David Nolan was born Thanksgiving Week, 1943, and died Thanksgiving Week, 2010. He is survived by, and will be remembered for, the two babies he sired in 1971: the Libertarian Party, and the Nolan Chart. One answered Nixonomics, the other, a gaping hole in the traditional political spectrum.
Spectra have but one dimension, and this one's was based on one's desired direction of change. The Left end chases a Golden Age in the future, the Right, one in the past. To Nolan, though, the seating arrangement of France's National Assembly ca. Vendémiaire, Year I, made little sense in the Age of Aquarius. He wanted liberty, not change, and that didn't follow any one line.
It followed two.
Splitting liberty into two components, the "personal" and the "economic", Nolan argued that the ends of the old spectrum were consistently inconsistent thereon. There were also two other "ends", his own libertarian, and a corresponding illibertarian—basically, the entire "Greatest Generation"—opposite.
Be square, or don't be there. As with Whitney's cotton gin, Nolan's wasn't the only such chart around, but it was the one that worked, and the one that caught on. Yet handy as it's been all these years, thanks to Sen. Kennedy, among others, it is increasingly obsolete.
Sadly, the National Question turns the chart to hash. A consistent Libertarian stance on immigration is certainly possible: allow all, support none. But what is the Conservative, Liberal, or Populist position? In which corner do immigration patriots fit?
Though Nolan's chart itself fails us, his underlying process saves the day. As Nolan split freedom into personal and economic dimensions, so too can we split population growth into the domestic and the imported.
Thus, to mark the anniversary of David Nolan's passing, we introduce the Demographic Diamond, appropriately rotated so the high-growth ends of the axes meet at the top:
Cornucopians desire domestic and imported growth, Dystopians oppose both. Of those who prefer just one source of increase, Utopians wish to import it. Fallopians opt for a cottage industry instead. Here's a rough guide to the quadrants:
The ultimate "Fallopians"? Why, the very Pilgrims, and Puritans, who pased down Thanksgiving to us. Ten kids per family, and no immigrants, for two hundred years!
Of course, VDARE.com's writers and readers will fall only in the latter two camps. E.g., Brenda Walker, Donald Collins and Linda Thom are clearly Dystopian. Steve Sailer, with his Affordable Family Formation, is the foremost Fallopian.
Each quadrant will be at war with the one opposite, and make an uneasy alliance with the two adjacent. And those two will be at war with one another. Now you understand the battle in your mailbox.
Finally, notice that one quadrant is the odd man out. Cornucopians, Dystopians and Fallopians all make sense in their own way. Not Utopians. Tax yourself into barrenness to fund the fecundity of others?
Keep in mind two things about these Utopians:
How did we get here? And how do we get out?
Ron Kyser [Email him] has written repeatedly for VDARE.COM. He writes: 'Put me in the Fallopian camp. Our second child is due around Rossini's birthday (readers can look that up) and they'll need reinforcements.'
