Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

Ehrlich suggested the sterilization of all men in India who had at least three children. America, he writes, should have volunteered logistical support for the operation, since its success is our concern as well. “Coercion? Perhaps, but coercion in a good cause.”59 The Indian government sterilized more than 10 million people in the 1970s using a range of coercive techniques, pushed by the withholding of American food aid, a stance Ehrlich publicly supported.60 While the world community got population growth under control, migration controls were needed to “prevent swamping of aided areas by the less fortunate.”61