reached the point where people who hear what I say or read what I write come away thinking that I am “anti-immigration”. I am not. I am against “mindless immigration”. In particular, I believe that the only sensible national policy on immigration is one emerging from a serious debate about the “optimum population” for that country.
Back in 1986, the global trend toward lower birth rates and lower fertility rates was not widely understood. As this trend has become more obvious, national debates over population policy have become more vigorous and a variety of pro-natalist policies have been adopted. But they lack the context everywhere of having a population “goal”.
Similarly, only a fringe group of extremists in 1986 viewed global warming as an existential threat for the human species. That’s no longer the case. Curiously, however, there is a reluctance to stress that the most effective way of meeting the challenge of climate change is to naturally, humanely allow populations to shrink, as they are doing in roughly half of the world’s countries today. This begs the question of what smaller population size, in 2050 or 2100, would be more sustainable and more consistent with global peace and prosperity. It’s worth keeping in mind that the global population at the beginning of World War II was around 2 billion and has multiplied four times over 80 years to reach 8 billion now. It is possible that Planet Earth can sustainably support a population of 8 billion given all the advances in technology since 1940, but not if they are all consuming energy and resources at the rate of people in the USA and other high-income countries. And not if the total population continues to grow to 10 or 12 billion in the decades ahead.
In this context, the arithmetic of immigration is very simple. Set the “optimum” population size at some point in the future. Add the smaller size that would result from the current or projected fertility and birth rates. Solve for immigration.
For example, in the case of the USA, our current population is around 330 million (compared with 130 million in 1940). Let’s say the optimum US population is 320 million in 2030 and without immigration it would decline to 315 million. It means that we should add 5 million immigrants to our population in the next 5-6 years or roughly 1 million each year. This compares with the actual number in recent years of about 1 million legal immigrants and 1 million illegal immigrants.
Once an immigration number has been adopted, however, it becomes necessary to decide how to select immigrants in countries like the USA where many more people wish to immigrate. Here, too, I have a deeply considered view. But let this provocative view be the topic of a future post. I simply offer as a teaser that a lottery system could be the most sensible approach.
PS. For those who don’t know the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), it grew out of the post-World War II reconstruction effort in Europe and became known as a rich-country club. It now includes a number of middle-income countries. It brings together officials from member countries in an intense process of seeking best policies and practices for addressing common economic and social challenges.
Congratulations, Lex, on taking on one of THE fundamental issues of our time without mentioning Nelson Rockefeller or his population clock even once. I am curious about the population pyramids in your Scientific American article which show an even split between male and female in all age groups, top to bottom. According to the data included in Hessler's recent books on China, family planning practices, especially in rural China, have evolved to greater leniency, favoring male over female births to the point that 118 males to every 100 females will be the norm in the near future. How will that affect ideal population debates?
Also, the September 1965 issue of Scientific American, on the Growth of Cities, contained the concl…
Your proposal seems a logical approach, Lex; however, this know-little thinks a US population of 320-330M too high. A lower number of 300M as a goal 'feels' safer for more comfortable living circumstances. The US might solve its growing density of homes problem by reducing the footprint homes consume. Seeing former farm fields vanish - particularly on the East Coast - has been hard in my lifetime, as the US population quadrupled, even for a retired Realtor whose profession succeeded by selling those unneessarily large tract homes to moderately well-to-do American families. There is probably some correlect between 'population', 'population density', income and foorprint which better fits our needs, if that makes sense.