Over time, populations adapt to their circumstances. In a society in which Malthusian pressures operate, and the thrifty and peaceful out-reproduce the violent

Over time, populations adapt to their circumstances. In a society in which Malthusian pressures operate, and the thrifty and peaceful out-reproduce the violent and improvident, society will become more thrifty and peaceful over time -- and will eventually become prosperous and organized enough to escape the Malthusian trap. (The opposite pressures can also operate, but you need external sources of chaos for selection in favor of chaos to occur. Order is normally self-establishing, self-reinforcing, and stronger than chaos over time.) A Farewell to Alms discusses this in great detail; England began the Industrial Revolution (i.e. broke out of the Malthusian trap) in the late 18th century, but if not for them, the Continent would have done it in the 19th; if not the Continent, then Japan in the late 19th or China sometime in the 20th.