Coercive plans to limit population need not be cruel or Malthusian. Consider this one:

Each woman in the world would have, by right, two child-birth licenses. One of them she could sell, at the prevailing market rate, if she wished (a kind of ‘cap and trade’); or she could choose to give birth. The second license would be for her use alone, and could not be sold or given away. If a child dies in childhood, an additional license would be granted to the mother. If a woman declines to have a child or any children at all, that would be her sole decision.

This plan would improve the wealth and power of women everywhere in the world, especially in poor countries. And each woman would still have the right to bear one child; two, if she chooses.

World population would decrease slowly and steadily to some agreed sustainable level; then the policy could be liberalized.

BUT … even if we agree that this is a workable and humane plan, who would initiate it? Who would administer it? How could it be enforced? How would cheaters be detected? punished?

This population plan, like all the others that have been proposed, no matter how attractive in theory, are doomed to failure without strong government action, agreed and implemented world-wide. We are wired, by God or evolution (probably both), to breed.

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