The Ultimate Resource 2
By Julian Simon
About the Book
Arguing that the ultimate resource is the human imagination coupled to the human spirit, Julian Simon has led a vigorous challenge to conventional beliefs about scarcity of energy and natural resources, pollution of the environment, the effects of immigration, and the "perils of overpopulation." The comprehensive data, careful quantitative research, and economic logic contained in the first edition of The Ultimate Resource rebutted widely held professional judgments about the threat of overpopulation.
Later, Simon's celebrated winning bet with Paul Ehrlich about resource prices in the 1980s enhanced the public attention -- both pro and con -- that greeted this controversial book.
Now Princeton University Press presents a revised and expanded edition of The Ultimate Resource. The new volume is thoroughly updated end provides a concise theory for the observed counter-Malthusian outcome: Population growth and increased income put pressure on supplies of resources. This increases prices, which provides opportunity and incentive for innovation. Eventually the innovative responses are so successful that prices end up below what they were before the shortages occurred.
The book also tackles timely issues such as the supposed rate of species extinction and the wastefulness of coercive recycling.
In Simon's view, the key factor in natural and world economic growth is our capacity for the creation of new ideas and contributions to knowledge. The more people alive who can be trained to help solve the problems that confront us, the faster we can remove obstacles, and the greater the economic inheritance we shall bequeath to our descendants. In conjunction with the size of the educated population, the key constraint on human progress is the nature of the economic-political system: Talented people need economic freedom and security to bring their talents to fruition.
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About the Author
Julian Simon was an economist and senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
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What Others Have Said
"I have never before written a fan letter to a professional colleague, but to discover that you have... provided the empirical evidence for what with me is the result of a lifetime of theoretical speculation, is too exciting an experience not to share it with you."
--F.A. Hayek, Nobel Prize Winner
"The Ultimate Resource is the most powerful challenge to be mounted against the principles of popular environmentalism in the last 15 years... What is most startling is its deep-rooted optimism about the human condition -- a position that has not been seriously entertained in American thought for almost 20 years. Whether its principles are widely accepted or not, The Ultimate Resource is a landmark book. It is going to have a significant influence on the intellectual currents of the 1980s."
--William G. Tucker, Washington Post Book World
"The case is complex, detailed, and not easy to summarize, but one by one Simon demolishes the common assumptions of the population controllers."
--Samuel McCracken, Commentary
"The Ultimate Resource is immense fun to read, not only for the lucidity of its economics but its gleeful demolition of the numerous authority figures who've been telling Americans for years that they're on the road to perdition."
--Daniel Seligman, Fortune
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