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Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudo-Scientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism
There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for—indeed, worth liberating. But now we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a species whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of antihumanism.
Merchants of Despair traces the pedigree of this ideology and exposes its deadly consequences in startling and horrifying detail. The book names the chief prophets and promoters of antihumanism over the last two centuries, from Thomas Malthus through Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore. It exposes the worst crimes perpetrated by the antihumanist movement, including eugenics campaigns in the United States and genocidal anti-development and population-control programs around the world.
Combining riveting tales from history with powerful policy arguments, Merchants of Despair provides scientific refutations to antihumanism’s major pseudo-scientific claims, including its modern tirades against nuclear power, pesticides, population growth, biotech foods, resource depletion, industrial development, and, most recently, fear-mongering about global warming. Merchants of Despair exposes this dangerous agenda and makes the definitive scientific and moral case against it.
Merchants of Despair traces the pedigree of this ideology and exposes its deadly consequences in startling and horrifying detail. The book names the chief prophets and promoters of antihumanism over the last two centuries, from Thomas Malthus through Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore. It exposes the worst crimes perpetrated by the antihumanist movement, including eugenics campaigns in the United States and genocidal anti-development and population-control programs around the world.
Combining riveting tales from history with powerful policy arguments, Merchants of Despair provides scientific refutations to antihumanism’s major pseudo-scientific claims, including its modern tirades against nuclear power, pesticides, population growth, biotech foods, resource depletion, industrial development, and, most recently, fear-mongering about global warming. Merchants of Despair exposes this dangerous agenda and makes the definitive scientific and moral case against it.
328 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2011
32 people are currently reading
571 people want to read
About the author
Robert Zubrin
41 books164 followersRobert M. Zubrin is an American aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of human exploration of Mars. He and his colleague at Martin Marietta, David Baker, were the driving force behind Mars Direct, a proposal in a 1990 research paper intended to produce significant reductions in the cost and complexity of such a mission.
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May 5, 2012
"Merchants of Despair" is sure to insult, anger, or disgust a large number of people (myself included) who consider themselves champions of human activity that minimizes harm to life – and humanity itself - by limiting growth in both numbers and maximum personal power.
Author Robert Zubrin, who I personally got to know as an activist promoting the settlement of space beginning with Mars (before I became convinced that limits were necessary), believes in the enabling of unfettered creativity, whose results, multiplied by more people exercising that creativity, are on balance extremely beneficial to humanity. Conversely, to limit the size of the population is to be responsible for the effective murder of the unborn; and to restrict innovation (expressed as technology) out of concern for negative consequences is to immorally deprive people of quality of life, beginning with subsistence for much of the world's poor.
Zubrin paints an elaborate history beginning with the ideas of Thomas Malthus and extending into today's environmental movement, full of people who have used unjustified, often self-serving beliefs to devalue, abuse, and kill large numbers of people. Some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity, such as intentional mass starvation and genocide have been justified on the grounds of creating a limited population compromised of the most "fit" people. Today's enforced population control, including by economic means, is but the latest example of such horrors perpetrated by believers in limited resources who are at the highest levels of government. Other evils described by Zubrin are restrictions of technologies such as pesticides (such as DDT, that mostly benefit the poor), nuclear power (which is inherently safe, and in its fusion form could one day enable conversion of matter into virtually anything we want), and genetically modified organisms (which could solve the world's food problems and make other species healthier as well). Global warming is portrayed as a potentially good thing, which has been mischaracterized as a threat by those who hate (most of) humanity so we will limit carbon-based energy, thus driving up prices of everything, enriching a few and depriving the rest of use of the tool that's most responsible for our species' survival and dominance over nature.
Before I looked into these issues myself, and discovered a large number of good, smart people who care about helping everyone becoming self-sufficient in a healthy way, I would probably have had a positive response to reading "Merchants of Despair." I still share Zubrin's belief that people should not be coerced into doing what one group of people believes is "right," that all people have equal intrinsic value, and that rational discovery and study of the underlying relationships in the Universe, as embodied by science, is the most reliable way to establish a baseline of knowledge for maximizing both our survivability and personal satisfaction with life ("happiness"). Where we primarily differ is that I'm convinced that the stabilizing parts of the biosphere can't be counted on to offset the forces our species – through technology and amplified by population – have exerted on it. We're headed toward a very dangerous place, and we need to acknowledge our responsibility for it so we can do whatever we can to avoid the worst, even if it means radically changing the way we live our lives by limiting the things that are pushing us there.
Author Robert Zubrin, who I personally got to know as an activist promoting the settlement of space beginning with Mars (before I became convinced that limits were necessary), believes in the enabling of unfettered creativity, whose results, multiplied by more people exercising that creativity, are on balance extremely beneficial to humanity. Conversely, to limit the size of the population is to be responsible for the effective murder of the unborn; and to restrict innovation (expressed as technology) out of concern for negative consequences is to immorally deprive people of quality of life, beginning with subsistence for much of the world's poor.
Zubrin paints an elaborate history beginning with the ideas of Thomas Malthus and extending into today's environmental movement, full of people who have used unjustified, often self-serving beliefs to devalue, abuse, and kill large numbers of people. Some of the most horrendous crimes against humanity, such as intentional mass starvation and genocide have been justified on the grounds of creating a limited population compromised of the most "fit" people. Today's enforced population control, including by economic means, is but the latest example of such horrors perpetrated by believers in limited resources who are at the highest levels of government. Other evils described by Zubrin are restrictions of technologies such as pesticides (such as DDT, that mostly benefit the poor), nuclear power (which is inherently safe, and in its fusion form could one day enable conversion of matter into virtually anything we want), and genetically modified organisms (which could solve the world's food problems and make other species healthier as well). Global warming is portrayed as a potentially good thing, which has been mischaracterized as a threat by those who hate (most of) humanity so we will limit carbon-based energy, thus driving up prices of everything, enriching a few and depriving the rest of use of the tool that's most responsible for our species' survival and dominance over nature.
Before I looked into these issues myself, and discovered a large number of good, smart people who care about helping everyone becoming self-sufficient in a healthy way, I would probably have had a positive response to reading "Merchants of Despair." I still share Zubrin's belief that people should not be coerced into doing what one group of people believes is "right," that all people have equal intrinsic value, and that rational discovery and study of the underlying relationships in the Universe, as embodied by science, is the most reliable way to establish a baseline of knowledge for maximizing both our survivability and personal satisfaction with life ("happiness"). Where we primarily differ is that I'm convinced that the stabilizing parts of the biosphere can't be counted on to offset the forces our species – through technology and amplified by population – have exerted on it. We're headed toward a very dangerous place, and we need to acknowledge our responsibility for it so we can do whatever we can to avoid the worst, even if it means radically changing the way we live our lives by limiting the things that are pushing us there.
July 18, 2013
Dr. Zubrin gives us, in no uncertain terms, an expose of the antihumanist movement and the damage it continues to cause on a global scale. Much of the cynicism and lack of will to promote human achievement that is present in our world today stems from this ideology in whole or in part, made particularly bad now through its infection of the pop culture.
Everywhere one looks we see dystopian books and films presenting a bleak outlook for humanity. One needs Prozac to read half of what comes from science fiction writers these days. And, if we are depicted to have managed to make it out of the solar system, we're the bad guys oppressing some kind of blue alien to steal their resources and ruin their paradise. What comes around, goes around. That attitude now holds us back due its widespread presence in people's minds. Too many people are ashamed of our species, or even hate it. We now have a world that's beginning to flirt with eugenic concepts again. We're not practicing meaningful expansion into space at the rate we once did. We're talking about overpopulation and how it damages the planet, despite the fact that we possess, in so far as we know, the most astounding thing in the universe: a conscious brain that can fix problems even on a planetary scale.
This is a book for anyone that wants to be positive about humankind, but needs to be drawn away from the prevailing attitudes that we are something like an evil virus. It's a book for anyone that wants to question prevailing attitudes and ideas. It's a book for anyone that wants a rock-solid indictment of anti-humanism and the damage it does. It's a book for anyone who wants the ammo needed to think for themselves.
Everywhere one looks we see dystopian books and films presenting a bleak outlook for humanity. One needs Prozac to read half of what comes from science fiction writers these days. And, if we are depicted to have managed to make it out of the solar system, we're the bad guys oppressing some kind of blue alien to steal their resources and ruin their paradise. What comes around, goes around. That attitude now holds us back due its widespread presence in people's minds. Too many people are ashamed of our species, or even hate it. We now have a world that's beginning to flirt with eugenic concepts again. We're not practicing meaningful expansion into space at the rate we once did. We're talking about overpopulation and how it damages the planet, despite the fact that we possess, in so far as we know, the most astounding thing in the universe: a conscious brain that can fix problems even on a planetary scale.
This is a book for anyone that wants to be positive about humankind, but needs to be drawn away from the prevailing attitudes that we are something like an evil virus. It's a book for anyone that wants to question prevailing attitudes and ideas. It's a book for anyone that wants a rock-solid indictment of anti-humanism and the damage it does. It's a book for anyone who wants the ammo needed to think for themselves.
July 3, 2012
First thing I'd like to say is that Zubrin is one of my favorite authors. IMO, The Case for Mars and Entering Space are two of the greatest space advocacy books ever written. Second, I agree with the basic premise of this book, that we are not at all like yeast in a bottle,and that as our population increases, our quality of life improves and we use resources more efficiently. I think the human species is pretty awesome, and hate hearing it described as a cancer on the planet.
So I was very excited about this book, and I could not have possibly been more disappointed. It was inflammatory, misinformed, cherry-picked, and blatantly false at points. It was like watching Fox News! He uses the words Darwinism and eugenics as synonyms, and implies a connection between Charles Darwin and the Holocaust. One is science, and the other is a social movement created by non-scientists using sciencey word to legitimize themselves. Also, he made some very questionable statements, and when I checked his sources, I found he was citing popular sources instead of academic. That did it! I think I made it to chapter 8.
I will still be snatching up any space book he writes, and I hope he starts writing them again. On any other topic though, I don't feel I can trust him to be rational or reasonable.
So I was very excited about this book, and I could not have possibly been more disappointed. It was inflammatory, misinformed, cherry-picked, and blatantly false at points. It was like watching Fox News! He uses the words Darwinism and eugenics as synonyms, and implies a connection between Charles Darwin and the Holocaust. One is science, and the other is a social movement created by non-scientists using sciencey word to legitimize themselves. Also, he made some very questionable statements, and when I checked his sources, I found he was citing popular sources instead of academic. That did it! I think I made it to chapter 8.
I will still be snatching up any space book he writes, and I hope he starts writing them again. On any other topic though, I don't feel I can trust him to be rational or reasonable.
August 6, 2016
This book is about people who hate people. Enough so that they want to get rid of a lot of them, including those who are "different" and those who are "inferior." The founding "prophet of modern antihumanism" was Thomas Malthus who lived 200 years ago. He argued that human reproduction always outruns available resources. As a result, millions of people were starved during British rule in India, and also the potato famine in Ireland because of high taxes, even though the Irish grain exports could have easily fed them. Charles Darwin (yes, that Charles Darwin) drank the same Kool Aid. He purported to show that some ethnic groups were inferior to others and should be eliminated. This led to the birth of eugenics. Many of today's progressives, including Al Gore and Paul Ehrlich, feel the same way. They have predicted several times that worldwide famine will decimate the human race (if we don't get rid of a lot of people first). Their predictions haven't come true--technology has increased the food supply faster than the birth rate--but still they persist. American tax dollars in the form of the US Agency for International Development, are used for forced sterilization and late-term abortions for people in places like Africa. The Chinese one-child policy has resulted in the same atrocities. DDT was banned, resulting in millions of deaths by malaria in Africa.The genocide practiced by Hitler was applauded in many parts of the world. Starvation is a key component of the policy of the haters. Genetically modified food products such as golden rice are banned, even though they are superior in nutrition and prevent problems like blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. And yet everything you eat, except wild animals and some fish, has already been genetically modified for thousands of years. The global warming crowd hates nuclear power, even though it doesn't pollute. Why? Because it would improve human existence and lead to more children being born. Rich countries are rapidly overcoming pollution, so the obvious thing to do is to help make poor countries richer. But that's not how the haters think. They want a Precautionary Principle in force, which means no innovation can be permitted that cannot be proven in advance to be completely harmless. At the least this is unscientific, since nothing can be proven to be harmless--at most it is tyrannical, because if implemented to its full extent it would take away all human freedom. My novel, "Good to the Last Death," tackles the haters in a fictional format.
August 23, 2012
This is a very important book.
It makes a very good companion to Peter Diamandis's Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Where Abundance examines the incredible progress of humanity and shows us we can expect even greater things in the future, Merchants of Despair shows us the dark side of our past when we have let ourselves be led astray by doomsayers such a Malthus, Ehlrich and Holdren.
Zubrin chronicles the suffering imposed on humanity by the Malthusians and convincingly argues the falsehood of the Malthusian viewpoint, these arguments and backed by meticulous research & a plethora references.
Highly recommended.
It makes a very good companion to Peter Diamandis's Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Where Abundance examines the incredible progress of humanity and shows us we can expect even greater things in the future, Merchants of Despair shows us the dark side of our past when we have let ourselves be led astray by doomsayers such a Malthus, Ehlrich and Holdren.
Zubrin chronicles the suffering imposed on humanity by the Malthusians and convincingly argues the falsehood of the Malthusian viewpoint, these arguments and backed by meticulous research & a plethora references.
Highly recommended.
May 19, 2021
Sometimes in the comment section of any news story about someone dying there is someone commenting "oh well, we're too many anyway" or if it's news about a birth "stop it already, we're too many". I am always confused by how much some people hate themselves, I see no other explanation. But these are anonymous commentators. What if they had a lot of money and power on their hands?
This book answers that. Now I get it - it's a book written by someone with an agenda to combat others with an agenda. But it did educate me a lot. Had no idea aid was kept away from people by "civilized countries" unless they underwent sterilization. Stop breeding or die. And awards were given, as long as poor people who looked different stopped having children. I knew a bit about the stupidity of the campaign against DDT and nuclear energy, but this book puts it nicely together. I like that it brings solutions, unlike many of those who complain, who mostly just.. complain.
Now there are issues too. The author oversimplifies things. No, OPEC does not rise prices because they hate people. No, Sweden does not support birth control abroad because they're all a bunch of Nazis (in fact everyone seems to be a Nazi for the author), no, Americas did not grow happy happy joy joy due to the ability to exchange knowledge with other continents (the author completely skips how those initial exchanges actually decimated the locals, who were seen as inferior, but OK).
Nevertheless, there is plenty to learn. i prefer though the work of Hans Rosling, or the book Inheritors of the Earth, I think they offer a more balanced perspective.
PS: F*ck Malthus!
This book answers that. Now I get it - it's a book written by someone with an agenda to combat others with an agenda. But it did educate me a lot. Had no idea aid was kept away from people by "civilized countries" unless they underwent sterilization. Stop breeding or die. And awards were given, as long as poor people who looked different stopped having children. I knew a bit about the stupidity of the campaign against DDT and nuclear energy, but this book puts it nicely together. I like that it brings solutions, unlike many of those who complain, who mostly just.. complain.
Now there are issues too. The author oversimplifies things. No, OPEC does not rise prices because they hate people. No, Sweden does not support birth control abroad because they're all a bunch of Nazis (in fact everyone seems to be a Nazi for the author), no, Americas did not grow happy happy joy joy due to the ability to exchange knowledge with other continents (the author completely skips how those initial exchanges actually decimated the locals, who were seen as inferior, but OK).
Nevertheless, there is plenty to learn. i prefer though the work of Hans Rosling, or the book Inheritors of the Earth, I think they offer a more balanced perspective.
PS: F*ck Malthus!
June 11, 2014
I wanted to expose myself to some bracing contrarianism against the scientific consensus about climate change and pessimistic futurism, but I have to say I just couldn't get into this book, even to engage with a good debate. The author's positions seem to be based more on his animus against progressivism than on an even-handed consideration of the evidence, and his line of argument is tendentious and reactionary. After a couple of chapters, I concluded I had better uses for my time. Sorry I flaked out on it - maybe it would've gotten a lot better if I'd given it more of a chance - but there you go.
February 16, 2013
Excellent book; together with The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley and Abundance by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, this book serves as a corrective to the pessimism so prevalent in the thinking of so many. The world is not getting worse and worse; it is getting better, and could be even more wonderful in the future.
This is a book that everyone should read.
This is a book that everyone should read.
May 28, 2019
Zubrin is a self-serving maniacal engineer whose articles in the New Atlantis (see The Population Holocaust and The Truth about DDT and The Silent Spring) have been completely ignored by scientists and historians for good reason: Zubrin's penchant for manipulating facts and distorting the truth to serve his self interests. The Merchants of Despair is published by the New Atlantis, a journal of Technology and Society.Let's look at some examples of his misrepresentations in his journal articles which The New Atlantis adapted from the book for the journal.
In the Truth about DDT Zubrin presents a table of Audubon bird counts to demonstrate his thesis that DDT did not have a negative effect on bird populations. He uses counts per observer for the years 1941 and 1960 to bracket the decades of DDT use. The example would have fit nicely into Huff's book How to Lie with Statistics. Zubrin averages the counts per observer for the two years and forms the ratio of 1960 to 1941. The average ratio is positive, therefore the conclusion is that DDT did not have an adverse affect on bird populations. Since the ratio is nearly 4 should we make the claim that DDT is actually beneficial to bird populations? This misuse of data is so comical that it is pains me to spend time refuting the claim. First a competent population analysis would never include just two years. Instead data from all the years 1941-1960 would be used to examine the population trend. By 1940 the Bald Eagle population was near extinction, mostly due to the human slaughter of shorebirds, waterfowl, and other eagle prey, as well as the direct killing of eagles because of predation on human domestic livestock. Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940. Despite the Act there were only 487 nesting pairs in 1963. The Eagle population grew because of the Act, not because of the non-negative effect of DDT. There is ample evidence that DDT causes egg shell thinning and it had a negative effect on eagle populations. DDT does not actually kill the adult Bald Eagle; instead it decreases the survival of its offspring by thinning the eggshells. Absent DDT the number of nesting pairs by 1963 would have been much larger under the Act protections. Second, if you sort the bird species in the table by the ratio, clearly the result was skewed positive by a preponderance of higher populations in species associated with increases in human populations and human habitats: blackbirds, starlings, robins, grackles, and gulls. The species with lower ratios are almost always associated with human-degraded habitats, not associated with DDT in particular. Furthermore Zubrin makes the ridiculous claim that marsh bird populations benefited from the use of DDT. He is referring to red-winged blackbirds whose populations increased because of less competition from marsh and shorebirds whose populations had previously been ravaged by hunting, and whose populations increased because of the huge post-WWII expansion of grain crops in the midwest that was a source of food for the blackbirds. Zubrin cites J. Gordon Edwards repeatedly for his articles criticizing Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and his pro-DDT stances. Edwards was a well known biostitute of the pesticide industry. Zubrin ignores a long list of scientists who have studied and confirmed the negative effects of DDT since Carson's book. For a quick summary of the debate over Carson's impact on malarial control with DDT, see Quiggin, "Rehabilitating Carson," in Prospect, 2008. Also for a more general account of the overall huge negative effect of humanity on North American wildlife, see Matthiessen's Wildlife in America.
Let's move on to the journal article The Population Control Holocaust. Any competent environmentalist and population control advocate is appalled by the 'eugenics' period in the 20th century population control movement. Any competent sociologist or historian laments the private and government actions to controls populations for racist or nationalists reasons. These actions happened and they are appalling. Certainly Ravenholt and Ehrlich are examples of private and institutional individuals with specialists backgrounds (seat salesman and population ecologist respectively) making them unprepared for implementing measures to help peoples and countries to lower their birth rates and reduce suffering from poverty. Nonetheless Zubrin's penchant for leaving out facts in the Holocaust is no less disturbing. Let's take Puerto Rico and an example. Zubrin states, "Programs of a comparable character were also set up in clinics funded by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in low-income (predominantly black) neighborhoods in the United States. Meanwhile, on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, a mass sterilization program was instigated by the Draper Fund/Population Crisis Committee and implemented with federal funds from the Department of Health,Education, and Welfare through the island’s major hospitals as well as a host of smaller clinics. According to the report of a medical fact-finding mission conducted in 1975, the effort was successful in sterilizing close to one-third of Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age."
A primary source for the Puerto Rico sterilization program is "Sterilization and Fertility Decline in Puerto Rico," Population Monography Series, California Institute of International Studies, 1973. The population control movement in Puerto Rico was tainted by military and economic motives, the usual human candidates for one people persecuting another people. Zubrin of course fails to characterize the sterilization program as nationalistic; instead his motive is to undermine the environmentalist movement as anti-humanist. But the real reasons were nationalistic: to reduce immigration to the continental U.S., and to increase the investment of banking and manufacturing multi-nationalists who would not invest in Puerto Rico if impoverishment from overpopulation reduced the chance of Puerto Rico repayment of loans. In other words, the problem was capitalism, not environmentalism.
Zubrin is a fake, a pseudo-scientist. I hope the readers of Merchants will diligently follow up with other examples of Zubrin's lack of interest in the truth.
In the Truth about DDT Zubrin presents a table of Audubon bird counts to demonstrate his thesis that DDT did not have a negative effect on bird populations. He uses counts per observer for the years 1941 and 1960 to bracket the decades of DDT use. The example would have fit nicely into Huff's book How to Lie with Statistics. Zubrin averages the counts per observer for the two years and forms the ratio of 1960 to 1941. The average ratio is positive, therefore the conclusion is that DDT did not have an adverse affect on bird populations. Since the ratio is nearly 4 should we make the claim that DDT is actually beneficial to bird populations? This misuse of data is so comical that it is pains me to spend time refuting the claim. First a competent population analysis would never include just two years. Instead data from all the years 1941-1960 would be used to examine the population trend. By 1940 the Bald Eagle population was near extinction, mostly due to the human slaughter of shorebirds, waterfowl, and other eagle prey, as well as the direct killing of eagles because of predation on human domestic livestock. Congress passed the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940. Despite the Act there were only 487 nesting pairs in 1963. The Eagle population grew because of the Act, not because of the non-negative effect of DDT. There is ample evidence that DDT causes egg shell thinning and it had a negative effect on eagle populations. DDT does not actually kill the adult Bald Eagle; instead it decreases the survival of its offspring by thinning the eggshells. Absent DDT the number of nesting pairs by 1963 would have been much larger under the Act protections. Second, if you sort the bird species in the table by the ratio, clearly the result was skewed positive by a preponderance of higher populations in species associated with increases in human populations and human habitats: blackbirds, starlings, robins, grackles, and gulls. The species with lower ratios are almost always associated with human-degraded habitats, not associated with DDT in particular. Furthermore Zubrin makes the ridiculous claim that marsh bird populations benefited from the use of DDT. He is referring to red-winged blackbirds whose populations increased because of less competition from marsh and shorebirds whose populations had previously been ravaged by hunting, and whose populations increased because of the huge post-WWII expansion of grain crops in the midwest that was a source of food for the blackbirds. Zubrin cites J. Gordon Edwards repeatedly for his articles criticizing Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and his pro-DDT stances. Edwards was a well known biostitute of the pesticide industry. Zubrin ignores a long list of scientists who have studied and confirmed the negative effects of DDT since Carson's book. For a quick summary of the debate over Carson's impact on malarial control with DDT, see Quiggin, "Rehabilitating Carson," in Prospect, 2008. Also for a more general account of the overall huge negative effect of humanity on North American wildlife, see Matthiessen's Wildlife in America.
Let's move on to the journal article The Population Control Holocaust. Any competent environmentalist and population control advocate is appalled by the 'eugenics' period in the 20th century population control movement. Any competent sociologist or historian laments the private and government actions to controls populations for racist or nationalists reasons. These actions happened and they are appalling. Certainly Ravenholt and Ehrlich are examples of private and institutional individuals with specialists backgrounds (seat salesman and population ecologist respectively) making them unprepared for implementing measures to help peoples and countries to lower their birth rates and reduce suffering from poverty. Nonetheless Zubrin's penchant for leaving out facts in the Holocaust is no less disturbing. Let's take Puerto Rico and an example. Zubrin states, "Programs of a comparable character were also set up in clinics funded by the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity in low-income (predominantly black) neighborhoods in the United States. Meanwhile, on the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, a mass sterilization program was instigated by the Draper Fund/Population Crisis Committee and implemented with federal funds from the Department of Health,Education, and Welfare through the island’s major hospitals as well as a host of smaller clinics. According to the report of a medical fact-finding mission conducted in 1975, the effort was successful in sterilizing close to one-third of Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age."
A primary source for the Puerto Rico sterilization program is "Sterilization and Fertility Decline in Puerto Rico," Population Monography Series, California Institute of International Studies, 1973. The population control movement in Puerto Rico was tainted by military and economic motives, the usual human candidates for one people persecuting another people. Zubrin of course fails to characterize the sterilization program as nationalistic; instead his motive is to undermine the environmentalist movement as anti-humanist. But the real reasons were nationalistic: to reduce immigration to the continental U.S., and to increase the investment of banking and manufacturing multi-nationalists who would not invest in Puerto Rico if impoverishment from overpopulation reduced the chance of Puerto Rico repayment of loans. In other words, the problem was capitalism, not environmentalism.
Zubrin is a fake, a pseudo-scientist. I hope the readers of Merchants will diligently follow up with other examples of Zubrin's lack of interest in the truth.
July 15, 2016
If you're looking for ammunition to refute the global warming alarmists, the "Frankenfood" scare-mongers, the "pro-choice" (by which I mean pro-abortion) zealots, or liberal leftists in general, this book is great source material. Bob Zubrin, a trained nuclear scientist, methodically deconstructs the arguments the left makes in support of all these harmful policies, and manages to remind us that if we can defeat these cruel initiatives, mankind's future is awfully bright.
Along the way he also weaves a narrative showing that Malthusianism, Darwinism, Nazism, and the modern "Green" and environmentalist agendas are part of a consistent, antihuman impulse that treats humanity as a plague, a blight upon the earth that gave humanity life. This goes a long way toward explaining why leftists are so intolerant, so filled with rage and hatred and the desire to stifle and control--and all too often, exterminate--their fellow men. Even without this overarching theme the book would be a gem simply for the data and clear arguments it contains; but with it, it supplies many missing puzzle pieces for the conservative who knows innately that leftist goals are wrong, but has trouble articulating why.
Along the way he also weaves a narrative showing that Malthusianism, Darwinism, Nazism, and the modern "Green" and environmentalist agendas are part of a consistent, antihuman impulse that treats humanity as a plague, a blight upon the earth that gave humanity life. This goes a long way toward explaining why leftists are so intolerant, so filled with rage and hatred and the desire to stifle and control--and all too often, exterminate--their fellow men. Even without this overarching theme the book would be a gem simply for the data and clear arguments it contains; but with it, it supplies many missing puzzle pieces for the conservative who knows innately that leftist goals are wrong, but has trouble articulating why.
April 17, 2013
The author shows how an antipathy to population growth has led opinion leaders to promote policies that endanger human lives while claiming to promote conservation and environmental protection. As a result, millions of young women in India have undergone dangerous sterilization procedures without adequate concern for their health and safety. (There are current lawsuits being pursued against this grisly practice.) Hundreds of millions have died from malaria as a direct result of the banning of DDT despite approval of the pesticide by a scientific panel put together by the Environmental Protection Administration. Other similarly anti-human activities are detailed in the book.
Although many may bristle at the accounts presented by the author, he documents every point and presents data to affirm his conclusions. This is an important book for anyone who is interested in the priority of human rights.
Although many may bristle at the accounts presented by the author, he documents every point and presents data to affirm his conclusions. This is an important book for anyone who is interested in the priority of human rights.
November 1, 2017
There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting for—indeed, worth liberating. But now we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a species whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of antihumanism and this book tells its story.
December 2, 2012
I can not praise this book enough! It is the most important, life changing book I have ever read with the exception of religious texts. Everyone must read this book!!! Even if you never read non-fiction this should be your one exception.
November 19, 2012
Excellent book linking "anti-humanist" movements from the eugenics movements of the 1800-1900's to the current organic and global warming movements. Including some key players who link these various movements.
September 3, 2012
Without a doubt, the first book I've read in a long while that I had a hard time putting down. The way he ties the environmental movement to the failed eugenics movement brilliantly documents the actions of generation of manipulative individual who hate human beings. Well worth a read.
September 17, 2017
MERCHANTS OF DESPAIR
Robert Zubrin ©2012
A short Book Report by Ron Housley
Robert Zubrin, a Ph.D. nuclear engineer, offers us a fascinating account of how the anti-humanist philosophy of Thomas Malthus (1798) marked the beginning of organized, establishment backlash against the very principles which the American Founding Fathers attempted to codify and pass down to future generations.
It is a story that flies beneath the radar of most citizens today; but it is a story which continues to work its black magic in every realm — from destroying historical Civil War statues to appeasing and emboldening terrorists intent on imposing their beliefs on the entire world.
The 19th century saw academia set the stage for a Malthusian force to solidify into a culture-wide revolt against science, against reason, against political liberty. The philosophic and moral undermining of America was set in motion almost from the moment of its founding.
Zubrin makes it sound like the decline of Western values was spearheaded by Malthus and Darwin; and then implemented over the decades by a litany of powerful figures, most recently Rockefeller; James McNamara; Gen. Westmoreland; even LBJ himself who was persuaded to withhold emergency food from a starving India (1966) until that nation agreed to impose forced sterilizations on its rural peasantry; Rachel Carson; Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger; and entire United Nations agencies whose goal was to reduce world population.
But the real culprits behind what Zubrin calls “Merchants of Despair” were the 19th century philosophers who began a vast rebellion against reason and freedom: Kant, Hegel, Comte, Mill, Marx. Sadly, Zubrin does not highlight this crucial aspect of his own thesis. What turned Malthusian and Darwinian assessments into a mass cultural movement was the philosophers’ organized attack on man’s ability to reason, calling for a return to “faith” and “feeling” as the basis for knowledge.
Among the late 20th century Malthusians is Paul Ehrlich, whose “The Population Bomb” I read back when I was in school; millions of free copies were distributed to college students all over the country.
Little did I realize what a Malthusian even was; little did I realize that Ehrlich was part of a long history of activists promoting population control and the dismantling of human liberty; little did I realize how essentially aligned he was with the burgeoning statist agenda that was gaining a foothold in our culture.
Ehrlich’s falsehoods, like those of Rachel Carson, offered a launching pad for the junk science behind so much of today’s regulatory establishment — regulations purposed with limiting and controlling our formerly free choices. When Ehrlich’s predictions of mass starvation proved false over and over again, it was never apparent why Stanford University wasn’t embarrassed to have him on its faculty.
The big lesson for me in Zubrin’s book is that Malthusianism is still pervasive in our culture, responsible for anti-humanist decisions impacting all of us today; who knew?!
There is even a Malthusian, “let’s reduce the population” meme behind nuclear energy politics. Without abundant, affordable energy, billions (1.2 billion) in the third-world are still without electricity today. But raising up third-world populations is contrary to the anti-humanist objectives of the Malthusians (“better dead than fed”). And so it naturally follows that the Malthusians would be against nuclear energy, just as they are against any other pro-human technology.
Zubrin offers a new sense of perspective on Malthusianism’s goal to control the population: its effects on our energy industry; its effects on our cultural sense of morality; its effects on the vibrancy of our economy; its effects on public policy, where government gets to replace reason with force in dealing with us.
We all remember the first “Earth Day,” right? The day deliberately chosen for “Earth Day” was Lenin’s birthday; after all, “Earth Day” activists and Lenin both wanted the same thing: state control of all our lives. But now with “Earth Day,” the agitators could pretend that the “good of mankind” was the goal we all had in common(!). Lenin, indeed.
The common thread amongst all the various Malthusian movements (think: deliberately starving millions in India in the 1800’s; eugenics and racial cleansing killing millions in the mid-1900’s; Earth Day and the call to destroy industrial civilization) is a basic anti-humanism. And today we have the majority of Americans under 30 years old calling for outright socialism (think: Bernie Sanders), as if socialism hadn’t failed everywhere it was implemented — killing over 100-million innocents in the 20th century.
There are scores of Malthusian-inspired movements, each with different names attached.
They want us to turn the lights off; to turn our air-conditioners off; to abandon our internal combustion engines; to leave a smaller carbon footprint; to embrace zero growth; to acknowledge that humans are pollutants; to adopt Malthusian environmentalism; to stop impacting the climate; to condemn GMO foods, even as GMOs saved billions from starvation; to slow down or even stop industrial civilization. Since Nixon, the Malthusian environmentalism has been solidly embraced not only by the “progressives,” but by the “conservatives.”
Conservatives were never able to figure out what principles were at play --- so they were never able to offer up a rational alternative to the anti-humanist fervor on the Left.
It’s truly horrifying to discover in story after story how entire populations have been forced into starvation, malnutrition, and disease merely because fashionable Malthusian elites (throughout a 200 year history) have implemented the political power to outlaw life-saving innovations, one after the other, right up to the present day.
Global Warming
Just at the moment (1971) when Ice Age doomsayer, John Holdren (later to become Obama’s science advisor), was being sidelined by slight temperature increases, the anti-humanist Malthusians stumbled upon their next pretext to stifle worldwide economic growth, and thus to suppress population growth: carbon dioxide.
Their new movement (which they would call AGW) did not select water vapor as its target greenhouse gas even though it is thousands of times more impactful --- because they couldn’t figure out a way to control it using political coercion; not so with the far more insignificant carbon dioxide, which they saw as an ideal target to regulate, in their quest to control industrial civilization.
This is the type of work which has tones of “conspiracy theory” behind it. But there is conspiracy here only insofar as it is conspiratorial to contend that ideas drive history — for this is a tale of cultural decline driven by bad ideas.
What Zubrin hints at but never says directly is that the Malthusian anti-humanist agenda to limit population is all made possible by the mystical, anti-reason resurgence of collectivism which was the product of 19th century German philosophers; and that the Malthusians are just one component of the 200 year decline of Western civilization.
So if you are unclear about why today’s college graduates are sympathetic to tyrannical socialism; if you are unclear about the moral perversion of nationalizing health care; if you are unclear about the origins of today’s hate America movement; if you suspect that something has gone wrong with an entire generation willing to turn a blind eye to mass killings in the name of equality (or in the name of population control), then you might invest a little time to explore Zubrin’s book.
Robert Zubrin ©2012
A short Book Report by Ron Housley
Robert Zubrin, a Ph.D. nuclear engineer, offers us a fascinating account of how the anti-humanist philosophy of Thomas Malthus (1798) marked the beginning of organized, establishment backlash against the very principles which the American Founding Fathers attempted to codify and pass down to future generations.
It is a story that flies beneath the radar of most citizens today; but it is a story which continues to work its black magic in every realm — from destroying historical Civil War statues to appeasing and emboldening terrorists intent on imposing their beliefs on the entire world.
The 19th century saw academia set the stage for a Malthusian force to solidify into a culture-wide revolt against science, against reason, against political liberty. The philosophic and moral undermining of America was set in motion almost from the moment of its founding.
Zubrin makes it sound like the decline of Western values was spearheaded by Malthus and Darwin; and then implemented over the decades by a litany of powerful figures, most recently Rockefeller; James McNamara; Gen. Westmoreland; even LBJ himself who was persuaded to withhold emergency food from a starving India (1966) until that nation agreed to impose forced sterilizations on its rural peasantry; Rachel Carson; Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger; and entire United Nations agencies whose goal was to reduce world population.
But the real culprits behind what Zubrin calls “Merchants of Despair” were the 19th century philosophers who began a vast rebellion against reason and freedom: Kant, Hegel, Comte, Mill, Marx. Sadly, Zubrin does not highlight this crucial aspect of his own thesis. What turned Malthusian and Darwinian assessments into a mass cultural movement was the philosophers’ organized attack on man’s ability to reason, calling for a return to “faith” and “feeling” as the basis for knowledge.
Among the late 20th century Malthusians is Paul Ehrlich, whose “The Population Bomb” I read back when I was in school; millions of free copies were distributed to college students all over the country.
Little did I realize what a Malthusian even was; little did I realize that Ehrlich was part of a long history of activists promoting population control and the dismantling of human liberty; little did I realize how essentially aligned he was with the burgeoning statist agenda that was gaining a foothold in our culture.
Ehrlich’s falsehoods, like those of Rachel Carson, offered a launching pad for the junk science behind so much of today’s regulatory establishment — regulations purposed with limiting and controlling our formerly free choices. When Ehrlich’s predictions of mass starvation proved false over and over again, it was never apparent why Stanford University wasn’t embarrassed to have him on its faculty.
The big lesson for me in Zubrin’s book is that Malthusianism is still pervasive in our culture, responsible for anti-humanist decisions impacting all of us today; who knew?!
There is even a Malthusian, “let’s reduce the population” meme behind nuclear energy politics. Without abundant, affordable energy, billions (1.2 billion) in the third-world are still without electricity today. But raising up third-world populations is contrary to the anti-humanist objectives of the Malthusians (“better dead than fed”). And so it naturally follows that the Malthusians would be against nuclear energy, just as they are against any other pro-human technology.
Zubrin offers a new sense of perspective on Malthusianism’s goal to control the population: its effects on our energy industry; its effects on our cultural sense of morality; its effects on the vibrancy of our economy; its effects on public policy, where government gets to replace reason with force in dealing with us.
We all remember the first “Earth Day,” right? The day deliberately chosen for “Earth Day” was Lenin’s birthday; after all, “Earth Day” activists and Lenin both wanted the same thing: state control of all our lives. But now with “Earth Day,” the agitators could pretend that the “good of mankind” was the goal we all had in common(!). Lenin, indeed.
The common thread amongst all the various Malthusian movements (think: deliberately starving millions in India in the 1800’s; eugenics and racial cleansing killing millions in the mid-1900’s; Earth Day and the call to destroy industrial civilization) is a basic anti-humanism. And today we have the majority of Americans under 30 years old calling for outright socialism (think: Bernie Sanders), as if socialism hadn’t failed everywhere it was implemented — killing over 100-million innocents in the 20th century.
There are scores of Malthusian-inspired movements, each with different names attached.
They want us to turn the lights off; to turn our air-conditioners off; to abandon our internal combustion engines; to leave a smaller carbon footprint; to embrace zero growth; to acknowledge that humans are pollutants; to adopt Malthusian environmentalism; to stop impacting the climate; to condemn GMO foods, even as GMOs saved billions from starvation; to slow down or even stop industrial civilization. Since Nixon, the Malthusian environmentalism has been solidly embraced not only by the “progressives,” but by the “conservatives.”
Conservatives were never able to figure out what principles were at play --- so they were never able to offer up a rational alternative to the anti-humanist fervor on the Left.
It’s truly horrifying to discover in story after story how entire populations have been forced into starvation, malnutrition, and disease merely because fashionable Malthusian elites (throughout a 200 year history) have implemented the political power to outlaw life-saving innovations, one after the other, right up to the present day.
Global Warming
Just at the moment (1971) when Ice Age doomsayer, John Holdren (later to become Obama’s science advisor), was being sidelined by slight temperature increases, the anti-humanist Malthusians stumbled upon their next pretext to stifle worldwide economic growth, and thus to suppress population growth: carbon dioxide.
Their new movement (which they would call AGW) did not select water vapor as its target greenhouse gas even though it is thousands of times more impactful --- because they couldn’t figure out a way to control it using political coercion; not so with the far more insignificant carbon dioxide, which they saw as an ideal target to regulate, in their quest to control industrial civilization.
This is the type of work which has tones of “conspiracy theory” behind it. But there is conspiracy here only insofar as it is conspiratorial to contend that ideas drive history — for this is a tale of cultural decline driven by bad ideas.
What Zubrin hints at but never says directly is that the Malthusian anti-humanist agenda to limit population is all made possible by the mystical, anti-reason resurgence of collectivism which was the product of 19th century German philosophers; and that the Malthusians are just one component of the 200 year decline of Western civilization.
So if you are unclear about why today’s college graduates are sympathetic to tyrannical socialism; if you are unclear about the moral perversion of nationalizing health care; if you are unclear about the origins of today’s hate America movement; if you suspect that something has gone wrong with an entire generation willing to turn a blind eye to mass killings in the name of equality (or in the name of population control), then you might invest a little time to explore Zubrin’s book.
September 28, 2020
Zubrin describes various movements over time that he terms "anti-humanist" as they cause human suffering and deaths for very poorly founded reasons. Much of the history that he recounts is not well known, but should be a lesson to us in the current century as many of our current initiatives do not account for the plight of the poor.
While the author says in the preface that the "ideology of antihumanism will be critically reviewed", the many topics covered in the book suggest that antihumanism is actually a product of various movements. The book is basically split into two parts - one largely about the long term interest in eugenics; the other about movements against modern technologies including DDT, nuclear power, GMO's and fossil fuels.
Malthus, in the later 18th century, proposed the idea that because population growth will outrun food supplies, populous countries are doomed to starvation. He felt that disease was a good and that the wages of the poor should be kept low. While Henry George and Friedrich Engels argued against this idea, it was adopted by the rich and powerful. At the height of the Irish famine, Ireland exported cattle and flour but the Irish people could not afford due to their heavy taxation. In the 1870's, India suffered a drought which left many starving and 6 to 10 million dead. Again, taxation was kept high so the people could not afford food, even as India's wheat exports increased. Kubrin shows that because of technology, living standards - as represented by GDP per capita - have increased over time.
Darwin postulated in "The Descent of Man" that just as in breeding animals, the preservation of the weak in human individuals would be "injurious to the race of man". This lead his cousin Sir Francis Galton to develop the idea of eugenics where the proper breeding of humans would be effected by government oversight and enforcement. He was able to establish a substantial following in England, Germany and the United States. In Germany, the famous scientist Haeckel became a strong supporter of eugenics. The Prussian military establishment adopted these ideas eventually seeing war with other races as a duty. Moreover, racial competition concepts were taught to an entire generation of German and Austrian students.
Eugenics became very popular with the U.S. elite, being one aspect of the establishment of the American Museum of Natural History. In 1910, railroad magnate E.H. Harriman established the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) which lobbied heavily for 30 years. Its efforts resulted in laws being passed in thirty states that resulted in the sterilization of 83,000 institutionalized Americans and hundreds of thousands of poor were forced to accept sterilization in the face of threatened loss of welfare benefits. In 1935, the new Nazi party of Germany invited race scientists from around the world to the first International Congress for Population Science, the U.S. representatives providing strong support.
When Germany started implementing eugenic measures, it caused some soul-searching among the citizens but with years of schooling on Malthusian and eugenic concepts most felt that the directions of the Nazi party were the right thing to do. Mass killing started with the infirm, criminals and mental patients, extended to the Jews and Gypsies, and would have gone on to all non-Nordic peoples. When Jews tried to escape Germany, other countries including the U.S. and England refused to accept them, largely influenced by eugenic sentiments.
World War II caused Nordic supremacist race science to be unacceptable in the U.S., but eugenics re-emerged during the 1950's as population control. In 1959, the Draper report argued that in many parts of the world population growth was undermining economic prosperity and providing opportunities for communism. By the mid 1960's, The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was not only providing birth control assistance to Third World countries, but becoming increasingly coercive in doing so. When India suffered crop failures in 1966, famine relief was provided on the basis that India impose forced sterilization on its rural peasantry.
In 1967, the Sierra Club commissioned Paul Ehrlich to write the book "The Population Bomb" which argued the need for population control. Another well known study was that done by the Club of Rome in 1972 which stated that the world would run out of many resources in the next 20 to 30 years. The need for population control was adopted by the left.
Population control got a strong footing with U.S. president Johnson when the Foreign Assistance Act of 1966 was passed. An Office of Population was set up in the USAID which initially dispensed one fourth of the USAID budget. The director, Reimert Ravenholt, bought up huge supplies of defective contraceptive drugs and IUD's and distributed them to Third World women. Zubrin provides details on past population control programs in India, Indonesia, Peru and China, showing how they have been cruel and abusive to human rights.
DDT was introduced in 1944 and proved to be an extremely effective insecticide when many were dying of malaria and typhus due to war conditions. In 1970, the National Academy of Sciences stated that DDT had prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria. Many countries then started using DDT to control malaria - Ceylon reducing its cases from million per year to 17 in 1963. Rachel Carlson published the book "Silent Spring" which claimed that DDT caused cancer in humans, would cause extinction of the birds, and would threaten ocean life. Zubrin examines each claim and shows that they have all been shown to be false. However, In spite of an investigation by the EPA that showed no evidence of harm from DDT, it was banned in the U.S. Further, USAID pressured recipients to stop using DDT which has resulted in millions of deaths.
The 1970's saw the launch of the anti-nuclear crusade. Zubrin shows that the production of electricity from coal results in many deaths due to lung disease among the coal miners, but also due to the impurities such as heavy metals in the coal that are launched into the air. Zubrin does a good job of putting concerns of nuclear accidents, waste disposal, plant emissions and nuclear proliferation into perspective.
The German green movement goes back to the nineteenth century and factored into the formation of the Nazi Party. The German Green Party was founded by August Haussleiter, a former Nazi. Teaching included the importance of organic and natural foods. When GMO foods were developed in the 1990's the Green Party came out strongly against their use, leading to a worldwide distrust of the technology. Zubrin shows that GMO modifications are really an extension of selective breeding that has been practised for the last 10,000 years.
The madness that has formed around the idea of Global Warming is also anti-humanist. The incredible expenditures in the name of mitigation drive the cost of energy up. The burden falls dis-proportionally on the poor. Zubrin notes that Global Warming has become a pseudo-religion, and quotes Al Gore to show that "the movement is everything; the goal is nothing" (Zubrin's words).
While the author says in the preface that the "ideology of antihumanism will be critically reviewed", the many topics covered in the book suggest that antihumanism is actually a product of various movements. The book is basically split into two parts - one largely about the long term interest in eugenics; the other about movements against modern technologies including DDT, nuclear power, GMO's and fossil fuels.
Malthus, in the later 18th century, proposed the idea that because population growth will outrun food supplies, populous countries are doomed to starvation. He felt that disease was a good and that the wages of the poor should be kept low. While Henry George and Friedrich Engels argued against this idea, it was adopted by the rich and powerful. At the height of the Irish famine, Ireland exported cattle and flour but the Irish people could not afford due to their heavy taxation. In the 1870's, India suffered a drought which left many starving and 6 to 10 million dead. Again, taxation was kept high so the people could not afford food, even as India's wheat exports increased. Kubrin shows that because of technology, living standards - as represented by GDP per capita - have increased over time.
Darwin postulated in "The Descent of Man" that just as in breeding animals, the preservation of the weak in human individuals would be "injurious to the race of man". This lead his cousin Sir Francis Galton to develop the idea of eugenics where the proper breeding of humans would be effected by government oversight and enforcement. He was able to establish a substantial following in England, Germany and the United States. In Germany, the famous scientist Haeckel became a strong supporter of eugenics. The Prussian military establishment adopted these ideas eventually seeing war with other races as a duty. Moreover, racial competition concepts were taught to an entire generation of German and Austrian students.
Eugenics became very popular with the U.S. elite, being one aspect of the establishment of the American Museum of Natural History. In 1910, railroad magnate E.H. Harriman established the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) which lobbied heavily for 30 years. Its efforts resulted in laws being passed in thirty states that resulted in the sterilization of 83,000 institutionalized Americans and hundreds of thousands of poor were forced to accept sterilization in the face of threatened loss of welfare benefits. In 1935, the new Nazi party of Germany invited race scientists from around the world to the first International Congress for Population Science, the U.S. representatives providing strong support.
When Germany started implementing eugenic measures, it caused some soul-searching among the citizens but with years of schooling on Malthusian and eugenic concepts most felt that the directions of the Nazi party were the right thing to do. Mass killing started with the infirm, criminals and mental patients, extended to the Jews and Gypsies, and would have gone on to all non-Nordic peoples. When Jews tried to escape Germany, other countries including the U.S. and England refused to accept them, largely influenced by eugenic sentiments.
World War II caused Nordic supremacist race science to be unacceptable in the U.S., but eugenics re-emerged during the 1950's as population control. In 1959, the Draper report argued that in many parts of the world population growth was undermining economic prosperity and providing opportunities for communism. By the mid 1960's, The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was not only providing birth control assistance to Third World countries, but becoming increasingly coercive in doing so. When India suffered crop failures in 1966, famine relief was provided on the basis that India impose forced sterilization on its rural peasantry.
In 1967, the Sierra Club commissioned Paul Ehrlich to write the book "The Population Bomb" which argued the need for population control. Another well known study was that done by the Club of Rome in 1972 which stated that the world would run out of many resources in the next 20 to 30 years. The need for population control was adopted by the left.
Population control got a strong footing with U.S. president Johnson when the Foreign Assistance Act of 1966 was passed. An Office of Population was set up in the USAID which initially dispensed one fourth of the USAID budget. The director, Reimert Ravenholt, bought up huge supplies of defective contraceptive drugs and IUD's and distributed them to Third World women. Zubrin provides details on past population control programs in India, Indonesia, Peru and China, showing how they have been cruel and abusive to human rights.
DDT was introduced in 1944 and proved to be an extremely effective insecticide when many were dying of malaria and typhus due to war conditions. In 1970, the National Academy of Sciences stated that DDT had prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria. Many countries then started using DDT to control malaria - Ceylon reducing its cases from million per year to 17 in 1963. Rachel Carlson published the book "Silent Spring" which claimed that DDT caused cancer in humans, would cause extinction of the birds, and would threaten ocean life. Zubrin examines each claim and shows that they have all been shown to be false. However, In spite of an investigation by the EPA that showed no evidence of harm from DDT, it was banned in the U.S. Further, USAID pressured recipients to stop using DDT which has resulted in millions of deaths.
The 1970's saw the launch of the anti-nuclear crusade. Zubrin shows that the production of electricity from coal results in many deaths due to lung disease among the coal miners, but also due to the impurities such as heavy metals in the coal that are launched into the air. Zubrin does a good job of putting concerns of nuclear accidents, waste disposal, plant emissions and nuclear proliferation into perspective.
The German green movement goes back to the nineteenth century and factored into the formation of the Nazi Party. The German Green Party was founded by August Haussleiter, a former Nazi. Teaching included the importance of organic and natural foods. When GMO foods were developed in the 1990's the Green Party came out strongly against their use, leading to a worldwide distrust of the technology. Zubrin shows that GMO modifications are really an extension of selective breeding that has been practised for the last 10,000 years.
The madness that has formed around the idea of Global Warming is also anti-humanist. The incredible expenditures in the name of mitigation drive the cost of energy up. The burden falls dis-proportionally on the poor. Zubrin notes that Global Warming has become a pseudo-religion, and quotes Al Gore to show that "the movement is everything; the goal is nothing" (Zubrin's words).
Read
October 28, 2013Robert Zubrin brings together in a single articulate volume the similarities among Malthusian theories, the eugenics and population control movements, Nazi Holocaust, environmentalist crusades, biotechnology fear-mongering, global warming alarm and the assault on fossil fuels.
He describes the purveyors of these hideous ideas and their apparently irrational followers in his subtitle as the "Fatal Cult of Antihumanism". In the context of the human species the common theme of all the activists, politicians and crazy protest mobs is anti-life.
Zubrin, a nuclear engineer, seems optimistic about the ability of science and technology to solve human problems but may not recognize fully the force of ideas (good or bad) even as he addresses the anti-humanist theme.
However, he does recognize the nature and magnitude of the risk in his conclusion:
He is correct. The struggle is life or death.
He describes the purveyors of these hideous ideas and their apparently irrational followers in his subtitle as the "Fatal Cult of Antihumanism". In the context of the human species the common theme of all the activists, politicians and crazy protest mobs is anti-life.
Zubrin, a nuclear engineer, seems optimistic about the ability of science and technology to solve human problems but may not recognize fully the force of ideas (good or bad) even as he addresses the anti-humanist theme.
However, he does recognize the nature and magnitude of the risk in his conclusion:
Humanity today thus stands at a crossroads,....On one side stands antihumanism,...disregarding its repeated prior refutations,...demand...controls upon human aspirations. On the other side stand those who believe in...creativity to invent unbounded resources,...rather than regret human freedom, insist upon it. The contest between these two views will determine our fate.
He is correct. The struggle is life or death.
December 24, 2012
I learned a lot from this book about the environmental movement's eugenics/Nazi origins. This is not well known but was not terribly surprising to me either, once the evolutionary process of the anti human movement was described in the book. Zubrin is not always philosophically consistent, as evidenced by his identifying some of the more traditional leftist causes as positive, rather than coercive. He also appears to be in favor of ethanol as a fuel additive/replacement and insinuates that high gas prices were the cause of the recent financial crisis, rather than one of a number of exacerbating factors, but these issues did not detract from my enjoyment of the book as an interesting source of factual historical information. I also enjoyed the book because it was a Christmas present from a nice friend.
September 10, 2013
Eye opening, informative book that details the history and development of Eugenics in America and Europe and how Malthusian concepts underlie population control and the environmental movement. It is well documented and references pan out.
April 2, 2016
It is a breath of fresh optimism for the future that so many today try to paint bleaker and bleaker as time goes by.
September 14, 2022
Essential.
October 6, 2019
Quite interesting point of view, contradicting with the, so called scientific consensus on the climate change.
November 20, 2019
Noted scientist and engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin does an excellent job of exposing the cult of antihumanism in this book. He traces it from its roots in Malthus through Social Darwinism, Eugenics, Nazism, racism, population control, Silent Spring, The Population Bomb, The Limits to Growth, radical environmentalism, the anti-nuclear movement, abusive government population control programs, the anti-biotechnology movement, and the global cooling warming climate change climate crisis cult. Zubrin argues that these movements have all represented an attempt to gain oppressive political control through the restriction of human activities and freedom.
Zubrin makes a notable effort to present the other side’s arguments for all of the above, ridiculing them when appropriate, which is often, but highlighting and addressing their valid points. He then proceeds to show why his counterarguments are far more compelling. Along the way we meet a rogues' gallery of antihumanist villains. Joining obvious choices like Malthus and Hitler are Margaret Sanger, Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore and Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren. The book is extensively documented, with 50 pages of footnotes.
I could quibble with a few points, but overall this a very powerful, readable and thought-provoking book. Icons are smashed and sacred cows are slaughtered with devastating and delightful effectiveness. It is worth noting that this book is remarkably optimistic and uplifting, in contrast to the “Merchants of Despair” it thoroughly refutes.
Select quotes:
“Unlike the campaigns against DDT, nuclear power, and genetically modified crops – but very much like the eugenics movement – the global warming cause is universal enough to serve as the basis of a pseudo-religion. This potential is the subject of remarks by the movement’s leaders themselves.”
“It is clear that for Gore, global warming agitation is not really about climate change at all. Put simply, it’s not about weather, it’s about power. The movement is everything, the goal is nothing. It’s not about curbing CO2 emissions; it’s about creating a mob – a mass cult whose legions empower its shamans, and whose systematic anti-human ideology serves as a basis for reorganizing society along totalitarian lines.”
“Like all cults, this new one adeptly represses heresy. . . . In defiance of the Western scientific tradition, which maintains that skepticism of inferences drawn from observation is always in order, and that all accepted conclusions are always subject to review and potential overthrow by new data, the climate catastrophists insist that ‘the science is settled’ (science is never ‘settled’) and that therefore no debate, and no new data, can or should be entertained. Those wishing to advance theories or data contrary to the accepted orthodoxy are not merely wrong, but criminal ‘deniers’ who should be silenced, vilified, and if possible, prosecuted.”
“It could be that the climate alarmists have answers to rebut these critics and their data, but if so, they are not showing it. Rather than engaging in scientific debate, they have evaded it, choosing instead to try to stop dissenting publications and cut off the funding of their opponents. That is not the way to do science. That is the way to do fraud.”
Zubrin makes a notable effort to present the other side’s arguments for all of the above, ridiculing them when appropriate, which is often, but highlighting and addressing their valid points. He then proceeds to show why his counterarguments are far more compelling. Along the way we meet a rogues' gallery of antihumanist villains. Joining obvious choices like Malthus and Hitler are Margaret Sanger, Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore and Obama’s science advisor, John Holdren. The book is extensively documented, with 50 pages of footnotes.
I could quibble with a few points, but overall this a very powerful, readable and thought-provoking book. Icons are smashed and sacred cows are slaughtered with devastating and delightful effectiveness. It is worth noting that this book is remarkably optimistic and uplifting, in contrast to the “Merchants of Despair” it thoroughly refutes.
Select quotes:
“Unlike the campaigns against DDT, nuclear power, and genetically modified crops – but very much like the eugenics movement – the global warming cause is universal enough to serve as the basis of a pseudo-religion. This potential is the subject of remarks by the movement’s leaders themselves.”
“It is clear that for Gore, global warming agitation is not really about climate change at all. Put simply, it’s not about weather, it’s about power. The movement is everything, the goal is nothing. It’s not about curbing CO2 emissions; it’s about creating a mob – a mass cult whose legions empower its shamans, and whose systematic anti-human ideology serves as a basis for reorganizing society along totalitarian lines.”
“Like all cults, this new one adeptly represses heresy. . . . In defiance of the Western scientific tradition, which maintains that skepticism of inferences drawn from observation is always in order, and that all accepted conclusions are always subject to review and potential overthrow by new data, the climate catastrophists insist that ‘the science is settled’ (science is never ‘settled’) and that therefore no debate, and no new data, can or should be entertained. Those wishing to advance theories or data contrary to the accepted orthodoxy are not merely wrong, but criminal ‘deniers’ who should be silenced, vilified, and if possible, prosecuted.”
“It could be that the climate alarmists have answers to rebut these critics and their data, but if so, they are not showing it. Rather than engaging in scientific debate, they have evaded it, choosing instead to try to stop dissenting publications and cut off the funding of their opponents. That is not the way to do science. That is the way to do fraud.”
November 14, 2018
I came into this book with, admittedly, low expectations. Indeed I purchased it with the intent that it would be one of those books which wind me up. However, the first few chapters had me reassessing my stance.
Merchants of Despair is based on the premise that Malthusian theory is fundamentally bankrupt. More than that, it's popularity and reach lie more in utility and prejudice. This is where the book is strongest. Malthusian theory is something which needs to be challenged and the racist policies which have been implemented under it's logic should be called out. Zubrin highlights that by using Malthusian theory, various political bodies have been able to justify atrocious treatment of "others". Early examples used to illustrate this include the famines in Ireland and India, however more contemporary examples such as the periphery are also supplied. This is a really important critique and it is helped further by Zubrin's writing style which is accessible and engaging. However this work is held back by serious limitations.
With their fixation on antihumanist ideology, analysis of the political systems underpinning what Zubrin is critiquing is severely limited. Focusing so exclusively on his, ahem, fatal cult of antihumanism we get a very narrow and misleading view. Much akin to looking into a room through a keyhole. This narrowing in on who Zubrin identifies as the key actors, removes the analysis from appropriate context. I don't believe this is accidental either as Zubrin professes to be procapitalist. Yet it is in the context of industrialization and the rise of capitalist society that these cults gained their following. Whether it is in the colonies of colonialism or the periphery of contemporary society, the implementation of Malthusian happens in a world system of political and economic actors. A system he wants to see continue unfettered.
As other reviewers have pointed out, this book also functions as a critique of progressive ideology. While it does contain the extremely useful critiques I earlier mentioned, this function is also present as Zubrin, without sufficient context of elaboration will dismiss various progressive stances and/or theorists. The worst being the random name drop of Franz Boas insinuating that he was a proponent of race science. Feminism and environmentalism in particular are tied back to the antihumanist regimes, such as Nazi Germany. While these movements definitely have their dodgy moments, this book removes the required nuance. This culminates in the book's rushed critique of climate change.
This book ended up being exactly where I anticipated it would be, despite early promise shown in the initial chapters. Important critiques of Malthusian theory and it's racist implications coupled with an approachable writing style do not save this book from it's personality focus which decontextualizes the conversation in an effort to smear progressive politics.
Merchants of Despair is based on the premise that Malthusian theory is fundamentally bankrupt. More than that, it's popularity and reach lie more in utility and prejudice. This is where the book is strongest. Malthusian theory is something which needs to be challenged and the racist policies which have been implemented under it's logic should be called out. Zubrin highlights that by using Malthusian theory, various political bodies have been able to justify atrocious treatment of "others". Early examples used to illustrate this include the famines in Ireland and India, however more contemporary examples such as the periphery are also supplied. This is a really important critique and it is helped further by Zubrin's writing style which is accessible and engaging. However this work is held back by serious limitations.
With their fixation on antihumanist ideology, analysis of the political systems underpinning what Zubrin is critiquing is severely limited. Focusing so exclusively on his, ahem, fatal cult of antihumanism we get a very narrow and misleading view. Much akin to looking into a room through a keyhole. This narrowing in on who Zubrin identifies as the key actors, removes the analysis from appropriate context. I don't believe this is accidental either as Zubrin professes to be procapitalist. Yet it is in the context of industrialization and the rise of capitalist society that these cults gained their following. Whether it is in the colonies of colonialism or the periphery of contemporary society, the implementation of Malthusian happens in a world system of political and economic actors. A system he wants to see continue unfettered.
As other reviewers have pointed out, this book also functions as a critique of progressive ideology. While it does contain the extremely useful critiques I earlier mentioned, this function is also present as Zubrin, without sufficient context of elaboration will dismiss various progressive stances and/or theorists. The worst being the random name drop of Franz Boas insinuating that he was a proponent of race science. Feminism and environmentalism in particular are tied back to the antihumanist regimes, such as Nazi Germany. While these movements definitely have their dodgy moments, this book removes the required nuance. This culminates in the book's rushed critique of climate change.
This book ended up being exactly where I anticipated it would be, despite early promise shown in the initial chapters. Important critiques of Malthusian theory and it's racist implications coupled with an approachable writing style do not save this book from it's personality focus which decontextualizes the conversation in an effort to smear progressive politics.
September 7, 2023
This is so sad. I remembered Zubrin fondly from early life when I was a bright-eyed techno-optimist thinking about humankind colonising Mars (so, 25 years ago), and it turns out now he's a rabid Fox-News level climate denier and a nukebro.
I have nothing against nukebros, I'm personally livid that nuclear revolution was stopped in the 1970s, but why being pro-nuclear is frequently associated with saying shit like "I don't deny climate change, I support climate change, we are making Earth more fertile"?
The book reads like an extended Tucker Carlson rant on globalists trying to make people die out by POPULATION CONTROL and LYING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. Of course it contains the standard (leave no) Heritage Foundation attack on Rachel Carson and a defense of DDT. (Which made me realise why Our World in Data lies about mosquitoes being the "most deadly animal" in the world, supposedly killing more people than humans do, the narration of "we could have stopped malaria if not for those pesky environmentalists" is pretty well aligned with the interests of current US oligarchy).
The chapter of nuclear power blames the end of nuclear power solely on those pesky anti-human environmentalists, completely ignoring the fact that fossil fuels founded Friends of the Earth, that API was anti-nuclear, and that the victory of neoliberal capitalism in the 1970s meant that nuclear power plants, with a return on investment spread over 60+ years were an investment that just made no sense compared to fossil fuels which gave much faster and much higher ROI.
And, piece de resistance, the last chapter on climate change is basically stating that it's a tool of the global antihuman conspiracy. "IS GLOBAL WARMING REAL?" "HUMAN SACRIFICE FOR WEATHER CONTROL" "CREATING A GLOBAL ANITHUMAN CULT". He should do YouTube conspiracy theory videos.
I have nothing against nukebros, I'm personally livid that nuclear revolution was stopped in the 1970s, but why being pro-nuclear is frequently associated with saying shit like "I don't deny climate change, I support climate change, we are making Earth more fertile"?
The book reads like an extended Tucker Carlson rant on globalists trying to make people die out by POPULATION CONTROL and LYING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. Of course it contains the standard (leave no) Heritage Foundation attack on Rachel Carson and a defense of DDT. (Which made me realise why Our World in Data lies about mosquitoes being the "most deadly animal" in the world, supposedly killing more people than humans do, the narration of "we could have stopped malaria if not for those pesky environmentalists" is pretty well aligned with the interests of current US oligarchy).
The chapter of nuclear power blames the end of nuclear power solely on those pesky anti-human environmentalists, completely ignoring the fact that fossil fuels founded Friends of the Earth, that API was anti-nuclear, and that the victory of neoliberal capitalism in the 1970s meant that nuclear power plants, with a return on investment spread over 60+ years were an investment that just made no sense compared to fossil fuels which gave much faster and much higher ROI.
And, piece de resistance, the last chapter on climate change is basically stating that it's a tool of the global antihuman conspiracy. "IS GLOBAL WARMING REAL?" "HUMAN SACRIFICE FOR WEATHER CONTROL" "CREATING A GLOBAL ANITHUMAN CULT". He should do YouTube conspiracy theory videos.
December 10, 2019
An excellent book.
Thoroughly well researched & referenced (49 pages), my paperback edition of 381 pages is also illustrated & well indexed (11 pages).
Zubrin, a PhD nuclear engineer with 9 patents granted or pending, does a great job of tracing the roots of the present "environmental" movement back to the lies of the incompetent 'economist' Thomas Malthus, whose dire predictions have been proven wrong by 200 years of history, & the rank racist Darwin, who was keen to exterminate all the 'higher' orders of ape & the 'lower' orders of humanity: blacks & aboriginals.
Zubrin cites brilliant economist Julian L. Simon whose book: The Ultimate Resource 2, I also highly recommend. The ultimate resource is human ingenuity, which, coupled with accumulating knowledge, means that Mankind could could have a very bright future.
I also much recommend climatologist Dr. Tim Ball's great little handbook for the layman:
Human Caused Global Warming The Biggest Deception In History
Only 121 pages reveals the whole fraud & names Bankster Rockefellers & Multibillionaire Soros as among the chief pushers. Ball details the science & scandals, the politics & profiteers.
Ball has won 2 important court cases against the fraudsters.
Is the source of this destructive streak of antihumanism based in the origins of Mankind?
Genius journalist Jim Marrs' books are well worth reading: Alien Agenda, & Our Occulted History, Do The Global Elite Conceal Ancient Aliens? Both are well referenced & indexed.
Thoroughly well researched & referenced (49 pages), my paperback edition of 381 pages is also illustrated & well indexed (11 pages).
Zubrin, a PhD nuclear engineer with 9 patents granted or pending, does a great job of tracing the roots of the present "environmental" movement back to the lies of the incompetent 'economist' Thomas Malthus, whose dire predictions have been proven wrong by 200 years of history, & the rank racist Darwin, who was keen to exterminate all the 'higher' orders of ape & the 'lower' orders of humanity: blacks & aboriginals.
Zubrin cites brilliant economist Julian L. Simon whose book: The Ultimate Resource 2, I also highly recommend. The ultimate resource is human ingenuity, which, coupled with accumulating knowledge, means that Mankind could could have a very bright future.
I also much recommend climatologist Dr. Tim Ball's great little handbook for the layman:
Human Caused Global Warming The Biggest Deception In History
Only 121 pages reveals the whole fraud & names Bankster Rockefellers & Multibillionaire Soros as among the chief pushers. Ball details the science & scandals, the politics & profiteers.
Ball has won 2 important court cases against the fraudsters.
Is the source of this destructive streak of antihumanism based in the origins of Mankind?
Genius journalist Jim Marrs' books are well worth reading: Alien Agenda, & Our Occulted History, Do The Global Elite Conceal Ancient Aliens? Both are well referenced & indexed.
March 24, 2018
The books draws the historical line of anti-humanism from Thomas Malthus to diverse contemporaries. It clears up with many common misconceptions, especially that of overpopulation. This in particular shows up in every generation in a slightly different disguise.
I personally would have liked a more thorough investigation of the philosophical concepts behind anti-humanism, but this was cleary not Zubrin's intent. He focusses clearly on "symptoms", which he does thoroughly, giving a multitude of references for each chapter, thus making the book a big source for further reading.
I find the focus on eugenics a bit too large, because the roots of modern-day anti-humanism are in my understanding somewhere else. Also, I think the popular topic of animal rights should have been addressed.
I personally would have liked a more thorough investigation of the philosophical concepts behind anti-humanism, but this was cleary not Zubrin's intent. He focusses clearly on "symptoms", which he does thoroughly, giving a multitude of references for each chapter, thus making the book a big source for further reading.
I find the focus on eugenics a bit too large, because the roots of modern-day anti-humanism are in my understanding somewhere else. Also, I think the popular topic of animal rights should have been addressed.
Read
October 2, 2025An extremely important, relevant and timely document.
We are bombarded by warnings of doom, a doom caused by humankind and a doom that particularly negatively affects the young; a doom that in fact doesn't exist.
Robert Zubrin sets out to demonstrate with a clarity compounded by scientific fact that the cult of antihumanism is man made and the antithesis of what is actually happening.
This book should be required reading in secondary school on up to graduate level, actually by everyone. Perhaps then we expunge this destructive myth and see humankind, warts and all, in all its creative essence.
We are bombarded by warnings of doom, a doom caused by humankind and a doom that particularly negatively affects the young; a doom that in fact doesn't exist.
Robert Zubrin sets out to demonstrate with a clarity compounded by scientific fact that the cult of antihumanism is man made and the antithesis of what is actually happening.
This book should be required reading in secondary school on up to graduate level, actually by everyone. Perhaps then we expunge this destructive myth and see humankind, warts and all, in all its creative essence.
July 9, 2024
These horrors are still with us
Zibrin adds some information to my perennial question of why Greens reject the most green power source, and why climate warming activists reject zero-carbon power sources.
It also seems that the arguments leading to the ban on DDT were quickly known to be false, the ban leading to many million unnecessary deaths.
This book should be read by anyone who cares for human flourishing.
Zibrin adds some information to my perennial question of why Greens reject the most green power source, and why climate warming activists reject zero-carbon power sources.
It also seems that the arguments leading to the ban on DDT were quickly known to be false, the ban leading to many million unnecessary deaths.
This book should be read by anyone who cares for human flourishing.
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