The Computer that Printed Out W*O*L*F*
"The Limits to Growth" is a brief, forceful, easily read polemic which has already generated many times its own weight in enthusiastic encomia and equally strong condemnations.[i] It advances a familiar, indeed fashionable, thesis. The goals and institutions of our present world society stimulate population growth and production increase at a rate that cannot be sustained. Further, and perhaps less familiarly, we are now about a generation from the point of no return, after which the world must suffer a catastrophic drop in numbers and wealth, no matter what is then done to restrain further growth. The argument is presented with a sufficient panoply of graphs, flow diagrams, references to the World Model and the new discipline of System Dynamics, and invocations of the computer to produce an aura of scientific authority for the conclusions. They have the additional weight of the endorsement of a prestigious private international group of respected businessmen, officials and academics, The Club of Rome, in a commentary appended to the study and signed by its executive committee. It is my contention that the authors' analysis is gravely deficient and many of their strongest and most striking conclusions unwarranted. None the less, it draws attention to a number of difficult and important problems which must be faced, including the question of whether its whole approach is helpful or harmful in dealing with these real problems.
"The Limits to Growth" is a brief, forceful, easily read polemic which has already generated many times its own weight in enthusiastic encomia and equally strong condemnations.[i] It advances a familiar, indeed fashionable, thesis. The goals and institutions of our present world society stimulate population growth and production increase at a rate that cannot be sustained. Further, and perhaps less familiarly, we are now about a generation from the point of no return, after which the world must suffer a catastrophic drop in numbers and wealth, no matter what is then done to restrain further growth. The argument is presented with a sufficient panoply of graphs, flow diagrams, references to the World Model and the new discipline of System Dynamics, and invocations of the computer to produce an aura of scientific authority for the conclusions. They have the additional weight of the endorsement of a prestigious private international group of respected businessmen, officials and academics, The Club of Rome, in a commentary appended to the study and signed by its executive committee. It is my contention that the authors' analysis is gravely deficient and many of their strongest and most striking conclusions unwarranted. None the less, it draws attention to a number of difficult and important problems which must be faced, including the question of whether its whole approach is helpful or harmful in dealing with these real problems.
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Life on this planet is a fragile affair, a kind of miraculous microbial activity that flourishes on the thin film of air and water and decomposed rock which separates the uninhabitable core of the earth from the void of space. Over most of mankind's history, the existence of that environment has always been taken for granted, and human efforts have been devoted to "taming" it-that is, to altering that vital film in various ways to assure our easier survival. Now, with stunning suddenness we have come to the realization that the environment is not to be taken for granted after all- indeed that it may be on the verge of an irremediable deterioration. For if the calculations of a group of social and physical scientists are correct, it will take only another 50 years of population growth and economic expansion at present rates to cause a collapse of our life-supporting ambient, bringing mass famine in some areas, industrial breakdown in others, a drastic shortening of lifespans nearly everywhere.
The search for affluence is the pursuit of our time. Increasingly, however, we are uncertain where this search will lead, both for the industrial countries and for the developing countries. How may affluence, in concert with other factors, work to reshape the world over the next 30 years, and how will this changed world look from an international point of view? Many factors in addition to increasing wealth will be at work. We cannot be sure what these are and how they are working, much less what role affluence itself will play in the process.
All have heard about the virtual corporation. What the world is witnessing now is the rise of the virtual state. After World War II, led by Japan and Germany, the most advanced nations gave up territorial conquest to compete instead for world trade. As more corporations farm out production and land becomes less valuable than technology, knowledge, and portfolio investment, the state will further shift its efforts from amassing productive capacity to choosing industries and investing in people. War over territory is becoming quaint, but so is the welfare state.

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