i dont agree. its supply and demand. if an american has the disposable income to be able to purchase alot then that might well be down to that they actually can. whereas an citizen in india (who i shall call indians for the purposes of this) can not afford it. they have large families to feed and do not have the buying power to cosume 'luxury' items. when i say consume i mean purchase for those that are not up on the jargon. the price of petrol will continue to rise becasue the demand is there. if the demand wasnt there the price would fall. an american might well need 12 hectares on average but that would be based on the size of land divided up by the quantity of people whereas in places like india which have approx 500 million more citizens and only a third of the land mass of america this would indicate that india is over populated and with over population comes 'foerign debt' which we pay for as tax payers. it would be silly to disagree with the statement growth and consumption buts its the type of consumption that develops growth. if people can barely afford to live i.e indians, then how can they grow as an economy if they can not afford to develop. the GDP per capita is used in an economy and indicates standards of living which is low in lesser developed countries but high in developed. but then looking at china, which is one of the best econmies at present they have capped their population and been able to develop effectively because people have the disposable income which is required for an economy to grow. so i dont think its about consuming less because the economy would not grow however sustainably i agree with. but in order to live sustainably citizens must be able to live and have disposable incomes which alot of over populated countries do not have thus affecting growth. If, for example india, did cap there population like china then this would be a cumulative change in the sense that people can afford to live better lives and the change in GDP per capita would lead to change in different areas of the economy. not only would the population cap increase GDP Per capita it would also decrease the infant mortality rates and provided better health services and socio-economic benefits, such as reduced unemployment rates, aswell. so i say send johnnies not nets.
the anology with the pie is quite bad because if the demand for pie is there the supply will be there. if people can not afford to buy the pie then this would have more of an adverse affect on the economy than if only one person got the pie because the supply is there but the demand is not.
for those of you reading this that are unaware of chinas population cap scheme, its not about the government saying you cant have kids its about them saying we will support you better if you have one child and not 2-7 etc.
