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Countering widely accepted population control myths, this book puts out a truly progressive perspective on the history and failure of the population control movement, exposing it as a disguise for the wealthy in their genocidal Malthusian attacks on the poor. It is a revised edition of the book first published in 1987 and MIM hopes that Hartmann will update it again.
The book has three main points:
1. Population is not the root cause of poverty in the Third World, it
is a symptom;
2. Improvements in living standards and the status of wimmin are the
best ways to lower the birth rate;
3. Safe and effective birth control must be part of a health care
system that serves the people.
For MIM this book is an excellent resource in demonstrating the effects of imperialism, the relative successes of Chinese socialism, and the gender oppression of Third World people relative to imperialist men and wimmin's privilege. Hartmann is not a communist but the information in her book serves the communist movement. Hartmann's principled conclusion is "This is not to argue against economic growth per se, but for harnessing the market and organizing the workplace to serve the public good, not just the profit motive."(p. 25) She does not offer a way to get there, and that is where MIM comes in, we take the excellent information compiled by Hartmann and give it a context and proposed solutions to the problems she presents.
The two greatest strengths of this book are its explanation of the root causes of poverty, refuting the population control rhetoric, and its description of the forced population control programs around the world which subjugate the people and provide them with "services" that threaten the peoples lives and safety in the name of reducing births. In both cases we see clearly that imperialism is not in the interests of the worlds people. Hartmann explains that it is not population size that causes poverty but rather economic and social conditions, including inequitable distribution of resources, and lack of education and healthcare. We go a step further than Hartmann and identify the cause of these problems as imperialism.
Reading Hartmann's book one has to wonder at why it is not clear to the people spending billions of dollars on population control programs that this money would not be better spent providing healthcare and education to the same people being coerced into using contraceptives they do not understand, without adequate screening or follow-up care. Although Hartmann is not a communist, MIM finds this book an excellent argument for the needs of a logical communist system that serves the people, not the wealthy.
History of the population control movement
Thomas Malthus, in many ways the founder of the population control hysteria, was a British clergyman in the late 1700s who maintained that humyn population grows geometrically (2, 4, 16, 32) while production of food grows arithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4). So, he argued, humyns will be held in check by the carrying capacity of the earth. Malthus' research has been thoroughly refuted over the years, both by demonstrating that the data on which he based the conclusions was faulty, and by demonstrating that in practice people can produce much more food and other necessities than Malthus thought possible. But in spite of this, Malthusian thought remains popular today, especially in imperialist countries where it provides a disguise for eugenics and imperialist genocidal policies.
Unfortunately, many would-be progressives have been taken in by the population control hysteria, and the population control movement has become a rallying cry for environmental groups. This is in spite of clear evidence that it is those countries with the smallest populations, the imperialist countries, that have the greatest negative impact on the environment.
One book that has influenced the population control movement in the United $tates almost as much as the original writings of Malthus is Paul Erhlich's "The Population Explosion" (published by the Sierra Club in 1968) in which he compares the exponential growth of the humyn population to pond weed, warning that nature will end in unpleasant ways, such as AIDS.
Hartmann provides some useful information about the reactionary work done by groups involved in "family planning" programs including: International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Ford Foundation, Rockefeller foundation, Population Council, AID, World Bank. The U.S. Agency for International Development is the largest single funder of population control in the Third World (p. 106). It's important to understand the role of these organizations to see the central role population control plays in the imperialist strategy.
Another interesting piece of the population control history is Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood, an activist in the early 1900s held up by many as a feminist and socialist. Sanger published a newspaper, "Women Rebel" in 1914 promoting birth control and working class activism, supported by the IWW and The Socialist Party. By 1917, after facing government repression and other difficulties, Sanger had split from the radicals and was publishing "Birth Control Review" supported by professionals and eugenicists.(p. 97)
In 1921 Sanger and her new friends set up the American Birth Control League which soon began calling for "racial progress" and forced sterilization. A rallying cry that was taken to its logical conclusion by Hitler in Germany.
In 1942 the ABCL changed its name to the Planned Parenthood Federation. Planned Parenthood provided a valuable service to women in Amerika who had resources (and until the late 1960s were married), providing contraceptives and abortions. But as Hartmann points out "At the same time they shifted the focus away from women's rights, embraced eugenicist and elitist views of the poor. And adopted a limited, top-down approach to the delivery of services."(p. 101)
In the international arena, largely due to Sanger's efforts, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) was founded in 1948. Indicative of the role they were to play, one of its most influential board members was also on the board of directors of the American Eugenics Society.(p. 102)
Imperialist inequality and birth rates
Hartmann correctly understands the role of the imperialist countries in the global economy: "Despite the popular Western image of the Third World as a bottomless begging bowl, it has historically given more to the industrialized world than it has taken. Inflows of official 'aid' and private loans and investment have often been exceeded by outflows in the form of repatriated profits, interest payments, and private capital sent abroad by Third World elites."(p. 33)
As Hartmann demonstrates, historically we can see that people living in poverty and without adequate health care, education or job opportunities are likely to have far more children than the wealthy. There are a variety of logical reasons for this, among them: high child mortality means more children are needed to ensure survival, more children means more labor to work and support the family (especially in agrarian societies), and children represent social security for poor parents. Because people in the imperialist countries enjoy a high standard of living, they have already experienced a decline in population growth. But in Third World countries, lack of health care and education, and widespread poverty for the majority of the people results in a higher birth rate.
The imperialists recognize that high population growth in Third World countries is a problem: this means more people who are living in poverty, with nothing to lose and much to gain by fighting the imperialists and their puppets. Growing population among the people is likely to foment revolution. On the one hand, the capitalists want a large pool of cheap labor to exploit, but on the other hand, they need to keep this population under control. So the population control ideology is perfect for the imperialists. First because it says that the poverty of Third World people is caused by their large population, taking the blame off the imperialists who have been stealing resources and exploiting labor in those countries. And second because the solution offered by the population control movement is coerced contraceptive use, something that will not change the standard of living of the people or threaten the power of the imperialists or their puppets.
A secret national security policy adopted in 1975, composed by the CIA, AID and the Departments of State, Defense, and Agriculture (recently declassified) "supports population control as a way to stem radical dissent and protect U.S. access to strategic minerals in the Third World."(p. 111)
Hartmann argues: "The population consensus derives from the New World Order politics of obscuring differences in pursuit of a universal free trade model. The underlying logic assumes that if globalization and the free market are good, then population growth perforce has to be bad, for there is no way advanced capitalism and rampant consumerism can deliver all the goods to all the people and 'sustain' both the natural environment and the grossly inequitable distribution of wealth."(p. 131)
Malthusian eugenics
Eugenics, the practice of attempting to improve the human race by selective breeding, is popular among white chauvinists, and was one of the theories used by Hitler to justify his genocidal campaigns. Similar theories fuel many in the population control movement.
Population control advocates push contraceptive methods on Third World wimmin that are long acting and relatively out of their control. This is because of a widespread view that Third World people can not be responsible for their own healthcare, and will not use contraceptives reliably. The invention of Norplant, a contraceptive that is inserted under the skin of the arm and which lasts for five years, was heralded as an advance for this reason. But with many people uninformed of the long term effects of Norplant, and with little support for removing the capsules (which requires a painful and difficult procedure), this technology presents Third World people with more problems than solutions.
Hartmann sums up the use of hormones and Intra Uterine Devices (IUD) in
the Third World:
An overall pattern emerges from the history of hormonal contraception and the IUD: In the development of these contraceptives, the overriding goal of preventing pregnancy has led to a neglect of potential health risks. Safety studies have often proved less than rigorous, if undertaken at all. When they finally come to light, adverse effects and longterm risks such as cancer are trivialized by population agencies. Typically, women are not fully informed of health risks. In population control programs, women are not adequately screened or given follow-up care, compounding the dangers of these contraceptives. A double standard is at work that allows the pill, for examples, to be distributed freely in Third World village shops, while it is available only by prescription in the West. (p. 219)
Many population control programs offer people in the Third World incentives to accept contraceptives. For people desperately poor, the offer of food or clothing amounts to little more than coercion. In many programs further coercion is used by authorities rounding up people for the programs, threatening them with cutting off what few resources they have, or even job loss. Many of these people are not given sufficient information about the reversibility of the contraceptives, or potential side effects, and screening for health contraindications and health care follow-up is virtually non-existent. Hartmann provides numerous examples of these problems from programs world wide, sponsored by well known international agencies.
The United $tates has played a big role in forced sterilization of Third World peoples. This is not restricted to far away countries. In Puerto Rico by 1968 one third of women of childbearing age had been sterilized on the island. (See the MIM Notes review of the film La Operacion: http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mn/mn.php?issue=087). In the early 1980s half of the Puerto Rican women of reproductive age had been sterilized in Hartford, Connecticut. (p. 248) In the 1970s in most major teaching hospitals in New York City it was unwritten policy to do elective hysterectomies on Black and Puerto Rican wimmin to train residents.(p. 255)
Gender privilege and coercion
Both wimmin and men in the First World benefit greatly from contraceptive testing and dumping in the Third World. This is an example of why MIM says that First World wimmin are gender privileged overall, not gender oppressed.
Hartmann explains: "In the contraceptive research business, the Third World has long been an important laboratory for human testing. From 1980 to 1983 at least one fifth of contraceptive research and development and safety evaluation projects were located in developing countries, with India, China, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil the major locations. Not only can companies and research institutions get around Western guidelines by initiating or shifting their drug trials to the Third World, but Third World subjects are usually the prime target for the new contraceptives."(p. 183)
Many of the subjects of research in the Third World are "lost to follow-up" which means that not only do the researchers never find out about problems they had, but these men and wimmin miss out on needed follow-up care. Many wimmin end up with IUDs left inserted beyond the 5 year safety limit, among other problems. As one example: "Documented violations of medical ethics have occurred in clinical trials in India, where misinformation and inadequate informed consent procedures have even been captured on film."(p. 282) But the suffering of these wimmin means access to safe and tested contraceptives for First World wimmin.
Further, unsafe contraceptives are dumped in the Third World after being rejected in Amerika or other imperialist countries as unfit for use by their populations. For instance, Depo Provera, and Intra Uterine Devices (see chapter 11 for many examples)
Hartmann also recognizes the gender oppression of Third World men inherent in the population control movement. Men are used for testing of contraceptives in the Third World, although far less so than wimmin. This is one example of First World men and wimmin benefiting from the gender oppression of Third World men. Another example can be seen more recently in the cases of female officers in the Amerikan military sexually abusing Iraqi men in prison. In both these examples, First World wimmin are exercising gender power over Third World men.
Hartmann writes: " gender has become a way for population agencies to bypass politically sensitive issues of class, and race, and inequalities between developed and developing countries. Everyone, it seems, is for empowering poor women these days -- but not for empowering poor or marginalized men. But many poor men are also 'losers' in the development process."(p. 134) First world so-called feminist movements miss the boat on all accounts, first by putting forward population control as in the interests of Third World wimmin, and then by ignoring the gender oppression of Third World men.
Successes and failures in health and population control
Hartmann provides some good background on the Chinese history of development in the context of population control. Widely known today for their one-child policy which has led to the orphaning or killing of many girl babies, China actually saw significant decline in its birth rate under socialism, as distribution of resources and overall wealth of the people improved. After Mao died and the capitalists took power again this trend of improving health and welfare for the people reversed and with it the decline in birthrate also stopped. This led to coercive policies including the one-child policy, which has still proven far less effective than redistributing the wealth and providing healthcare and education for the people.
Before the 1949 revolution the majority of the Chinese people were suffering in miserable conditions. In 1930 rural farmers faced an infant mortality of 300 per 1,000 births. That means 30% of infants died. Their life expectancy was 24 (on average people lived only 24 years), while the birthrate at that time was over 41 births per 1,000 people per year. After the revolution the infant mortality went down to 38 per 1,000 or under 4%. At the same time the life expectancy was up to 69 years of age, and the birth rate dropped in half to 20.(p. 158)
The birth rate came down not only because of the tremendous improvements in healthcare, education, and standard of living, but also as a result of family planning programs. The campaigns included providing contraceptives with full health care support, and educating the people about the reasons behind limiting family size. This work was done at the village level, where people knew one and other and understood their conditions. In many cases men needed to be persuaded to use birth control, and the community would help the wives with this task.(See, for instance, Women and Child Care in China by Ruth Sidel)
Hartmann notes that "Today in China slogans proclaim 'It Is Glorious to Get Rich,' in marked contrast to the radical egalitarianism of the Mao era. And according to government logic, babies present a serious obstacle to economic growth."(p. 161) But still she hedges her bets and does not endorse the Maoist system: "Although in retrospect the Chinese revolution had many negative features"(p. 158)
Cuba provides another example of dramatically reduced birth rate after the revolution in 1959 which led to significantly more equitable distribution of resources and access to health care and education for the people. In spite of the relative poverty of China and Cuba, these factors are sufficient to reduce birth rate.
Other examples of quick reductions in birth rates are found in south Korea and Taiwan, two countries MIM has written extensively about as examples of beneficiaries of communist revolutions nearby frightening the imperialists into providing the people there with reforms.(See MIM Theory #4 for more detail on this subject.)
Hartmann's book does a good job of refuting the stories of population control successes. Among the most heralded by the pop control movement is the Matlab experiment. This is an area of Bangladesh where significant money was put into contraceptive distribution. The service providers realized that the lack of maternal and child health services was damaging the reputation of programs so they experimented with the minimum possible programs to introduce to make people accept contraceptives. Matlab was held up as an example of reduction of birth rate relative to the surrounding areas. But maternal mortality did not decline, and infant mortality declined very little. "How can the Bangladesh program be considered a great success, indeed an exportable model, when it was built over the dead bodies of millions of people denied access to the most rudimentary forms of health care?"(p. 240)
For MIM, China provides the best example of a solution to the problems that lead to poverty and avoidable deaths. As Hartmann repeatedly explains, it takes an equitable distribute of resources, healthcare and education to truly advance the overall health and welfare of the people. This will not be accomplished under imperialism which exists on the exploitation and oppression of the majority of the world's people. It is not profitable for the rich to redistribute the wealth. And so MIM's conclusion to this book is that it will take communist revolution to achieve truly sustainable development of humanity. Only a government with the people's interests foremost in it's mind will be able to serve the people in this way.