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Gloom and doom

When I was an undergraduate, Thomas Malthus� 1798 An Essay on the Principle of Population was on the geography curriculum, and as a studious student, I read (some of) it.

It was depressing, as the gist seemed to be that we’re all going to die. All of us. Slowly. Painfully. Because population grows exponentially, whereas the ability of humans to feed themselves grows only arithmetically/ linearly.


Image: Linear versus exponential growth (.)

So we’ll starve. And before that, we’ll be too poor to buy what food there is, because population growth will increase the labour supply and drive down wages. The birth rate must be cut. Celibacy should be promoted, too. And higher death rates accepted.

Kenneth Boulding’s poem, from a 20th century environmental angle, seemed to agree:

A Conservationist’s Lament

The world is finite, resources are scarce,
Things are bad and will be worse.
Coal is burned and gas exploded,
Forests cut and soils eroded.
Wells are dry and air’s polluted,
Dust is blowing, trees uprooted,
Oil is going, ores depleted,
Drains receive what is excreted.
Land is sinking, seas are rising,
Man is far too enterprising.
Fire will rage with Man to fan it,
Soon we’ll have a plundered planet.
People breed like fertile rabbits,
People have disgusting habits.

Moral:
The evolutionary plan
Went astray by evolving Man.

(Douglas Adams agreed with that moral.)

Soylent pink?

I also discovered that seventy years before Malthus� book, Jonathan Swift had a different solution to the problem of overpopulation. A Modest Proposal starts with grim descriptions of extreme poverty and hunger in Ireland:
�It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms� [and] women murdering their bastard children.�

A particular problem is that children are an expense for years before their parents can get any return on the investment they can’t afford in the first place:
�I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl, before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity.�

After such concern, his “modest� proposal is a total shock, and would have been even more so to 18th century readers unused to deadpan satire:
�A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasee, or a ragoust.�


Image: Dinner! (.)

He goes into great detail, not just culinary, but about the practicalities of the trade. He indirectly mocks his own suggestion by saying the only possible objection anyone might have is that it would reduce the population, which, he points out, is his intention. And just in case readers can’t think of any better solutions, such as raising taxes, controlling rents, buying local products, he lists them (supposedly to dismiss them).

But we’re still here

(I hope that writing that during the Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic isn’t tempting fate.)

When I was reading Swift and Malthus a couple of centuries after they were written, there was certainly poverty and hunger around the world, even in England, and the Chinese was being strictly enforced. Malthusianism hadn’t gone away, but it hadn’t entirely come true either. I had no immediate fears of starvation or even poverty.

Why was this, I wondered? Kenneth Boulding had an answer:

The Technologist’s Reply

Man’s potential is quite terrific,
You can’t go back to the Neolithic.
The cream is there for us to skim it,
Knowledge is power, and the sky’s the limit.
Every mouth has hands to feed it,
Food is found when people need it.
All we need is found in granite
Once we have the men to plan it.
Yeast and algae give us meat,
Soil is almost obsolete.
Men can grow to pastures greener
Till all the earth is Pasadena.

Moral:
Man’s a nuisance, Man’s a crackpot.
But only Man can hit the jackpot.

Back then, I was firmly with the optimistic technologist.

As a cynical middle-aged adult in a country torn by Brexit and ravaged by a global pandemic, I think both poems miss the crucial social-political aspects, and the fact that humans are not omnipotent.

Science has certainly helped, but it's not all positive:
* Crops and livestock have higher yields and are more resistant to disease - but there are risks from GM and antibiotic resistance.
* Land that was unsuitable for farming, can now be used - but irrigation in one place leaves others barren.
* Machines work faster than people - so some lose their jobs.
* Packaging and chilling reduce damage - and yet waste increases.
* Efficiency increases in many spheres - but that increases demand, so resources are used up faster ().
* Technological advances benefit the rich more than the poor.

And we could all be wiped out by a virus. Cheers!


Image: Optimist, pessimist, realist, opportunist (.)

Sources

You can read Swift and Malthus, free on Gutenberg:
* A Modest Proposal,
* An Essay on the Principle of Population, .