from a logical sense - a smaller population would be WAY better.
I think 'the elite' or whoever needs a lot of people building, working, learning and inventing if only for their own prolonged survival. In other words, you want there to be many scientists discovering drugs to make life longer. you want people inventing the next killer life ap - automobile, computer, etc.
So I think *if* they ever want to shave back the 7 or 8 or 10 bil people siphoning all our resources, they should just sterilize the poor countries. Sad, but logical. You don't kill anyone, you just make sure they can't have 12 babies who will have 15 of their own.
I think people in America will keep getting fatter and will shorten their lives by virtue of the McD and hours of computer time - plus thru education and diff goals, our population is actually shrinkin the RIGHT WAY - by people choosing to have only 1 or 2 kids, and at age 30 or 35 instead of 5 kids starting at age 17.
So that's my guess... slowing population growth is a good thing, but you'll always want a good sized group to continue inventing things and to do the work that makes the world go round.