Lady M: "Do you think that 1-child families are the major reason  why the Hardinian taboo taboo on  entrapment is so extraordinarily tight?"

               MHK. "No, I think there is a much more sinister reason why the dialogue is  never opened ! Just think about these eleven    questions. I  should mention  that we never set out to gather them deliberately. They gathered themselves and the hypothesis to explain them only occurred to us  recently on reading the paper by McIntosh and Finkle.

               (i) "Why has there been such an uncanny political correctness in US academia over demographic entrapment during recent years? In the demographic database POPLINE, not only are there no references to the Hardinian taboo, but there are only nine references to demographic entrapment, mostly to our papers and none from the USA. The Population and Development Review has never discussed it. This is indeed remarkable, since it has been discussed over coffee-tables for decades. Why has Lester Brown [18]  now stopped  writing about it, despite the fact that entrapment is getting steadily worse?   His most recent  paper was 11 years ago.  Why has Jack Bryant stopped    lecturing about it?"

               (ii) "Why did Harvard endorse the US population policies at Cairo so wholeheartedly?      The widely distributed contribution to the Cairo conference, by Lincoln Chen and others [12] says nothing about demographic entrapment, carrying capacity, food supplies, or population targets. Questions on these core issues have been fended off by discussions of 'gender', 'female empowerment', and 'human rights'. The key issue, the entrapment of Africa, is not discussed. It is thus completely in tune with the State Department's overt  objectives  at that conference."

               Lady M. "Don't tell me that you are against 'gender' - my  gender! - and 'female empowerment'?"

              MHK. "Certainly not! The point is that they will not by themselves bring fertility down fast enough for disentrapment. It is the time problem again. One suspects that the US made the most of 'gender' and 'human rights' in order to camouflage its real concerns."

                Lady M.  "Then what about female education, surely that will bring down fertility.

                MHK.  "The same argument applies here also.  It will bring down fertility in time - but in trapped communities there is not time, before starvation and slaughter supervene. Malawi is already stunting and starving."
 

                Lady M.  "I don't see why you think the US is worried about bringing down fertility.   Surely it has  extensively funded population projects in the past."
 

                MHK.  "I am sure that  it is most anxious to see fertility fall. The fact that it has extensively funded population programmes in the past is no guarantee that it will not ultimately put its own interests first".
 

               (iii) "Why was my 'personal security' threatened?  Just  before the Cairo population conference in 1994, we wrote a paper on entrapment,  then called A 1-child world. [11] I handed a copy to a senior colleague in a UN organization with permission to circulate it, which he did. Some weeks  later, he told me that he had been advised to warn me that 'my interest in demographic entrapment is prejudicial to my personal security'. Laughing, I asked him: "Would  be the Mafia or the Central Intelligence Agency of the US State Department?" (I should perhaps have added 'the Inquisition'!)*.  "They have their methods...!!", he said.  Recently, I asked him if the threat came from North America? He turned away in embarrassment."
 

             Lady M. "Don't you think that kind of warning is something that you should keep to yourself?"

               MHK. "No, I think it is: (a) an important item of research data when analysing what is really going on in the world. Since none of the overt US objectives of the Cairo conference seem worth threatening anyone's life for, this suggests that there may have been some covert   ones. (b) Useful when arguing for changing opinion and policy. (c) Helpful  in personal discussions with the South. If my friends there 'want my scalp' for what we have said about the'starting line taboo', I can assure them that their wants are modest compared the those of some of my 'friends' in the North!"

                (iv) "Why are several eminent Americans with whom I have tried to discuss entrapment so extremely uneasy about it? It would be interesting to know if they have been cautioned in the same way as I have.  They certainly seem to be very unhappy indeed about something."

               I think particularly of  Bill Foege, a US epidemiologist of  the greatest eminence, inventor of  the forked needle for smallpox immunization,   former head of the CDC in Atlanta,   and  at one time aspirant  to be head of  UNICEF.   About 1992  I attended a lecture he gave at the London School of Hygiene on UNICEF's programmes. During it he referred more than once to myself. I tried to discuss entrapment with him afterwards - any time during his visit.  He refused, and I have often wondered why?   The fact that he knew it was official policy to  to maintain the taboo would explain this.

               (v) "Why was the editor of The Lancet warned not to publish our paper then entitled 'A 1-child world'? Just before the Cairo conference, the then editor,  Robin Fox, told me that he had been approached independently by two people and advised that it would be best if   our paper   A 1-child world did not appear.  Apparently, Robin cannot now remember this. Fortunately, I have a record of it in the draft of a letter sent to Charles Elliott a few days later.   The paper  subsequently appeared long after the Cairo conference in another journal [11]- only on the condition that we change its title - a further example of the Hardinian taboo".

                Lady M. Do you think that the US State Department is in effect 'policing' the maintenance of the Hardinian taboo on entrapment?  Do they try to maintain  a curious kind of 'hygiene' in regard to it? 

               MHK.   It  would appear so. But this is not the end of the evidence.

               (vii) "Why does the Central Intelligence Agency   routinely collect data on demographic entrapment.  I was told this by a member of the US embassy here in Geneva. It  is surprising to have one's personal security threatened on account of something which  is not supposed to exist!"

               (viii) "What  interpretation should be placed on the  findings by McIntosh and Finkle  [14]  that: (1) there had been three major 'players' at the Cairo conference, (a) the US Government, (b) the Holy See and (c) the women's rights movement (itself strongly North American) ; (2) that historically, the State Department has considered population in the light of US security, and (3) that "...once formed the US position was advanced with determination and skill through every available channel..." [italics inserted] The '...available channels...' included threatening the personal security of someone who dared question its policies, and successfully 'advising' the editor of The Lancet not to publish his papers."

                (ix)  "Why, when a USAID   survey in Mali   indicated  entrapment, was its report  suppressed?  I have been told this on good authority, but  would like to have it confirmed. I am also interested in  any other reports on the State Department's role in entrapment."

The 'South Centre' has been subverted

                Lady M. (x) 'The South Centre' is a small political unit in Geneva, founded by President Nyerere of Tanzania to co-ordinate the interests of the developing world, so that it  should,  where possible,  speak with one voice at international meetings.  It should be very interested indeed in entrapment.  Why have you not contacted it?

                MHK. I did recently. I gave the address of this website to a member of its staff. When I subsequently rang its director,  Branlov Gosovic,  I was greeted with a hollow ringing cynical laugh that would have done credit to the Devil himself, as if as to say: "I know exactly, who you are, I have been expecting this!" He  declined to see me. The significant thing is that he did not learn about entrapment from this website, because his junior staff had got its URL wrong, and had been unable to access it. Therefore he must have been told of it by someone else. Who?  It would appear that The South Centre has been 'bought off' and subverted.*  A quite junior friend in the UN observed that the US keeps its tabs on everything, it has certainly got its tabs on the South Centre - and emasculated* it!

  'Population policy lockstep'  

              (xi)   "Why when Jason Finkle invited me to two of his lectures on US population policy at the the UN Population division, was I told by Ellen M Brennan, Chief of the Population Policy Section of the UN Population Division.  that they were "...only for the staff of the Population Division", although she would welcome me "...at some future date at one of our meetings".   Was it because what was said was 'too sensitive'  for this website?

               Lady M. It  seems to me that the US has a pretty firm grip on the UN Population division. Not only is Ellen M Brennan  from the US, but Joe Chamie, its director, is too. What is the political process by which the decision to suppress the debate on entrapment is achieved?
 

               MHK. The US is the most important country in the world  in influencing population policy, both nationally an internationally.  (a) It is the largest donor. (b)  It is the home of the most powerful and wealthy foundations. (c) Many of its universities which are the envy of the world, have strong population centres. (d) Many leaders in the population field in the UN and in the developing countries have been US trained.  (e) The US is the home of the UN and the World Bank.  (f) The USA is the home of many  NGOs  with strong feminist convictions which have a powerful influence on policy.  (g) The US funds many NGOs and are said to have paid the expenses of 100 NGOs at Cairo. It would have been  unlikely  to have funded  those with views that were at variance with its own.
 

               All this is strong evidence that,  as far as population policy is concerned (humanity's greatest problem),  the US really has 'got the world over a barrel'!*

                                               LadyM.  "Lockstep...???"

               MHK.  This is "...a mode of marching in very close file in which the leg of each person moves with and closely behind the corresponding leg of the person ahead...". (Random House Dictionary, not in the OED)". The result is that if anyone changes step the whole squad  falls over.

               Lady M.  Is the squad (a) leading itself, or (b) is it circular and going nowhere, or (c) is there some 'sergeant major' leading it?  If so where is the squad going?

               MHK.   Probably a bit of all  three. The warning about my personal safety, is surely from 'the sergeant major' himself!  It is not where the squad itself is going that matters, the squad itself is all right (and knows it!)  - it is where it is leading much of  the rest of the world - to the starvation and slaughter of malignant uproar - without its dilemmas ever being debated ! !

The lockstep in action

                 MHK. (xii) Sam Preston enforces the lockstep. Let me give you another example. The British Journal Population Studies was celebrating its 25th anniversary and  praising the success of the demographic transition theory. I got up and said that I was concerned by its failures, and was going out to Uganda naext day to lecture on entrapment. In an overwelmingly British audience, it was the US demographer Sam Preston who got up and said, in effect "Maurice king...'let sick children die'..." referring to my controversial first paper.  The atmosphere was electric.  He was making quite sure that the lockstep was enforced.
 
 

                 MHK.    "The most economical hypothesis to explain these eleven  observations is to conclude reluctantly that the process of everyone marching in lockstep: (i) allows  the US State Department to   orchestrate  the global population debate in a way which  is not in the best interests of the trapped,  and (ii) that it has a quite remarkable hold  hold on certain   parts of US academia, and not only in the United States." 

                Lady M. "Why?"

               MHK. "We suggest that a tight taboo on entrapment suits the US State Department and the North as a whole, because 'population politics' are linked to 'resource consumption politics'. If countries and even continents are trapped, there is a certain reticence in confronting the fact that, the average Indian, for example, eats 200 kg of grain a year, whereas a North American eats 800 kg, mostly by feeding it to animals first. Nor is it altogether reassuring, if with 5% of the world's population, the US burns 25% of its fossil fuel, with carbon dioxide production and global warming to match.   [9]"

                MHK. "Noam Chomsky, in analysing the politics of the Vietnam war showed how academia and the media supported the policies of the US State Department. [13] This was possible because the elites from all three groups move in the same circles. We wonder if history is repeating itself  and critical parts of  US academia are  now bending to the wishes of the State Department in matters of population and resource consumption, as they  once did in war? We suggest that a few senior figures have direct dialogue with the State Department, and that for the rest it is a matter of 'political correctness' once the norms are set. If the dialogue on entrapment had already been opened by demographers in the US, it would have already been opened world-wide. We also suggest that if there was a little less lockstep  in Harvard, it would start to soften everywhere else."

               MHK." It seems to us that the protection of its lifestyle is the cornerstone of US 'population and resource politics'. To this end it rigged the Cairo Conference.   Earlier this year (1997)  I remarked on this rather cautiously to an eminent friend of mine, thinking that it could barely be possible. "What surprises you about that?" he replied. "It rigged all the others!"

               Lady M. "Rigged the Cairo Conference!!! Can you substantiate this?"

               MHK.  "To 'rig' is 'to manage or manipulate in some underhand or fraudulent manner' (OED).  I have just given you eleven good reasons for thinking that something very peculiar and underhand  is at work in the US State Department."

               Lady M.  "It seems to me that you have evidence incriminating the State Department itself  (question viii), academia (questions i, ii, iii, iv, v),  the CIA (questions iii, vi, vii),   USAID (question ix), and the media who never seem to have questioned anything. All these institutions have either pursued the same political line independently, which is most unlikely, or they have acted in concert.  What encourages me is that the State Department, which presumably orchestrates them all,  has at last been 'nailed'*  for what it has actually been up to.  This is really is 'mega-epidemiology' - the epidemiology of malignant uproar,  of starvation and slaughter on a continental scale."

              MHK. "As McIntosh and Finkle [14]  point out  the Cairo  Conference  failed "...adequately to address the issue of population growth, which many poor counties [for which read 'the trapped'. Ed] consider their first priority...".  And who, might we ask,  was responsible for that?  The trouble is that it needs much money, and expertise  to be a major 'player' at an international conference, and this is exactly what the trapped don't have, so no wonder their voices are never heard."

We are thus faced by the enormity that the demographic entrapment of the poorest cannot even be discussed by the UN agencies, and by much of academia, let alone properly addressed, lest the resource consumption of the richest be questioned, even to the point of threatening the personal security of someone who tries to do so, and with all the implications that this has for starvation and slaughter.

                But it is even worse than this. It has also become clear that the lockstep on the discussion of  entrapment is inhibiting the resolution of all the other human problems in which population plays a part, which is most of them, and it is often a large part. These include deforestation, loss of biodiversity, gloal warming, poverty, increasing global inequality, street children, etc.

               Lady M.  "Do you  think that the State Department's activities are the most important foundation of the taboo?"

               MHK.  "It is difficult to say what is the most important foundation, because they are  complex and  are likely to act  in different ways in different situations, and to change with time. What I do suggest  is that, at the moment, the State Department's grip on holding down the Hardinian taboo in  critical parts   of academia,   is to put it bluntly, absolutely deadly. In the light of Lincoln Chen's book,  I am particularly worried about Harvard.   Perhaps Harvard  could prove its  open-mindedness by organizing a conference on entrapment?"  (See also Joel Cohen)

            Lady M.  I do not think the US State Department is the main offender in keeping population growth off the US political agenda. I think the real source of the problem is the Republican dominated Congress, especially  the fact that the chairmen of the most important committees (on foreign affairs and appropriations) are old enemies of population programmes. And, of course, the anti-population representatives who are ideologically hostile to contraception and  abortion. During the Cairo preparations it was the major feminist organizations that called the shots,  and everyone else, including the State Department, jumped on the band wagon. It became a matter of political correctness.

               MHK.  The machinations of  Congress, are certainly important. But I doubt if it was Congress who warned me that my interest in demographic entrapment is prejudicial to my personal safety...

               Lady M. It seems to me that it requires great courage to 'break ranks' in the 'lockstep',  and that anyone who does so is likely to get a firm tap on the shoulder,  and  incur the ostracism of his colleagues, quite apart from what may happen to his career and his funding.

               It does seem  as if 'orthodoxy' is in for a pretty abrupt change in course. If you come to think about it, it really has got itself into an  extraordinarily untenable position, which requires the ever firmer hand of the State Department to hold in place.  A continent trapped - and no demographer may dare raise a whisper, against the way in which it orchestrates the global population debate! The dialogue is not even opened - yet!"

                 Lady M. "You have lots of American friends, don't you think that, before you go any further, you should distinguish between 'good', liberal 'politically incorrect' Americans and, 'bad', 'illiberal', 'politically correct' ones?"

                MHK. "Indeed I should. There are many shades of political opinion in America, and indeed 'many Americas'. Our aim is to support and help those of our many friends there, known and unknown, whose ambition it is to depart from the 'political correctness' that presently grasps that nation. Here I mean it as supporting US State Department policies right or wrong. This kind of uncanny politically  correct lockstep  is now so tight that, despite the huge number of people who could write on demographic entrapment, no American is presently doing so. We urge you, our American friends, to debate the issues surrounding entrapment as vigorously as you can! The 'politically correct America' which distresses us is that which Boutros Boutros-Ghali described so vividly in his final oration - the America which had got in his way, whenever he tried to do so many of the things that need doing in our world. Judging by the tumultuous ovation that his audience gave him, the rest of the world is similarly distressed!!".

               Lady M.   "I think your American friends are in a difficult position.  They have got to choose between being labelled as 'un-American'  and being   'un-world'. Are they going to be  'un-American' in the eyes of the State Department - and most of their colleagues? Or are they going to be  'un-world' in the eyes of the rest of us?  Are they primarily Americans  or are they  primarily ''Worldians'' - citizens of the globe? This is made worse by the fact that the State Department is remarkably autonomous, and is only partly answerable to Congress.  Its covert repression of the discussion of entrapment, for example',  was certainly never debated by Congress.  What is 'un-American'  in this respect is decided by State Department - not by the representatives of the American people in Congress."

               MHK. We should not forget the image that Americans have been encouraged to have of themselves by their government and their media -  listen to this. It was told me by a  postgraduate paediatrician from Cleveland Ohio, newly arrived in Uganda - a university postgraduate!

               "You don't really think that the US government would allow the developing countries to overpopulate themselves, do you?

                My mind boggled* - and still does...!!!

 
                Lady M. "...while I do agree that your conclusions do indeed seem to explain your observations, I am surprised perhaps unforgivably naively, that such a strategic national priority could be so quietly formulated and implemented in such an apparently successful and coherent way. I am  not accustomed to giving the US government  - or any government -  that much credit...".

                MHK.  Governments do some things well and some things badly.  The mistake they made here was to threaten my personal security - as if it would make any difference -  with an issue of this importance.

            Lady M.  The CIA  have certainly 'shot themselves in the foot' * - yet again!
 

                Lady M.   "Don't you think you are being somewhat paranoid    about the 'State Department'?"
 

               MHK. "If  a government can test atomic bombs and not tell its own citizens   where the radio-iodine is going to fall, so that they have  10,000 to 70,000 extra cases of  cancer, [19] why do you think it is too well intentioned not to keep a firm  hand  on something as crucial  to its own perceived interests as the  Hardinian taboo?"

                Or this: Here is George Kiernan, Head of the Department of State Planning Staff until 1950 in a document that has  recently  been released under the 50 year confidentiality rule.  "We have 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population... In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will committ us to maintain this position of disparity, without possible detriment to our ultimate security. To do this we will have to dispense with sentimentality and day-dreaming. Our  attention will have to  be concentrated everywhere  on our immediate national objectives. We had better not deceive ourselves that we can afford...the luxury of altruism and world benefaction...  The day is not far off when when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts.... The less we are hapmpered by idealistic slogans the better...[24]

                It seems to me that the activities of the State Department are the crucial  factor in the failure to open the dialogue.  As such one has to stress it.

             Lady M.  "I think it is all a 'conspiratory theory'."

               MHK.   "When people say this,  it is with the implication that all 'conspiratory theories' have no basis in fact, or  very  little, and since by their very nature they cannot be proved,  they must all be incorrect.  This is indeed a conspiratory theory,  the difference is that it does have a basis in fact- and I have just given you ten of them."
 
 

'Human rights' and 'US strategic interests'

                Lady M. I have been wondering what I would do if I was one of those think-tanks, such as the Brookings Institute, and had been given as my brief, the 'long term strategic interest of the the United States, and the protection of its massive per capita resource consumption. One of the things I would do  would be to fortify the  US position by making the most of all the other foundations of the Hardinian taboo that I could - especially human rights. I would do this on the grounds that  if the reduction of Northern resource consumption is to linked to the reduction of Southern fertility, the more obstacles that there are to the reduction of Southern fertility the better.  One of the obstacles is the human rights movement, which has never debated these rights under conditions of entrapment.  The stronger  the human rights movement, the more difficult will it be to challenge Northern resource consumption. Do you think that the luxuriating growth  of the human rights movement in the US  is in part driven  by this important strategic objective? I think particularly of that vacuous  journal from Harvard called 'Health and Human rights'.  Is it merely coincidental that the US embassy in Geneva is the only one to employ human rights lawyers, specifically to keep tabs on the Commission for Human rights?

                MHK. You ask an important question.

• Why was one of us (MK) warned that his interest in demographic entrapment is prejudicial to his personal safety?
• Why at the Cairo population conference was he interviewed by the Intelligence Agency of the US State Department?
• Why, just before the conference, did two people warn the then editor of The Lancet that our paper 'A 1-child World' had better not be published?

                Lady M. "So what should happen now?"

               MHK. "The Cairo conference needs to be recalled so that CAIRO II can  consider the demographic entrapment of Africa (and probably parts of Asia), declining global per capita grain, and also the legitimate 'sticks and carrots' necessary for 1-child families. Above all it needs to have a much wider range of 'major players', especially Africa, India, China, and Japan which is presently the largest provider of development aid".  The trapped must somehow also raise their voices loudly,  and make sure that CAIRO II  meets their needs."

                  Lady M. "You said earlier that the problem is to get enough benign uproar. But surely you have got some journals of great international repute which have built up a solid reputation for intellectual integrity over the years. Surely there should be no dilemma which is too agonizing for them to open the dialogue on? I think especially of The Lancet   with its half million influential readers, its splendid  tradition, and its magnificent crusading history behind it. Surely it can open the debate on the Rwandan dilemma - and all that follows from it?"
 

               MHK. "So you would have thought. We submitted our '...open letter to Carol Bellamy...' describing the Rwandan dilemma to The Lancet. Richard Horton, the editor rejected it - and gave several reasons for doing so. However, he holds them confidential, so I cannot tell you what they were. The Hardinian taboo has descended on The Lancet,   which having lifted the corner of the taboo by publishing our earlier papers on entrapment [4,15], has found the dilemmas of Rwanda too tough and clamped it down again."

                   MHK. "We appealed to The Lancet's ombudsman*, Tom Sherwood, on the grounds of a lapse in editorial integrity. We argued that, if The Lancet is presented with a terrible dilemma which is within its purview (health, population, etc.), it is bound to air that dilemma, if not from one author, then from another, or if the editor wishes, in an editorial of his own."

                   MHK. "To shy away from this task because the dilemma is too difficult and unpleasant is, we argued not to take up an ethically neutral stance, but to opt for the default position in the dilemma - the status quo - in Rwanda's case, and by implication in much of the rest of Africa, more of the same starvation and slaughter. It denies the readers the opportunity to make up their own minds, it stifles discussion, and it gravely impedes the development of policy and practice. In an accompanying editorial, the editor can take up any position he likes, but air the dilemma, from one source or other, or from his own pen, he absolutely must. Not to publish such a dilemma is to act 'nanny knows best', 'play God', apply the Hardinian taboo, become an ethical censor, and protect 'the gentle reader' from issues that are too terrible for you. After all, you 'gentle  browsers' may jointly be wiser than he is. A priori, we argue, there should be nothing that is too terrible for The Lancet's   readers to get their teeth into and their minds around".

               Lady M. "How any responsible editor could decide not to debate a serious dilemma is more than I can comprehend. What happened?  What ruling did Tom Sherwood the ombudsman give?"

            MHK. "To his eternal shame and to the irreparable damage to the reputation of a great journal,  Tom Sherwood  ruled that there had been no lapse in editorial integrity and that we are merely 'disappointed authors', to which we reply that we would be overjoyed to see the dilemma raised by anyone, or by the editor himself. He also argued that The Lancet now has no intention of  remaining Reithian".   In a  review of his year's work her referred merely to 'a third world dilemma'  -  the entrapment of a continent (and more) which The Lancet dare not discuss!!

               Lady M. "Reithian?? Reithian???"

               MHK. "Lord Reith, was the first Director General of the BBC from 1927 to 1938, and the greatest broadcaster ever. He maintained that it is the responsibility of broadcasting (now 'the media') "...to enlighten and educate..." (OED). He predicted: "offer the public what it wants and it will want what it gets (OED)" - how right he was!  Tom Sherwood   even told us that, to its ultimate disgrace, The Lancet now prefers "... 'the interesting' to 'the important'...!!!".

               Lady M. "A non-Reithian Lancet! What  a loss to humanity!"

               MHK. "Worse. even  than that - 'editorial integrity' - at The Lancet - now means that the editor can consider any dilemma too tough for his readers. With this precedent  he can opt for the default position in any dilemma he likes without discussing it with them. It means too that Rwanda,  Africa and India can proceed to starvation and slaughter with the dialogue not opened and their major dilemmas undiscussed."

               Lady M. "May God rest the souls of both of them".

               MHK. "I should add in their defence that the political pressures upon them are considerable - they are in part both pawns in the hands of powers that are much more sinister than they realize - they are now part of the squad marching in lockstep. Charles and I have now come to see just what the political dimensions of the Hardinian taboo really are. Even so, since 'politics is health and health is politics' - the operation of power in society - The Lancet will have to decide if it is to be the health journal of the whole world, or only of the North, and especially of its one remaining superpower?"

                Lady M. "The USA really has got your world 'screwed down'.  Is The Lancet going to yield to the power of a nation with only 5% of the world's population, but nearly 50% of its health care expenditure - and probably 50% of its own readers? Or is it really interested in the most critical aspects of the health and even the survival of the demographically trapped communities of Africa and Asia. The Lancet calls for 'A good turn for Africa, please'.   [15] Its own very good turn would be to debate the gravest dilemmas of Rwanda's entrapment - and that of the rest of the continent. It has recently wondered "...Who will step forward to provide the strategic and moral leadership that the international community..., now so badly needs?".  [16]  It seems to me that   this leadership ultimately depends on the editorial integrity of your world's major journals, especially The Lancet - without it Africa, in particular, has 'had it'!"
 

                Lady M. "I think you are being jolly mean. Didn't   The Lancet actually  publish a letter in which you could give the name of this website so that the browsers  can  'overhear' our conversation?"  [17]
 

                MHK. "Indeed it did, and for which the trapped must be eternally grateful. I sometimes wonder if the dilemmas we have been discussing are so awful that no prestigious journal,  could discuss them - and the more prestigious the journal, the more difficult. We can only discuss them way up here in the aether - remote  from the  tortured world. The lesser journals have such small readerships that they have no 'impact'. Because their editors know that what is written in them will have no impact, they can be much less worried about what they print.  The lesser journals  are all right for narrower technical issues, but they are quite incapable of generating the necessary benign uproar  - on a topic as important as this.  Some time,  however, these, the most crucial of all dilemmas, are going to have to descend to those beautiful pages of The Lancet and The  Population and Development Review.  The 'PDR' as it refers to itself,  is important, not for its circulation, which is small, but because it is the  most 'respected'  of all the  demographic journals, and all demographers read it. It  sets the norms for what it is  'politically correct' for the profession   to think   and discuss - and what they are to hold  'taboo'."

                 Lady M.  "Population is your world's greatest problem, and the key to many lesser problems. Really lifting the Hardinian taboo and adjusting rationally to fertility and resource consumption is to alter almost every aspect of your existence.  Solving the population problem would be rather like abolishing  original sin.  In short, it is so huge as to be impossible. It 'blows your minds'. There is nothing you can do. Your cognoscenti*,    particularly the US public health establishment,   know this and discuss it - privately. They  also discuss it with the editors of journals."

                   Lady M. "The Hardinian taboo is merely 'the lid on impossibility'. You are thoroughly fixated on the role of the US State Department. You would do well to remember that it is only one of the screws which holds down the lid.  Why not give up, and enjoy yourself mending chairs in your workshop?"

                   MHK.  "And let demography and development economics proceed further into farce?  And let a continent and more proceed to starvation and slaughter - while the world gently cooks itself?  No way!  Sorry!  Whether one decides to lift the taboo is as I have already said, an ethical,  political  and metaphysical stance."

                   Lady M. "Before I go, could you summarize how you guess the various foundation of the Hardinian taboo are operating under particular circumstances?"

                   MHK. "I will do my best. My guess  is that it is mostly the 1-child issue, except for the State Department, where sensitivities over resource consumption is probably paramount.  I rather suspect that The Lancet, has not until now properly understood the Hardinian taboo and its foundations. When it does, and it sees which way the wind is blowing, I imagine  that it will lift the taboo  pretty quickly. Meanwhile, it is  happy that someone else does the embarrassment of its US readership."

                   Lady M. By the way who owns The Lancet, and how much profit does it make?

                   MHK It is owned by the Dutch group Elsevier and in 1996 it made 1.6 million pounds profit. It is thus a milch cow* for the Dutch in the pocket of the Americans. It is now such an increasingly American journal that it even refers to 'London UK.' [22]

                   Lady M. I would not like to have a milch cow in my pocket!  Do you think the editor gets a profit related bonus? This is now usual in commerce.  If he did,  it would seriously compromise his integrity. He would be most unwilling to do anything which would compromise, his readership, his advertisers or The Lancet's profits.
 

                   Lady M.  In view of what has been written about the integrity of The Lancet's contributors,  I think that the editor should reassure his readers that he does not get a profit-related bonus.
 

                 MHK. "I think we deserve a break!!  See you  this evening! "

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