New Hopes for a Changing World, End of the First Period

Bertrand Russell tells us at the beginning of New Hopes for a Changing World that he intends to keep hope alive, though not by succumbing to foolish, unmoored optimism. Progress is not foreordained – but it can be achieved. Russell will recognize our constraints, indicate our predicament, and chart a path ahead.

The conflict between Man and Nature forms the subject matter for the first part of New Hopes for a Changing World. Science and technology have altered the terms of the conflict in recent centuries, but not eliminated it, nor will they do so in the future. (Industrialization not only alters the man/nature nexus, it simultaneously destabilizes inter- and intra-human conflicts.) Economic and technical progress alone cannot ensure higher living standards, given population increases and the deterioration of our environmental and natural resource capital stocks. Much of the world already is overpopulated, yet religious moralists refuse to provide access to information about contraception – they prefer to see population growth checked by higher death rates, not lower birth rates. Even though one might guess from human actions that people apparently want to leave a multitude of descendants, with access to contraception and an end to moralizing against it, population growth can be stemmed without coercion.

Russell’s alarm about population growth appears a little dated now. Population has increased much faster than Russell envisioned, and in many places, much misery did indeed accompany the growth. Nonetheless, living standards around most of the world have gone up, often substantially, even in places like India that Russell singled out as particularly overpopulated. Japan, another country whose population was a concern to Bertie, saw negative population growth during 2008-2010.

Of course, the moral and legal attack on contraception has diminished since New Hopes for a Changing World was written. Access to contraception received constitutional protection in the United States in 1965, and the AIDS crisis spurred the promotion of safer sex practices that also would lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies. (The recent upswell of anti-contraception political positions in the US has not succeeded in reversing this trend, I believe.) In the US, though Catholic leaders still adhere to an anti-contraception line, most practicing Catholics do not share those views.

In Chapter V, Russell noted Condorcet’s optimistic stance on population. This led me to look into Condorcet’s “Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind,” which bears many similarities to New Hopes for a Changing World. (Condorcet does seem to have a little more unmoored optimism than does Russell; but then, Russell was privy to Condorcet’s fate.) Need we fear that increasing mastery over nature will prove self-defeating, that the induced increase in population will eventually so press against available resources that people will die in misery? According to Condorcet,

...there would result from it [the induced increase in population] nothing alarming, either to the happiness of the human race, or its indefinite perfectibility; if we consider, that prior to this period the progress of reason will have walked hand in hand with that of the sciences; that the absurd prejudices of superstition will have ceased to infuse into morality a harshness that corrupts and degrades, instead of purifying and exalting it; that men will then know, that the duties they may be under relative to propagation will consist not in the question of giving existence to a greater number of beings, but happiness; will have for their object, the general welfare of the human species; of the society in which they live; of the family to which they are attached; and not the puerile idea of encumbering the earth with useless and wretched mortals. Accordingly, there might then be a limit to the possible mass of provision, and of consequence to the greatest possible population, without that premature destruction, so contrary to nature and to social prosperity, of a portion of the beings who may have received life, being the result of those limits.

Like Russell, Condorcet contemplates man as being in the infancy of his freedom, and supposes that maturity will bring wonders beyond what currently can be foreseen.

Nature having been handled, it’s on to Man and Man…

New Hopes for a Changing World, Chapter Five

“Population,” pages 35-49

What is special about man? Some people suggest his capacity for artistry, or science, or self-government – or war: “these include all the men in all countries who decide upon the adornment of public squares, where it is an invariable rule obeyed by all right-thinking public authorities that the most delectable object to be seen by the passers-by is a man on horseback, who is commemorated for his skill in homicide [p. 35].” But if we think about man not as special, but as another animal, we see that he typically behaves as if increasing the human population were his concern. “Most human beings at most times have behaved as if they thought that the most important thing that they could do would be to leave a multitude of descendants [p. 36].”

Malthus argued that diminishing returns in food production would imply that unchecked population growth would be accompanied by starvation. Working-class poverty, therefore, was not worth the trouble of ameliorating, reasoned the comfortable parson -- or so Russell ungenerously claims.

But what Malthus got right is worth knowing. Sparsely populated regions generally become wealthier through population gains. Nevertheless, there are diminishing returns to labour in agriculture, though the point at which they kick in depends upon the machinery and infrastructure available. (Russell conflates average and marginal returns.) In any system, with population increases, eventually output per person, and hence average living standards, will fall. The more developed science and infrastructure, the greater the population density that maximizes output per person.

Much of the world has a population that is so numerous for its capital stock and land that it is well into the region of diminishing returns. “There seems to be little doubt that the inhabitants of the Indus valley were more prosperous and generally happier three thousand years ago than they are now [pages 38-39].” Medical advances in much of the world perversely have contributed to suffering, by effecting a decline in the death rate but not in the birthrate.

Over the past 7000 years or so, the human population has gone up by more than two orders of magnitude, to approximately 2.2 billion in 1950; the global population growth rate (Russell reports) now is about 1.16 percent. [If this rate stayed constant, global population today would have been about 4.5 billion; instead, it is over 7 billion. The world population growth rate was much above 1.16 percent for most of the last 60 years, even twice that in 1960. During this period, it is only since 2010 that we have seen population growth rates as low as Russell’s 1.16 percent per year. – RBR]

Traditional moralists suggest that it is wicked to reduce the birth rate, while increasing the death rate passes muster with them. This is what follows from judging matters based on views of the next world, not on the suffering of the living world. “Those who believe that a benevolent Creator insists upon either misery in this life or eternal torment in the next are welcome to their opinion, but I do not think it is one which ought to control practical statesmanship [p. 40].” Malthus was willing to have poor people live in misery rather than descend into (what he labeled) vice, given that sufficient moral restraint was unlikely. Contraception is not vice, and given its necessity, it should not be considered to be vicious. A global government with the interests of humanity at heart would educate everyone about birth control, and punish parents whose procreation became excessive. But individual nations do not always see population checks as being in their parochial interests.

Some countries have low birth and death rates, while others have high birth and death rates. The white population of the world, Russell says, might soon level off, while countries controlled by white men (pages 41 and 44) have managed to reduce death rates, bringing population increases rivaling those that Europe achieved in the 19th Century. Japan saw a large post-war population rise, thanks in large measure to control of diseases such as smallpox. Japan’s small geographical area implies that a higher Japanese population detracts from human wellbeing. India is another country where population pressures create misery. Africa faces falling living standards and starvation if contraception does not take hold.

The high correlation between living standards and modest population growth is palpable. Officials are afraid to talk about the problems of high population growth rates because of the moral compunctions that many people have about birth control. “It is to be hoped that the men who at present hold these views will gradually modify them, as many other cruel doctrines formerly held by theologians have been modified [p. 45].”

Birth control needn’t be compelled: provide the information, and decentralized pursuit of happiness will comport with social wellbeing. Economic growth, without information about (and access to) contraception, is not sufficient for birthrates to decline, as English experience suggests.

Condorcet anticipated (and even prompted) Malthus’s views on population, but he avoided Malthus’s pessimism by advocating birth control – a solution that Malthus viewed as immoral. Alas, it was the Malthusian version that became popular.

The way of nature within the animal kingdom is Malthusian, and leads to lots of suffering as population outstrips food supply. Much of human history has been marked by similar forces and similar suffering, and the Malthusian model still applies to many human societies. “Those who urge that by means of technical advances a continually growing population can remain prosperous for an indefinite period are evidently incapable of appreciating the properties of geometrical progression [p. 47].” [But Russell himself seems to ignore – actually, he explicitly denies – the fact that population can increase continually without that increase being geometrical, and that a monotonically increasing population can nonetheless approach a finite limit.] The earth’s limited ability to sustain life eventually would rein in any continuous population growth. So the population will be controlled, either by a lower birthrate or a higher death rate. Those who oppose birth control seem to be throwing their support behind the death rate option. Why must we tolerate the suffering brought about by huge child mortality in poor countries? “Nobody would defend such a wasteful system in the production of anything other than human beings [p. 48].” Would we label as sinful a technological advance that lowered the amount of spoilage in the baking industry? Of course not – even though spoiled loaves of bread do not endure pain themselves. You cannot be tenderhearted and informed, and still support bans on contraception in overpopulated regions.

The rich parts of the world have put to rest the traditional scourges of mankind, including starvation, massive child mortality, and near-subsistence living standards. A similar plenty could exist planet-wide, through access to education and contraception, along with economic policy changes, including land reform. In fifty years, everyone could have a US-style standard of living, and peace could accompany plenty. For this to happen, the virtuous habit of a low birthrate must be allowed to spread around the globe.

New Hopes for a Changing World, Chapter Four

“The Limits of Human Power,” pages 26-34

We needn’t abase ourselves before nature, now that our scientific understanding has developed, but we shouldn’t exaggerate our power, either. Political leaders in both the east and west seem to want to believe they are gods, capable not only of understanding how to work with nature but also to overcome it; Lysenkoism is a case in point. “Such opinions, to my mind, represent a form of insane megalomania entirely alien to the scientific spirit [p. 27].” We see megalomania at work again when those who want to change the world – without bothering to understand it – think that self-assertion generates the knowledge that science cannot provide. Difficult questions about the future prospects for oil, for land, for farming and for population, are sidestepped with confident claims that oil will be protected if capitalism will be replaced, or that Providence will see to the world’s food supply.

Elements, organic material, and life, develop from simpler into more complex forms. Modern industry takes complex raw materials and simplifies them – though the nuclear fusion (and associated hydrogen bombs) that are on the horizon will be a step in the other direction. Accompanying human industry is waste and the inevitable increase in entropy. The huge industrial demands for both renewable (wood) and non-renewable (coal, oil) resources represent “a kind of rape [p. 30].” What took eons to put together is consumed as energy in a quick burst; when the inputs are gone, what then for industry and mankind? Our capital stock is being consumed. “Modern industry is, in fact, a spendthrift, and sooner or later must suffer the penalty of spendthrifts [p. 31].”

The low hanging fruit of accessible energy is being plucked – standards of living will fall as we are forced to look for the less accessible supplies. Industry will grow well beyond what currently exists, but it will eventually decline. We could forestall the problem if we found the political will to curtail the over-exploitation of the earth.

Agriculture despoils the soil, which is a tolerable cost to bear if there is lots of unused soil and a small human population, and if the soil regenerates itself quickly. But we are beyond those conditions, so we see rising food prices. The increasing difficulty of feeding the population cannot be traced to the ideological tint of any current government; rather, its roots are deep in nature. Perhaps scientific advance offers a way out, by making soil unnecessary for crops – but not yet, and the resulting food from such an advance is unlikely to taste as good.

Science might lessen our energy burden, too. Solar power, atomic energy, and the potential for nuclear fission could make energy considerably less scarce. The scientific approach to human problems is quite recent, only 200 years old. “Seeing what it has already accomplished, it would be very rash to place any limits upon what it may accomplish in the future [p. 33].”

On the other hand, scientific advance might hold a poisoned chalice, one from which we nevertheless might sip due to a shortfall of wisdom. The resulting destruction of human life (and maybe all earthly life) might one day be learned of by beings on some distant, indifferent planet, and inspire them to manage their own conflicts better. “If so, man will not have lived in vain [p. 34].”

New Hopes for a Changing World, Chapter Three

“Mastery over Physical Nature,” pages 15-25

Mankind is of recent vintage by geological standards, but our technical prowess might mean that we are nearing the end of our run. To avoid extinction, we must think at the level of our species, and not of any particular subset of our species.

Russell embarks on a pre-history of man, necessarily conjectural. Our ape ancestors, beset by population pressures, splintered into arboreal and terrestrial groups. The stone weapons of the upright walking hominids proved decisive, and these intelligent creatures spread over the earth. Their brains grew, and a million or so years ago, they became essentially what we know as human.

Early humans could not teach much to their children (or to others), but the development of language changed that: one voice could be heard both wide and far. Intelligence grew in importance, and so natural selection pushed the species in the direction of greater intelligence. But brain size and hominid intelligence leveled off some half a million years ago, it seems, to the point where if some proto-human time traveler moved 500,000 years forward to today, he or she would do fine at school.

Not that our creature wouldn’t give up some advantages when moving to the modern era. In his own time he could roam freely, rarely meet a stranger, exercise sufficiently just in the course of meeting his basic needs, and live on friendly terms within his tribe. The occasional massacres between tribes were a downside, but probably rare while the human(oid) population was low. A constant threat was the potential for hunger and even starvation.

The invention of tools that help kill animals, and the discovery of fire, were major advances. We don’t know the origin of language, but humans developed speech and other primates did not. “On the whole I am inclined to think that language has been the most important single factor in the development of man [p. 19].” Writing further enhanced the ability of language to transmit information. Agriculture and the domestication of animals were other, post-language contributors to progress. In the aftermath of the establishment of agriculture, only industrialization serves as a rival in terms of promoting human welfare – and industrialization followed a few thousand years of little advance in the quality of civilization, even as the extent of civilization spread in geographical terms.

Machines and applied science began to make their revolutionary marks at the end of the eighteenth century. The direct impact of industrialization is on the man v. nature conflict, but it also necessitates a still-forthcoming alteration in man v. man and man v. himself. The fact that a new equilibrium has not been established in these two other conflicts is “the main cause of the present troubles of the world [p. 21].”

Gains in agricultural productivity traditionally result in population increases, and not in higher average consumption. Nonetheless, output beyond subsistence is what made possible attention to politics and war, science and art; this surplus maintains kings and philosophers, artists and musicians. In the modern US, not only are living standards high, but a very large segment of the population produces no tangible output, either agricultural or industrial.

In rich societies, the despotism of nature has been overcome, so people should be free to follow many different pursuits. The choices are not totally unconstrained, however, and we find that rich nations devote large quantities of their surplus to military production. So increasing surpluses do not automatically translate into higher human welfare. Given the current political situation, a technological advance that permits huge strides in production will reduce human welfare, as more resources will be diverted to military output: “our new mastery of nature brings new responsibilities and new duties [p. 24].”

While humans still have limits, the constraints imposed by nature have been slackened considerably. “It will not be long before it becomes possible to travel to the moon [p. 24].” Science allows us to tame nature, but by itself cannot resolve the conflicts among men, and within each individual.

New Hopes for a Changing World, Chapter Two

“Three Kinds of Conflict,” pages 12-14

The three section titles of New Hopes for a Changing World, it turns out, also serve to delineate the three kinds of conflict: man and nature; man and man; and, man and himself. The arenas and weapons associated with these conflicts vary among the conflicts and over time; for instance, the inner conflict used to be addressed primarily with religion, though some now believe (Russell does not fully agree) that advances in psychology can transfer personal turmoil from the religious to the scientific realm.

Not losing the struggle against nature is a prerequisite to engaging in the other conflicts. Social relations grow in importance as mastery over nature builds: first, improved mastery itself requires inputs from many people, and second, the resources released by the diminishing threat from nature can be redirected towards engaging in conflict with other people.

As technology develops, eventually the perceived payoff to a social group will be greater by cooperating with others than by attempting to kill them. “When this stage is reached what may be called the demands of technique require a cessation, or at least mitigation, of the conflicts of man with man [p. 13].” The next conflict that needs to be resolved then will be – as it is now – the internal conflict. This conflict traditionally expresses itself by one part of a psyche labeling another part sinful, and seeking (but failing) to extirpate it. The internal dissension starts as a reflection of the constant external war, but when external war diminishes, the atavistic internal conflict stokes external conflict: enemies are deemed to be wholly sinful. War with others cloaks the real, internal war. Resolving the inner war becomes necessary for external peace.

The resolution of each of these wars is harmonious co-existence. For wars among men, the harmony will take the form of a world government. But even this institution will not prove stable without inner peace. “This, in a nutshell, is the history of man – past, present, and (I hope) future [p. 14].” This brief chapter ends with the promise that the remainder of the book intends to fill in the details of this broad-stroke illustration of the development of human history.

New Hopes for a Changing World, Chapter One

“Current Perplexities,” pages 3-11

We see that we are drifting into a calamitous nuclear war. “But although our reason tells us we ought to shudder at such a prospect, there is another part of us that enjoys it, and so we have no firm will to avert misfortune, and there is a deep division in our souls between the sane and the insane parts [p. 3].” Many people become risk seekers, or consume rather than invest, on the grounds that the shadow of war suggests a brief lifespan. The misery of such an uncertain existence feeds upon itself, by changing attitudes towards the rivals who are thought to be the cause of the uncertainty; the worsened relations help to stoke the possibility of war, rationalizing the pessimism.

The issues facing us are complex, and will not be solved by the outdated, simple-minded strategies of conquest favored by MacArthur and Stalin. But that doesn’t mean that uncertainty and despair are the fates of the intelligent observer. This book intends to offer an achievable path of hope, one that can be taken with confidence.

Westerners looked at the East with a good-natured curiosity and approbation, until the Japanese developed into rivals. The Japanese subsequently were defeated, but their militaristic challenge to the West has spread to other parts of Asia. Westerners now recognize that the economic development of Asia is necessary to restrain Soviet influence. Development is complex, because Asia still dwells in the Malthusian trap, where improvements in living standards are countered by increased populations.

The undesirable elements of the Western life and outlook are easily transferred. “But what is best in the West – the spirit of free inquiry, the understanding of the conditions of general prosperity, and emancipation from superstition – these things powerful forces in the West prevent the East from acquiring [p. 7].” Russia, under its current system of government, will stoke the negative, militaristic features of a rising Asia.

Africa’s economic development also is constrained by population pressures – and as with Asia, birth control policies are necessary. Africans naturally attribute their plight to colonial exploitation, though that general charge is no longer sustainable. The end of colonial administration before a functional domestic civil service is brought into existence will be a setback, as Haiti demonstrates. Civilization is not inherently stable against other forces.

Freedom is a new condition for the Western mind, and its manifold benefits are accompanied, due to its novelty, with uneasiness. When the spirit is oppressed, the dogmas of Rome or of Moscow beckon, but they must be resisted in favor of the uncertainty that freedom foments and requires. “The free man, full grown, shall be full of joy and vigor and mental health, but in the meantime he suffers [p. 8].”

Private as well as public life needs new virtues, and the disposal of some old supposed virtues. The traditional notion of sin, a negative and judgmental doctrine, has already been supplanted in most people’s allegiance, even if they have not explicitly developed a full-fledged alternative philosophy.

Russell offers the outline of such an alternative philosophy, one that reflects his established views towards happiness. First, the concept of sin must be rejected entirely, and not just at surface levels; otherwise, feelings of guilt will continually arise, and undermine contentment. But it is in being happy that we will be led to be good, as happy people are curious, happy people avoid envy and intoxication. “What I should put in the place of an ethic in the old sense is encouragement and opportunity for all the impulses that are creative and expansive [p. 11].” We must understand that our own happiness requires the happiness of others, that we must live in harmony. If people were really to feel this truth, both personal and political problems would evaporate. By letting out our inner demons, we can be subsumed by the world’s beauty.

Next Up: New Hopes for a Changing World

The Plan Must Be Obeyed. So, Reading Bertrand Russell turns to New Hopes for a Changing World. My copy is a black hardback published by Simon and Schuster. I do not recall how I came about my copy, but I am honored to see that it apparently was originally(?) the property of the distinguished scholar Milton B. Singer.

The only date I can find in the text is in the copyright information section; that date is 1951, but perhaps the reference is to the British edition published in 1951 by George Allen & Unwin, with this US edition printed the following year. New Hopes for a Changing World is 213 pages long, followed by a page containing a one-paragraph “About the Author” section. This “About the Author” addendum pretty clearly served as the basis for the five-years-later “About the Author” paragraph that closes Portraits From Memory. There is no index in New Hopes for a Changing World, but an index compiled later is available online (18-page pdf here); the introductory material to this index is what makes me believe that the Simon and Schuster edition was published in 1952, not 1951. This supplemental, helpful index, like that for Portraits From Memory, was prepared by Roma Hutchinson.

New Hopes for a Changing World contains 21 chapters, divided into three parts: Part One, “Man and Nature”; Part Two, “Man and Man”; and Part Three, “Man and Himself.” Here are the chapter titles and divisions into parts:

Part One, “Man and Nature”
Chapter I. Current Perplexities
Chapter II. Three Kinds of Conflict
Chapter III. Mastery over Physical Nature
Chapter IV. The Limits of Human Power
Chapter V. Population

Part Two: Man and Man
Chapter VI. Social Units
Chapter VII. The Size of Social Units
Chapter VIII. The Rule of Force
Chapter IX. Law
Chapter X. Conflicts of Manners of Life
Chapter XI. World Government
Chapter XII. Racial Antagonism
Chapter XIII. Creeds and Ideologies
Chapter XIV. Economic Co-operation and Competition
Chapter XV. The Next Half-Century

Part Three: Man and Himself
Chapter XVI. Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete
Chapter XVII. Fear
Chapter XVIII. Fortitude
Chapter XIX. Life Without Fear
Chapter XX. The Happy Man
Chapter XXI. The Happy World

Onwards, then. As Stalin did not say, there are no fortresses, and almost no Russell texts, that Reading Bertrand Russell cannot storm.