“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 90
“In the multitude of people is the king’s honour: but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince” (Prov. 14:28).
One of the great bugbears of this last generation has been that of “overpopulation.” If some alarmists were to be believed, just a few more babies and we would all start falling off the planet, like so many peas on an over-laden plate. This false and dangerous assumption has been drilled into us in numerous ways, and we are just now starting to realize the economic costs of it. The alarmism has not just been wrong; it has been dangerous. Consider the proverb. Through a lack of population the prince is ruined.
Where does this pertain to business? We are taught (by the prevailing assumptions) to see ourselves as consumers. And in a world of limited resources, what will this inexorable consumption eventually do? Well, obviously, at some point we will all “RUN OUT! AHHHH!” Or so the argument goes. But this overlooks the fact that every individual is not only a potential consumer of goods, but is also a potential producer of goods. And when we have the right work ethic, grounded in a right relationship to the right God, we will produce far more than we consume. We are born into the world, after all, with only one mouth, and two hands.