Julian Lincoln Simon (February 12, 1932–February 8, 1998) was professor of business administration at the University of Maryland and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He wrote many books and articles, mostly on economic subjects. He is best known for his work on population, natural resources, and immigration. His works are often quoted by libertarians and have sometimes been described as cornucopian. February 12 is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ... February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (also known as UM, UMD, or UMCP) is a public university located in College Park, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. As the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland, the university is most often referred to as... The Cato Institute is an influential non-profit public policy research foundation (think tank) with strong libertarian leanings (despite wide public perception that it is a conservative think-tank), headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is named after Catos Letters, a series of early 18th century British essays expounding... This article is about libertarianism, a liberal individualist philosophy favoring private property (the most common meaning of the term today in the US, Canada, the UK and most other English-speaking countries). ... A cornucopian (derived from the word cornucopia; sometimes called an anti-Malthusian, from their opposition to the neo-Malthusians and the theories of Thomas Malthus) is one who holds any of a variety of views that are not in the ordinary sense simply optimistic about progress and confident in technological...

His book The Ultimate Resource, later reissued as The Ultimate Resource 2, is a criticism of the conventional wisdom of population growth and resource consumption. In it, Simon challenged the notion of a pending Malthusian catastrophe — that an increase in population has negative economic consequences; that population is a drain on natural resources; and that we stand at risk of running out of resources through over-consumption. His critique was praised by Nobel Laureate economist Friedrich Hayek, but also attracted many critics, such as Paul R. Ehrlich. Conventional wisdom is a term coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith, used to describe certain ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true by the public. ... A Malthusian catastrophe, sometimes known as a Malthusian check, is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. ... Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek (May 8, 1899 in Vienna – March 23, 1992 in Freiburg) was an economist and social scientist of the Austrian School, noted for his defense of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism against a rising tide of socialist and collectivist thought in the mid-20th... Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a Stanford University professor and a renowned entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera (butterflies). ...

A wager between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich was made in 1980 over the price of metals a decade later. Simon had been challenging environmental scientists to the bet for some time. Ehrlich and two other scientists selected a basket of five metals that he thought would rise in price with increasing scarcity and depletion. Simon won the bet, with all five metals dropping in price. Apologists for Ehrlich's position suggest that much of this price drop came because of an oil spike driving prices up in 1980 and a recession driving prices down in 1990, pointing out that the price of the basket of metals actually rose from 1950 to 1975. They also suggest that Ehrlich did not consider the prices of these metals to be critical indicators, and that Ehrlich took the bet with great reluctance. On the other hand, Ehrlich selected the metals to be used himself, and at the time of the bet called it an "astonishing offer" that he was accepting "before other greedy people jump in," hardly suggesting reluctance. Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich entered in a famous wager in 1980, betting on a mutually agreed upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. ... 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...

A common claim laid against Simon is that the actual supplies of none of these metals increased during this time period. This misses Simon's point, however. The results of the wager seem to prove Simon's theories in a much more profound way than what might be commonly realized. The price of Tin went down because of an increased use of Aluminum, a much more abundant, useful and inexpensive material. Better mining technologies allowed for the discovery of vast Nickel lodes, which ended the near monopoly that was enjoyed on the market. Tungsten fell due to the rise of the use of ceramics in cookware. The price of Chrome fell due to better smelting techniques. The price of copper began to fall due to the invention of fiber optic cable (which is derived from sand), which serves a number of the functions once reserved only for copper wire. In all of these cases, better technology allowed for either the more efficient use of existing resources, or the replacement of those resources with something more abundant and less expensive. This notion of technology creating limitless resources and potential for growth is at the very heart of Simon's theories.

In 1995 Simon issued a challenge for a second bet. Ehrlich refused, and proposed instead that they bet on a metric for human welfare. Ehrlich offered Simon a set of 15 metrics over 10 years, victor to be determined by scientists chosen by the president of the NAS in 2005. There was no meeting of the minds, because Simon felt that too many of the metrics measured attributes of the world not directly related to human welfare, e.g. the amount of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. [1] [2]

Julian Simon wrote in a policy report for the Cato Institute "We have in our hands now - actually in our libraries - the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next 7 billion years."[3] Garrett Hardin addressed this claim in his book The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia. He noted that when Albert A. Bartlett, a physicist at the University of Colorado, tried to test Simon's statement on a desk calculator, it flashed "Error," indicating that, multiplying steadily at 1 percent per year for 7 billion years, the population would soon surpass his calculator's limit of 9.99 x 10^99. Bartlett's calculation assumed exponential population growth, with the population doubling every 43 years. When confronted with this error in his statement, Simon said, "Oh, I meant 7 million years." Garrett Hardin then pointed out that at the recent rate of population growth of 1 percent annually, the time it would take for the human population to equal all the atoms in the universe is just 17,000 years. However, the question may be somewhat moot as birth rates are declining in many developed and developing countries. This decline has led UN organizations to predict that global population growth will actually level off somewhere between about 9 billion in 2050 and 11 billion in 2100. Malthusian theories further do not appear to apply to recent life in the modern world because global prices for food have been falling while population levels have been rising. The Cato Institute is an influential non-profit public policy research foundation (think tank) with strong libertarian leanings (despite wide public perception that it is a conservative think-tank), headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is named after Catos Letters, a series of early 18th century British essays expounding... Garrett Hardin Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was a controversial ecologist from Dallas, Texas who was most known for his 1968 paper, The Tragedy of the commons. ...

Simon was one of the founders of free-market environmentalism. An article profiling Julian Simon in Wired magazine inspired Bjørn Lomborg to write the book The Skeptical Environmentalist. Free market environmentalism is an ideology that argues the free market is the best tool to preserve the health and sustainability of the environment. ... Bjørn Lomborg Bjørn Lomborg (born January 6, 1965) is a Danish political scientist and former director of the Institute for Environmental Assessment in Copenhagen. ... The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (TSE) (Danish: Verdens Sande Tilstand) is a controversial book by political scientist Bjørn Lomborg, which argues that claims made about global warming, overpopulation, declining energy resources, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, and a variety of other global environmental issues...

Simon was also the first to suggest that airlines should provide rewards for travelers to give up their seats on overbooked airlines rather than arbitrarily keep certain passengers off the plane. Although the airline industry initally laughed at him, his plant was later implemented with resounding success

Simon was an omnivorous reader, and took some steps toward writing a memoir, A Life Against the Grain, which was published by his wife after his death.

Books

• The Economic Consequences of Immigration into the United States
• Effort, Opportunity, and Wealth: Some Economics of the Human Spirit
• Good Mood: The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression ISBN 0812690982 (Forewords by Albert Ellis and Kenneth Colby)
• The Hoodwinking of a Nation ISBN 1560004347
• A Life Against the Grain: The Autobiography of an Unconventional Economist ISBN 0765805324
• Scarcity or Abundance? A Debate on the Environment
• The Philosophy and Practice of Resampling Statistics
• Resampling: A Better Way to Teach (and Do) Statistics (with Peter C. Bruce)
• The Science and Art of Thinking Well in Science, Business, the Arts, and Love
• The Ultimate Resource II ISBN 0691003815
• Economics of Population: Key Modern Writings ISBN 1852787651
• It's Getting Better All the Time : 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years by Stephen Moore, Julian Lincoln Simon ISBN 1882577973 manuscript finished posthumously by Stephen Moore

Albert Ellis in 2003. ...

References

• Kenneth N. Gilpin. "Julian Simon, 65, Optimistic Economist, Dies." The New York Times. February 12, 1998. B11.

The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... February 12 is the 43rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ...

Books critical of Julian Simon

• Ehrlich, Paul R. Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future, 1996. (ISBN 1-55963-483-9)
• Grant, Lindsey. Elephants in the Volkswagen, 1992. (ISBN 0-7167-2268-2)
• Hardin, Garrett. The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia, 1998. (ISBN 0-19-512274-7)

External links

• Writings by Julian L. Simon Available on WWW
• Liberty Institute First Annual Julian L. Simon Memorial Lecture
• The Simon Market in Science Claims
• Julian Simon's Bet With Paul Ehrlich
• Julian Simon Remembered It's A Wonderful Life
• FMN and Heartland: Remembering Julian Simon
• Reason Magazine: David Foreman vs. the Cornucopians
• MIT Technology Review: Environmental Heresies

• Many of the writings of Julian Simon are available online at: http://www.juliansimon.org/