Cornucopianism is the idea that continued progress and provision of material items for mankind can be met by similarly continued advances in technology. It relies on the belief that there is enough matter and energy on the Earth to provide for the population of the world, appears adequate to give humanity almost unlimited room for growth. The term comes from the

cornucopia In classical antiquity, the cornucopia (), from Latin ''cornu'' (horn) and ''copia'' (abundance), also called the horn of plenty, was a symbol of abundance and nourishment, commonly a large horn-shaped container overflowing with produce, flowers ...

, the "horn of plenty" of

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, which magically supplied its owners with endless food and drinks. Adherents are called "cornucopians" or sometimes "boomsters", in contrast to

doomer Doomer and, by extension, doomerism are terms which arose primarily on the Internet to describe people who are extremely pessimistic or fatalist about global problems such as overpopulation, peak oil, climate change, and pollution. Some doomers ...

s, whose views are more aligned with

Malthusianism Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, c ...

Theory

As a society becomes more wealthy, it also creates a well-developed set of legal rules to produce the conditions of freedom and security that progress requires. In ''

Progress and Poverty ''Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: The Remedy'' is an 1879 book by social theorist and economist Henry George. It is a treatise on the questions of why pover ...

'' written in 1879, after describing the powerful reproductive forces of nature, the political economist

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

wrote, "That the earth could maintain a thousand billions of people as easily as a thousand millions is a necessary deduction from the manifest truths that, at least so far as our agency is concerned, matter is eternal and force must forever continue to act."

Julian Simon Julian Lincoln Simon (February 12, 1932 – February 8, 1998) was an American professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute at the time of his death, after previously serving as a ...

was one of the best known cornucopian thinkers in modern times who suggested in his book, ''

The Ultimate Resource ''The Ultimate Resource'' is a 1981 book written by Julian Lincoln Simon challenging the notion that humanity was running out of natural resources. It was revised in 1996 as ''The Ultimate Resource 2''. Overview The overarching thesis on why ther ...

'', published in 1981, that humans have always found a way in the past to develop and enhance past resources over virtually any roadblock. He suggested that while resources may come and go, the knowledge that can come from a bigger population, and thus more manpower/intellect, humanity would continuously be able to find newer sources of energy. Simon did argue however that in order for humans to seek innovation and new sources of energy, free markets must be present to place value on sources of energy through their price to produce and use. Once the price of a certain resource become too high due to lack of supply, it would encourage new research into alternative sources to seek cheaper energy.

Description by an opposing view

Stereotypically, a cornucopian is someone who posits that there are few intractable natural limits to growth and believes the world can provide a practically limitless abundance of natural resources. The label 'cornucopian' is rarely self-applied, and is most commonly used derogatorily by those who believe that the target is overly optimistic about the resources that will be available in the future. One common example of this labeling is by those who are skeptical of the view that technology can solve, or overcome, the problem of an exponentially-increasing human population living off a finite base of natural resources. Cornucopians might counter that human

population growth Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to ...

has slowed dramatically, and not only is currently growing at a linear rate, but is projected to peak and start declining in the second half of the 21st century.World population to 2300
United Nations; Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2004 However, more recent projections have the global population rising to 11 billion by 2100 with continued growth into the next century. Furthermore, it always has in the past, even when population was increasing at a far faster rate.{{Citation needed, date=September 2019

Criticism

Lindsey Grant accuses cornucopians, especially

and

Herman Kahn Herman Kahn (February 15, 1922 – July 7, 1983) was a founder of the Hudson Institute and one of the preeminent futurists of the latter part of the twentieth century. He originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems theo ...

, of making arguments with logical flaws, omissions and oversights and of making assumptions and choosing methodologies that ignore or dismiss the most critical issues.The Cornucopian Fallacies. TEF Reports.
by Lindsey Grant

Theory

Description by an opposing view

Criticism

See also

References

Further reading