This is  a review of  the fall 1973  issue of Daedalus  entitled "The
No-Growth  Society" but it is  intended for someone who  has read the
issue.

	The issue contains both pro- and anti-growth views,  but both
sides devote  minimal discussion to what  seems to me to  be the main
issue.  This is the actual resources and technological situation. Can
energy be obtained for the indefinite future at a  rate sufficient to
give the whole world several times the U.S. rate of use?  Let us take
this as a protypical issue.  The anti-growthers often presume no, but
they don't  bother to  survey the  potential sources  of energy -  at
least  in the  articles of  this issue.   The pro-growthers  - mostly
economists - almost confine  themselves to qualitative remarks  about
how increasing prices  will bring forth greater supplies.   True, but
the  problem is not really  solved unless the  enough supplies can be
obtained.  In  my own, opinion both  the breeder reactor and  central
station  solar energy  provide positive  solutions to  getting enough
energy in  the long  run -  the breeder  reactor will  provide it  at
present prices, but the price of solar  energy would be higher except
in a future  no-growth society which would permit capital costs to be
amortized over a very long time.

	There is not  even a list given  of the technological  issues
that have to be decided: what food supply (with and without synthetic
food  and  as it  depends  on whether  humans eat  synthetic  food or
whether only animals do) is available, how many  mineral elements are
really  necessary  and  which   of  them  can  be  extracted  at  the
percentages they  are present  in  the earth's  crust, what  are  the
actual possibilities of storing wastes of various kinds.  I don't see
how one  can feel confident about humanity's  future without at least
identifying these issues. My own opinion is that these are  about all
the issues and that they all pose solvable problems.

	Another  issue concerns  demand.   At  present,  there are  a
certain collection  of goodies a human can covet.  All of them that I
can think of,  have saturable demands.   The actual consumption of  a
millionaire except for that of  his retainers is quite limited.  What
this limit is - except for servants which not everyone can have -  is
an important number  to know.   My guess is that  it is two  to three
times what the average American now uses, but that in the long run it
will come to less than three times the present material flow, because
things are improved and last longer.

	In my opinion,  the eventual cause of  limitation of American
population  will be  esthetics.   The desire  not to be  crowded will
limit the population before inability to feed or house the population
will do so.   I would prefer to wait for  another doubling of the per
capita GNP and for seeing what improved birth control will do  before
proceeding to any  compulsory measures.  I  would also like to  see a
reduction in the level of social tension and paranoid politics before
this is attempted. Hopefully, this might happen before the population
doubles again. As to economic growth, I think that going beyond three
times present per capita material flow would require the invention of
new ways to improve life with goodies, but most  likely some of these
will be found.

	Finally there  is the relation between the  United States and
the rest of  the world.   I  think the  United States  is obliged  to
support  its population  from  within  its  own borders  as  soon  as
possible.    Therefore,  I support  Nixon's  original  formulation of
Project Independence which was to do this by 1980 for energy.   To do
so would  require a crash  program to  build nuclear reactors  and to
develop  oil shale.  It  should be undertaken.   Beyond living within
its own means, there is little the United States can  do to solve the
problems of  the rest  of the world  beyond supplying an  example and
some technology.  Moreover, it is harmful to the rest of the world to
pretend otherwise.  The reason is that other countries are sovereign,
and  their ruling  groups  have more  on their  mind  than economics.
India has managed to  afford language struggles, wars with  Pakistan,
and nuclear  weapons.  While  millions go  hungry, hunger is  not the
dominant  political concern.    As long  as this  is so,  foreign aid
merely allows  Indian  political energy  to  be diverted  into  other
channels.   When it finally becomes  clear that India  must solve its
own economic problems, then perhaps  parties promising to devote  all
their  energies and  sacrifice  other  concerns to  solving  economic
problems will  be able to win elections.   Thus South Vietnam did not
devote full  energy to  fighting off  the Communists  till it  became
clear that they would have to rely on their own efforts.