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The tendency of human population to keep on growing has been a hot subject of debate ever since the Reverend Thomas R. Malthus published his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Malthus, the original "dismal scientist", observed that the population of the new North American colonies was tending to increase at an exponential rate (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, ...). The production of food, he reasoned, tends to increase at only an arithmetic rate (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...). This was really just an illustration, for Malthus had no means of checking his figures. He contended, however, that human population would always increase faster than subsistence, and that this process would go on until it came to be halted -- either by the "preventive check" of civilized restraint of breeding, or the "positive check" of disease, war and death.
Almost a century later, Henry George (in Progress and Poverty, 1879) went to a lot of trouble to refute Malthus's influential theory, not only because of its logical fallacies but because it was a very useful tool to those who want to avoid having to deal with social problems. In George's words, "For poverty, want and starvation are by this theory not chargeable either to individual greed or to social maladjustments; they are the inevitable results of universal laws... with which it were as hopeless to quarrel as the law of gravitation." George pointed out that increase of population, rather than making people starve, always tends to increase productivity, unless workers are denied an opportunity to make a living. The wealthiest communities in history have always tended to be the most densely populated. In every apparent instance of "overpopulation", the true cause of famine and misery has always been the appropriation of land by a few, denying people the opportunity to produce when they need.
In recent history, the success of modern farming methods has renewed an optimistic assessment of the human race's ability to feed itself. For example, although the Earth's population doubled between 1950 and 2000, world production of grain has nearly tripled, as more and more people are feeding grain to raise animals for meat, rather than consuming it directly. And, estimates of eventual population growth have consistently revised downward in the decades since Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb in 1968. Current estimates call for world population to level off at between 9 and 11 billion within the next hundred years (it currently stands at nearly 6.5 billion). The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the maximum food production of the earth, using modern farming methods, to be enough to support some 33 billion people. Demographic research shows that population growth tends to slow down when:
- Living standards go up. Wealthy societies such as the US and Western Europe have very slow rates of population growth.
- People, particularly women, become better educated.
- When people move from farms to cities, where children serve less on an economic purpose.
Nowadays, the spectre of Malthusianism is being raised again -- not so much in the area of human population but rather in the effect of human activity on the natural world. Our demonstrated ability to feed a growing population could actually be a danger -- if it allows us to do ever-greater damage to the natural world. We are polluting the air and water, and using up resources, at a rate that cannot be sustained. Growth, in this view, will ultimately kill us -- we must learn to do with less. Some call for a "steady state" economy that no longer focuses on growth. But -- critics point out -- what about all the poverty and starvation, the preventable disease and misery in our world today? Must not our economy grow in order to provide for more of the suffering people -- and those yet to be born?
It seems that human society faces a huge dilemma: either we doom half of the earth's people to poverty -- or we eventually use up our planet's capacity to support life. Score one for old Malthus. But: are they really the only choices? To answer that question, we will have to gain a clearer understanding of what we really mean by "economic growth".
Background Questions
- What are some problems that seem to accompany economic growth?
- According to Malthus, would be the eventual result of increasing population?
- According to George, what fact about production did Malthus overlook?
- Even if enough food can be produced for a growing population, what are some other dangers posed by continual growth?
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