Thomas Malthus and others!

Microsoft Encarta ‘97

English economist to 1834 Witnessed huge population increases in European cities (England) due to Industrial Revolution. Wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) in which he argued that populations grow geometrically (exponentially) – 1,2,4,8,16,32… but food supply only arithmetically - 1,2,3,4,5,6,…. Population would soon outstrip food supply.

Stage Food supply Population A 11 B 22 C 34 D 48 E 516 etc.

Population and Food are in sync in stages A, B and even C. But in stage D and E you begin to have a large gap. People start to suffer and die of famine. Riots and war could break out, more people die. Diseases and plagues kill even more. The population is reduced back to stage C or even B. The above “killers” are called population checks.

Population checked - at least for awhile. Sometimes called Malthusian checks. Argued that “moral restraint” was only hope: no premarital sex, later marriages. Very Victorian, very religious.

However, didn’t happen as he forecast. Birth rates declined soon after death rates did. Contraception became more widespread. Industrialization and urbanization meant less need for family labour. Child labour laws and mandatory schooling laws meant children had to be supported far longer. Therefore family sizes decreased.

Better health (public and personal hygiene and better food) meant lower death rates. More children survived; people lived longer. Children became economic liabilities instead of assets. Family size shrank. Never reached stage D or E, BUT…

In a developing world the population did not reduce itself, it remained high. Population checks did take effect and killed many people. But along came Emergency Aid, the Red Cross, CARE and the UN, etc. People that were, according to Malthus, slated to die – survived into stages D and E. That is why we have areas of the world with massive famine. With aid: “Are we saving lives or prolonging deaths?”

Karl Marx ( ) German political philosopher and revolutionist, cofounder of scientific socialism (modern communism) as such, one of the most influential thinkers of all times major critic of Malthus

Marx objected to Malthus because he saw his arguments to control population as merely maintaining the status quo, in other words protecting the already rich. It was a bourgeois (rich) point of view that would result in the same social inequalities. Malthus saw population growth as the fundamental cause of poverty; Marx saw the capitalist system as the primary cause.

It wasn’t so much a matter of the numbers of people but the inequitable distribution of wealth created by the capitalist economic system. Marx also saw surplus population differently. Malthus saw it as a result of population growth. One argument used when people see starving children on TV is: “It’s their problem, why don’t they just have less kids.”

Marx saw it as a consequence of the capitalist system that relies upon a pool of unemployed or a reserve of a cheap labour force. An argument for the above point is: “In order to have rich we need the poor. Someone has to work for cheap. In the one hour that I work in a factory, I make $10 while the boss makes $1000 off of my one hour work. We have enough food and resources we just have to spread them out more evenly!” How much does a star athelete make?

A great cartoon (it was too difficult to reproduce here – text was taken from the “Internationalist” magazine, Sept ) shows us the difference between Malthus and Marx clearly: A wealthy man in a suit approaches a farmer working in his field. The rich man says to the poor farmer: “I don’t wish to interfere but do you realize that world population is going to increase by nearly 50% in 20 years? What are you going to do about it?”

The poor farmer responds: “What’s wrong with people? I like people.” To which the rich man answers: “ Well so do I, of course. But you see the world’s resources can’t stand an ever-increasing population.” So the farmer responds: “I see. So it’s a problem of resources as well as people.” The rich man proudly answers: “Yes.”

The farmer then says: “So the answer is resource control as well as birth control.” The rich man hesitates with a: “Y…yes.” Finally the poor farmer concludes: “Well then, I don’t want to interfere but do you realize that the rich 10% of the world consume 90% of the resources? What are you going to do about that?”

This is a very powerful statement and if you think about it maybe that’s why there is war and unrest and terrorism throughout the world! Paul Ehrlich In 1968 he published a book “The Population Time Bomb” He believed rapid population growth would cause mass famine and economic catastrophe

In his book, he predicted millions of people would starve to death during the 1970s and 1980s. This did not occur because food production increased faster than population growth during these times. Currently he is focusing on the impacts of overpopulation, over consumption and damaging technologies may have on the environment – global warming, acid rain, ozone depletion, starvation, malnutrition, war, crime and disease.

Population size and environmental problems are not linked to developing nations only The U.S. is a good example – population problems occur in rich countries as well – the blackout, pollution, crime etc. Ehrlich does not believe that science will save us. Science has helped in increasing food production, but it has not improved the distribution of food and science has destroyed the soil through fertilization and pesticide use.

Humans are subject to the earth’s carrying capacity – the maximum number of individuals that a habitat can support. The optimum global population will be determined by levels of energy consumption – especially fossil fuels. Wow, this is an amazing prediction based on the blackout of 2003! Rich countries consume 70% of all energy. If the world’s population grows to 10 billion, the energy consumption in the developed world will jump to 90%.

He believes that the earth is already 2 billion people over based on the current energy consumption levels. Even if populations are reduced through education, health care and birth control, it would be difficult to convince the developed world to decrease their affluence. (again what happened during the blackout of 2003) Ehrlich believes there are too many people consuming too much!

Julian Simon Mr. Simon believes that the neo- Malthusians are all wrong. They are wrong about, food, energy, resources and the environment. Life expectancy has increased, food production has increased, we have discovered more resources. Simon says that things are not resources until we (humans) figure out how to use them. He believes we have an infinite amount of resources, once we learn how to use them.

Humans will find ways to conserve resources or we will develop substitutes. Technology will help us. This is called a Cornucopian point of view. There is still room for improvement. We can clear more land for farming. We can irrigate more desert. We can drain more wetlands. Simon sees the human race as an asset not a liability.

Simon agrees with Esther Boserup – she states that agricultural methods dictates the size of the population. More people – grow more food – for a more indepth look at Boserup – click here.click here Who is right Boserup (Simon) or Ehrlich or Malthus? A Debate!

The End!