11. Plato’s student Aristotle echoed some of his views on population control
Aristotle was a student of Plato’s who agreed with much of what he learned from his teacher, though he also criticized him. Aristotle agreed with the need for the state to regulate the ownership and occupancy of land. But he observed that families which grew beyond the means of the parents to support them regardless of circumstances were inevitably reduced to poverty. To Aristotle, the equitable sharing of land should be accompanied by regulation “of the number of children in the family”. Aristotle also warned overpopulation led to increased poverty and crime, and thus the state must regulate reproduction rates for its own protection.
“If no restriction is imposed on the rate of reproduction, and this is the case in most of our existing states, poverty is the inevitable result; and poverty produces in its turn, civic dissension and wrongdoing”, warned Aristotle. He cited Crete’s government’s “segregation of women to prevent them from having too many children” as an example of population control. “A great state is not the same as a populous state”, he warned. Aristotle also believed that excess population was a threat to democratic government, and thus population control was necessary protection in a democratic state.