Notes

Text 11
From Overpopulation to Dictatorship
Let us briefly review the reasons for the close correlation between too many
people, too rapidly multiplying, and the formulation of authoritarian philos-
ophies, the rise of totalitarian systems of government.
As large and increasing numbers press more heavily upon available resources
5 the economic position of the society undergoing this ordeal becomes ever more
precarious. This is especially true of those underdeveloped regions, where a
sudden lowering of the death rate by means of DDT, penicillin and clean water
has not been accompanied by a corresponding fall in the birth rate. In parts of
Asia and in most of Central and South America populations are increasing
10 so fast that they will double themselves in little more than twenty years. If the
production of food and manufactured articles, of houses, schools and teachers
could be increased at a greater rate than human numbers, it would be possible
to improve the wretched lot of those who live in these underdeveloped and
overpopulated countries. But unfortunately these countries lack not merely
15 agricultural machinery and an industrial plant capable of turning out this
machinery, but also the capital required to create such a plant. Capital is what
is left over after the primary needs of a population have been satisfied. But
the primary needs of most of the people in underdeveloped countries are never
fully satisfied. Moreover, there is, in all these underdeveloped countrics, a
o serious shortage of the trained manpower without which a modern industrial
ultural plant cannot be operated. The present educational facilities
and agric
are inadequate; so are the resources, financial and cultural, for improving the
existing facilities as fast as the situation demands. Meanwhile the population
of some of these underdeveloped countries is increasing at the rate of three
25 per cent per annum
Whenever the economic life of a nation becomes precarious, the central govern-
ment is forced to assume additional responsibilities for the general welfare.
It must work out elaborate plans for dealing with a critical situation; it must
impose ever greater restrictions upon the activities of its subjects; and if, as
30 is very likely, worsening economic conditions result in political unrest, or
open rebellion, the central government must intervene to preserve public order
and its own authority. More and more power is thus concentrated in the hands
of the executives and their bureaucratic managers. In the absence of a constitu
tional tradition, this increased power will probably be exercised in a dictatorial
35 fashion.
(about 440 words)
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World Revisited
Chatto and Windus, London