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420 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. ix (1975)

handle is hein.cow/anamacp0420 and id is 1 raw text is: PREFACE The theme of the 79th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, held April 11-12, 1975, was suggested to me by the Comptroller General of the United States, Mr. Elmer B. Staats, a distinguished member of the Board of the Academy. His office last year produced, among many other items, a compilation of reports on commodity shortages, reflecting the federal government's concern with this major issue. Whether certain commodities are truly in scarce natural supply relative to current use and demand, or are available in amounts limited by political and economic pressures, was one of the major issues considered by the participants in this year's program. The contributors did not agree about: (1) the existence of scarcity; (2) the particular commodities believed to be in short supply; (3) the reasons for shortages; or (4) whether, or how, society should made adjustments to perceived scarcity. But there is more than subjective perception to characterize many of the concerns about food, fertilizer, minerals, petroleum, and energy resources in general. Descriptive statistics of the world supplies are probably reasonably accurate, and the projections of population are generally accepted by various authorities and agencies. There is little disagreement that world population growth is the chief cause of increasing demand. More than 1,800 years were required for the world's population to increase from 210 million to one billion. About 125 years were needed to produce the second billion, but only 30 years to grow the third billion. Now, only 15 years are needed to add the fourth billion; and should our growth rate continue, the present population of 3.6 billion will double in 35 years. By the end of this century the population of the world could increase by a billion every eight years. More than 80 percent of this increase will occur in developing countries where the increase of food production has not kept pace with the people production. Is this a recent pending disaster facing humanity, or are we just now awakened to the calls of social evolution? Are we unduly pessimistic in our projections? Is society facing scarcity? Is it real, imagined or manipulated? Are new political, social and economic alliances capable of regulating the flow of production and consumption? Will new energy resources protect us from radical changes in our mode of living? Is there any beam of sanguinity to light the path of our future? The belief in man's onward, upward movement of increasing productivity and progress that so much characterized the late 1800s seems much longer ago than a century. The language of our thoughts today includes instead the limits of growth, zero population increase, reduction of use, and energy crisis. Our theme, therefore, is appropriate and timely: adjusting to scarcity. Some emphasis in the articles in this volume is on scarcity, but much is on adjustment. To adjust has various meanings: to bring to agreement, to settle, to cause to conform, to adapt, to fit or to regulate. Perhaps all of these meanings will be employed as the world continues to define and confront its perception of scarcity. MARVIN E. WOLFGANG ix

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