We can sum up the relationship between political/economic freedom and population growth as follows:

• Population growth may have either positive or negative effects on standards of living, depending on the circumstances.

• Economic freedom and resulting improvements in living conditions tend to create a cultural atmosphere favoring lower birth rates and voluntary family planning in which economic prospects are taken into account.

• Population growth of the economically unsupportable variety is characteristic, not of free-market capitalism, but of state-controlled economies (as in Europe before 1650 or the Third World today) and also of certain sectors of the modern mixed economy.

Because these trends are now well understood, today's critics of the free market usually do not claim that capitalism invites unbridled population growth. Instead, they typically base their opposition to freedom on the assertion that unhampered markets will lead to the depletion or spoliation of resources. This claim will be addressed later, when we address the issue of protecting the natural environment in a free market.     

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