"In the 1970s, Julian Simon was a little-known economist at the University of Illinois. He initially sided with Ehrlich in considering population growth an economic threat, but his research rapidly changed his mind. He challenged the environmental orthodoxy with a few articles, and then published an iconoclastic book that gained him considerable attention, The Ultimate Resource (1981). There was no resource limitation, Simon argued. Bumping against limits would increase the price of any resource in short supply, leading ingenious humans to find new supply sources or substitutes. Physical and human capital can partly substitute for natural resources. Man’s brain, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship are the ultimate resource; and this resource is infinite.
"Another way to see this is that a newborn individual is more than just another mouth to feed: he also brings his mind to help solve problems that a growing population can generate. The coming of age of a new individual means one more person with whom to exchange and, thus, the creation of new benefits from exchange."
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