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Malthusianism

car_analogy 5y ago
> Environmentalist Stewart Brand summarized how the Malthusian predictions of The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth failed to materialize due to radical changes in fertility: "The theory’s Malthusian premise has been proven wrong since 1963, when the rate of population growth reached a frightening 2 percent a year but then began dropping." The fertility reduction in industrialized societies is a common "debunking" of Malthusianism, but it's dangerously short-sighted. Like antibiotics, industrial societies select for that part of the population that can multiply despite the change in environment. Total fertility falls at first, until the resistant strain grows to a significant fraction of the population.
_8j50 5y ago
Eh? Population growth is largley driven by psychoogy and sentiment of the population. You can see birth rate drop in the US now because of rising cost of living for example. The argument may still hold true but population growth is not exponential, it can drop as much as it can rise. Longer life span also means increased social burden and costs. Having to care for parents through their 80s and 90s means you can't afford as many kids as you could have afforded. And it also has to do with expected quality of life. Middle class in the west is has more expectations of what a good enough quality of life for Children should be as opposed to most if africa or parts of India.
WaxedChewbacca 5y ago
goatsneez 5y ago
In the words of John Oliver "How is this still a thing?" (This concept and all its derivatives have been proven wrong by actual evidence for over 200 year (we also now understand that from physics point of view this is also wrong). And it is not that Malthusianism was right in some degree or on some issue, it not only has been wrong across the entire spectrum of its prediction, but the best thing is that the exact opposite to what has been predicted has occurred (unprecedented, undreamed off prosperity by and large). If someone is interested to study this point of view further, google journal articles which concentrate on showing that carrying capacity is a concept not applicable to human societies (as long as they are not strongly correlated -- in other words -- as long as we are free to trade and make our own economic decisions. For economic planners, closed and totalitarian (those opposed to individual freedom and private property rights) might arrive at a border with a concept similar to carrying capacity.

> Environmentalist Stewart Brand summarized how the Malthusian predictions of The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth failed to materialize due to radical changes in fertility: "The theory’s Malthusian premise has been proven wrong since 1963, when the rate of population growth reached a frightening 2 percent a year but then began dropping." The fertility reduction in industrialized societies is a common "debunking" of Malthusianism, but it's dangerously short-sighted. Like antibiotics, industrial societies select for that part of the population that can multiply despite the change in environment. Total fertility falls at first, until the resistant strain grows to a significant fraction of the population.

_8j50 5y ago

Eh? Population growth is largley driven by psychoogy and sentiment of the population. You can see birth rate drop in the US now because of rising cost of living for example. The argument may still hold true but population growth is not exponential, it can drop as much as it can rise. Longer life span also means increased social burden and costs. Having to care for parents through their 80s and 90s means you can't afford as many kids as you could have afforded. And it also has to do with expected quality of life. Middle class in the west is has more expectations of what a good enough quality of life for Children should be as opposed to most if africa or parts of India.

WaxedChewbacca 5y ago

goatsneez 5y ago

In the words of John Oliver "How is this still a thing?" (This concept and all its derivatives have been proven wrong by actual evidence for over 200 year (we also now understand that from physics point of view this is also wrong). And it is not that Malthusianism was right in some degree or on some issue, it not only has been wrong across the entire spectrum of its prediction, but the best thing is that the exact opposite to what has been predicted has occurred (unprecedented, undreamed off prosperity by and large). If someone is interested to study this point of view further, google journal articles which concentrate on showing that carrying capacity is a concept not applicable to human societies (as long as they are not strongly correlated -- in other words -- as long as we are free to trade and make our own economic decisions. For economic planners, closed and totalitarian (those opposed to individual freedom and private property rights) might arrive at a border with a concept similar to carrying capacity.