POPULATION GEOGRAPHY THE MARXIST THEORY OF POPULATION POPULATION GEOGRAPHY THE MARXIST THEORY OF POPULATION. PRESENTER: JUDITH NAKAMBA STUDENT No. 1405167953

THE MARXIST THEORY OF POPULATION “Marxism” is an economic doctrine or theory of revolution and the basic explanation for how societies go through the process of change. Marxism further refer to sets of ideas that were based on the writings of Karl Marx (1818 – 1883).

Marxists believe that they and they alone have the analytical tools to understand the process of historical change as well as the key to predicting the future .

According to Marx, the capitalist society consists of two basic classes: Capitalists who own the means of production and Workers who own nothing except their labour power.

Marx and Engels reacted very strongly against Malthus’ population theory which they felt was an apology for the status quo. Throughout their work, they referred to Malthus in a very ironic and disdainful manner. The Marxist principle of population is based on the reserve army of labour or relative surplus population. Thus, to understand the Marxist theory of population, it is important to understand his concept of surplus labour.

What has been considered as surplus population is a necessary product of accumulation of wealth on a capitalist basis or a lever of capitalistic development It also leads to the progressive replacement of superior labour power by inferior labour power.

There are four forms of the relative surplus population or industrial reserve army as follows: Floating surplus Latent surplus Stagnant surplus Paupers Any member of the working class who is unemployed or partially employed belongs to the aforementioned pool.

Marxists reject the Malthusian solutions to the problems created by the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system. For instance, they suggest “demand for labour is determined not by the amount of capital as a whole, but by its variable constituent alone and demand falls relatively to the magnitude of the total social capital at an accelerated rate” (Marx, 1970).

The inherent feature of the capitalist mode of production means the constant presence of a ‘relative surplus population’ or ‘reserve army of labour’ whose size and composition will vary with the concrete needs of capital accumulation within the context of any given social formation where the capitalist mode of production may prevail.

In modern division of labour, only a small number of workers continue to find employment while the majority are regularly discharged. This majority constitutes the – floating surplus

Latent surplus is associated with the agricultural sector in the countryside. Both stagnant and pauperized agricultural workers form part of irregular employment, low wages and longer working hours. A good example of this type of surplus is in domestic industry.

pauperism consists of the lowest sediment of the surplus population that consists of the so called “dangerous classes such as the vagabonds, criminals, prostitutes including orphans and pauper children, the demoralised and ragged and those unable to work such as the aged, the sickly, the widows who can work but have become pauper due to the economic crisis. and the victims of industry (the mutilated)…

From this Marxist perspective, the changes in population dynamics are governed by social systems that are created on the basis of relations of production. It is the structure of society and the economy which shapes demographic processes and attempts to manipulate population variables in the absence of transformation.

Marxists argue that the present population explosion is a typical kind of analysis prevalent in academic circles. According to them, Malthus overlooked the issue of death rate as they said the death rate created the gap between birth rates and death rates but Malthus’ theory was one sided. Therefore, they were against the implementation of birth control or family planning programmes.

In support of the capitalist view, some scholars further said that an increase in population can never be a crisis and thought ‘a baby comes to the world not only with a mouth and a stomach but also with a pair of hands’ which means that an increase in population means an increase in manpower and the accumulation and expansion of capital.

In conclusion Marxists were primarily concerned with developing an understanding of the role of population in capitalist societies and disapproved the Malthusian view of the problem and paid little attention to the political controversies surrounding such issues and the rise of the birth control movement.

Contd. Therefore, taking the perspective of population reality of today, it is more complex in many aspects from what it was during the times of Malthus and Marx.However, nations were responsive to their own individual contemporary situations.