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The mention of Malthus always inspires me to recommend the best book I've read in the past few years: http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-Histor

by ojbyrne 14y ago

The mention of Malthus always inspires me to recommend the best book I've read in the past few years: http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/dp/0691121354 http://www.amazon.com/Farewell-Alms-Brief-Economic-History/d... tl;dr: Malthus was right.

nowarninglabel 14y ago
Malthus was right about what? He was wrong about nearly every single main hypothesis he made! What are you saying he got right? http://www.economist.com/node/11374623 http://www.economist.com/node/11374623 http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1837 http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1837 Have you actually read Malthus' works?
- ojbyrne 14y ago
  The book I referenced basically says that western civilization is an aberration caused by a unique set of characteristics, and that the vast majority of people in the world still live in subsistence conditions. Also that the west could easily slip back into those conditions.
  - mseebach 14y ago
    But what does that have to do with Malthus?
    - ojbyrne 14y ago
      The book says that many 3rd world countries are in a "Malthusian trap" - any increase in income levels results in a population increase that overwhelms the higher income. Bangladesh is a good example.
- pauljonas 14y ago
  Up until 1800, Malthus was spot-on -- any advance in technology that was greeted by population increase would snap back to an equilibrium, with war|disease|hunger inflicting the correction. Gregory Clarke goes into great detail, with statistics on caloric consumption, lifestyle, etc.. that show that the average person at the pre-dawn of the industrial revolution did not experience conditions much more favorable than those of Roman times. http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/malthusian.png http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/malthusian.png
jakeonthemove 14y ago
No... no he wasn't...
- TDL 14y ago
  Would you care to elaborate. Which of hypothesis was Malthus right about and which was he wrong about? "No... no he wasn't..." adds no value to the discussion.
  - rprospero 14y ago
    At the simplest level, Malthus predicted that the population would outpace food production by the mid 19th century. So, on that level, he’s objectively wrong. The main problems are the assumption that food production grows linearly and that population grows geometrically. For food production, scientific advances have kept food production growing far faster than linear. With future advances in technology, I could believe a 10x increase in food production in my lifetime. No one is predicting a population of 70 billion any time soon. Also, the population isn’t growing geometrically. For the trivial answer, the growth has been more exponential. However, there have again been scientific advancements that Malthus simply couldn’t have forseen. Effective birth control keeps the population count lower. The switch from agrarian to urban culture has eliminated most of the advantages of producing large families and heavily rewarded producing smaller ones. In terms of hard facts, the world population growth rate has been declining since 1963. The UN’s medium projection of population growth predicts a population downturn by 2050. At the basest level, he was right that the population can’t grow indefinitely. However, most claims that are more specific than that haven’t panned out.
    - gbog 14y ago
      So he was wrong because he had a too narrow view of the problem. I live in China, overpopulation means something here but even then any plane trip over any part of the world will show you, if washe weather allows, that humanity is not the cancer some describe.there is still plenty of room.
lotharbot 14y ago
Malthus thinks that population grows like the dark gray line in [0]. Verhulst, and pretty much everyone else who has studied population dynamics [1], thinks population grows like the light gray line (though perhaps with more complexity.) Notice the actual population data following the light gray line. [0] http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Kurzweil_files/image004.gif http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Kurzweil_files/image... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function#In_ecology:_modeling_population_growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function#In_ecology:_m...
- Fuzzwah 14y ago
  This thread triggered a memory of a couple of amazing TED talks Hans Rosling presented: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g... Oh joy, he has a new TED talk posted in March that I haven't seen yet. Thanks!

by ojbyrne 14y ago

nowarninglabel 14y ago

Malthus was right about what? He was wrong about nearly every single main hypothesis he made! What are you saying he got right? http://www.economist.com/node/11374623 http://www.economist.com/node/11374623 http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1837 http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1837 Have you actually read Malthus' works?

ojbyrne 14y ago
The book I referenced basically says that western civilization is an aberration caused by a unique set of characteristics, and that the vast majority of people in the world still live in subsistence conditions. Also that the west could easily slip back into those conditions.
- mseebach 14y ago
  But what does that have to do with Malthus?
  - ojbyrne 14y ago
    The book says that many 3rd world countries are in a "Malthusian trap" - any increase in income levels results in a population increase that overwhelms the higher income. Bangladesh is a good example.
pauljonas 14y ago
Up until 1800, Malthus was spot-on -- any advance in technology that was greeted by population increase would snap back to an equilibrium, with war|disease|hunger inflicting the correction. Gregory Clarke goes into great detail, with statistics on caloric consumption, lifestyle, etc.. that show that the average person at the pre-dawn of the industrial revolution did not experience conditions much more favorable than those of Roman times. http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/malthusian.png http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/malthusian.png

jakeonthemove 14y ago

No... no he wasn't...

TDL 14y ago
Would you care to elaborate. Which of hypothesis was Malthus right about and which was he wrong about? "No... no he wasn't..." adds no value to the discussion.
- rprospero 14y ago
  At the simplest level, Malthus predicted that the population would outpace food production by the mid 19th century. So, on that level, he’s objectively wrong. The main problems are the assumption that food production grows linearly and that population grows geometrically. For food production, scientific advances have kept food production growing far faster than linear. With future advances in technology, I could believe a 10x increase in food production in my lifetime. No one is predicting a population of 70 billion any time soon. Also, the population isn’t growing geometrically. For the trivial answer, the growth has been more exponential. However, there have again been scientific advancements that Malthus simply couldn’t have forseen. Effective birth control keeps the population count lower. The switch from agrarian to urban culture has eliminated most of the advantages of producing large families and heavily rewarded producing smaller ones. In terms of hard facts, the world population growth rate has been declining since 1963. The UN’s medium projection of population growth predicts a population downturn by 2050. At the basest level, he was right that the population can’t grow indefinitely. However, most claims that are more specific than that haven’t panned out.
  - gbog 14y ago
    So he was wrong because he had a too narrow view of the problem. I live in China, overpopulation means something here but even then any plane trip over any part of the world will show you, if washe weather allows, that humanity is not the cancer some describe.there is still plenty of room.

lotharbot 14y ago

Malthus thinks that population grows like the dark gray line in [0]. Verhulst, and pretty much everyone else who has studied population dynamics [1], thinks population grows like the light gray line (though perhaps with more complexity.) Notice the actual population data following the light gray line. [0] http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Kurzweil_files/image004.gif http://www.growth-dynamics.com/articles/Kurzweil_files/image... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function#In_ecology:_modeling_population_growth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function#In_ecology:_m...

Fuzzwah 14y ago
This thread triggered a memory of a couple of amazing TED talks Hans Rosling presented: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_y... http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth.html http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_g... Oh joy, he has a new TED talk posted in March that I haven't seen yet. Thanks!