Malthusian Bullshit

[Mute Fox]

Hello again comrades...it's time for another addition of "stupid things my petty-bourgeois friend says." Honestly at this point it's useless for me to continue arguing with him, but every time he says something stupid it's another opportunity for me to come here and learn all the reasons why he's wrong :D

This time, I would like your opinions on the idea of human "overpopulation." Specifically, I'd like to know what you think about the differences between how a capitalist and a communist society make the most of the earth's space and resources. Also of interest would be any facts related to how under capitalism, we currently have enough space and resources to provide for billions, yet so many suffer from the effects of space and resource scarcity.

Basically my friend and I were having another heated argument over the possibility of communism, and it headed into the direction of the "human nature" stuff *gag* and then finally into the arena of "communism will never work because we'll always need war, because war keeps population down and if there was no war we'd overpopulate the planet and end up having to kill each other anyway."

...

Which no doubt is unspeakably retarded. I'd just like to hear why you guys think so.

[mikelepore]

It's common in biology for many species to grow in population up to the point where the environment can't feed any larger number. This is probably different for people only because people are intelligent enough to invent birth control methods. However we could still have environmental problems that are proportional to the size of the population, such as the amount of land allocated each year to create new garbage dumps, the clearing of forests, topsoil depletion, or the use of nonrenewable resources. Different social systems could respond differently, but, whatever they do, any remaining extent of the problem would still be proportional to the size of the population, so overpopulation may continue to be a recurrent problem in any social system.

[Mute Fox]

I fully understand that no society would be exempt from the potential problems of overpopulation; obviously, the amount of people that can comfortably live on this planet is limited by material circumstances. My contention, and the cause of my disagreement with my friend, is merely that the world is not currently overpopulated; rather, that the peculiar restraints of capitalism are what cause the seeming scarcity of space and resources at this point in time.

What I wanted to know, are the particulars of how capitalism is unable to provide for the 6+ -billion people on this planet, and how a communist society would (conceivably) be able to.

Thanks for the perspective, though.

[Quail]

Capitalism cause a lot of waste. For example food is wasted all the time along it's journey from the farm to the supermarket. Loads of perfectly good food is thrown out and wasted because it can't be sold - maybe it looks funny, or it's gone past its sell-by date or something. Another problem food-wise is that farmers in poorer places often grow "cash crops" instead of food.
Also, since it's not always profitable to focus on sustainability, big companies tend to disregard their environmental impact. In a society that places people before profit, there would be more of an incentive to be greener with our existence.

[NGNM85]

Like Mike said, virtually all creatures will expand beyond the carrying capacity of their habitat if the opportunity arises, it just doesn't happen very often. Humans are in the unique position of having to figure out how to keep ourselves in check. This is the price of essentially winning the Darwinian struggle of 'survival of the fittest.' However, I think it's very possible to do this, especially with emerging technologies for clean power, etc. Also, it's significant that the population explosion tends to be predominantly among the poor. If we raise the standard of living, we can expect population growth to taper off, accordingly. We could also provide financial incentives, like tax breaks for people without children, or increased taxes for people with large families, etc., there are a number of other ideas.

[Mute Fox]

Originally posted by NGNM85:
We could also provide financial incentives, like tax breaks for people without children, or increased taxes for people with large families, etc., there are a number of other ideas.

Financial incentives? Taxes? Under communism? :confused:

Or are you suggesting that it's possible for capitalism to reform itself so that we won't overpopulate?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Humans, unlike many animals, can create wealth - we can grow food which then increases the amount of edible things per mile of land. So increased population also increases our labor potential and our ability to produce. This is not unlimited, but it is mechanical to think X amount of land can only feed X number of people when the variables of increased industry and labor power are also not considered.

So most of the problems of "overpopulation" that exist right now are actually problems with the way society is organized. Cities become over-populated in China or India or Mexico because industry is pulling people into urban areas while the rural villages are being derstroyed and pushed into history. Malthusian ideas were used to explain the Irish famines and yet famously, there was still food being exported from Ireland while people were starving.

So "overpopulation" is really the problem of having a organization of society that puts the interests of the elite and making profits over the desires, interests and needs of the people. If we changed this then we could raise our standard of living collectively.

[Mute Fox]

Originally posted by Jimmy Higgins:
Stuff.

What you said.

What really irked me about what my friend was arguing is that "war is inevitable" because it somehow reduces population. I argued that the effects of war certainly serve to increase human suffering, but the long-term effects on population size are ultimately negligible compared to the effects of disease, famine, lack of medical care and sanitation, et cetera. Also the fact that there are perfectly peaceful means to control population, even under capitalism. To argue for "war as population control" is eminently retarded...I hope you guys will agree.

Anyway, thanks for the perspectives, and keep them coming! :thumbup1:

[Dean]

Hello again comrades...it's time for another addition of "stupid things my petty-bourgeois friend says." Honestly at this point it's useless for me to continue arguing with him, but every time he says something stupid it's another opportunity for me to come here and learn all the reasons why he's wrong :D

This time, I would like your opinions on the idea of human "overpopulation." Specifically, I'd like to know what you think about the differences between how a capitalist and a communist society make the most of the earth's space and resources. Also of interest would be any facts related to how under capitalism, we currently have enough space and resources to provide for billions, yet so many suffer from the effects of space and resource scarcity.

Basically my friend and I were having another heated argument over the possibility of communism, and it headed into the direction of the "human nature" stuff *gag* and then finally into the arena of "communism will never work because we'll always need war, because war keeps population down and if there was no war we'd overpopulate the planet and end up having to kill each other anyway."

...

Which no doubt is unspeakably retarded. I'd just like to hear why you guys think so.

His argument might work if war did, in fact, keep population growth down.

Rather, what we've seen is that economically and infrastructurally mature societies engender population deflation. Education level is also cited as a population - stunting relationship.

What are the pop. growth rates of these nations in a state of conflict?
Afghanistan 2.65
Sudan 2.24
Pakistan 2.14
USA .91
Iraq 2.52
Mexico 1.01
Congo 1.79
Somalia 2.19
Israel 1.78
Georgia -1.18
Russia -.10



And relatively peaceful nations?
Switzerland 1.27
Sweden .78
Iran 1.30
Denmark .59
New Zealand .95
Iceland 1.86

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index
The only correlation - though vague - is that at-war nations tend to have higher population growth rates.


Despite what some may think, population levels are important for economic policy, and in the context of an economy based primarily on non-renewable resources or capital resources in limited production, a reduction in the population growth rate is a valuable economic goal. As you point out, such policies should be peaceful.

[LaRiposte]

Malthus was full of fail.

[Vanguard1917]

Malthusianism is a bit like creationism. It has been around for centuries, has been proven over and again to be spectacularly false, and yet continues to exist.

This shows that Malthusianism has nothing to do with any objective reality of 'overpopulation', just like the existence of religion has nothing to do with any objective reality of God. Malthusianism's existence is purely ideological, an outlook through which those inclined towards conservatism, pessimism and misantrophism express their (entirely subjective) reactionary impulses.

[Sir Comradical]

You know, wikipedia has a decent paragraph criticizing Malthus. Here it is:

"Another strand of opposition to Malthus's ideas started in the middle of the nineteenth century with the writings of Friedrich Engels (Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, 1844) and Karl Marx (Capital, 1867). Engels and Marx argued that what Malthus saw as the problem of the pressure of population on the means of production actually represented the pressure of the means of production on population. They thus viewed it in terms of their concept of the reserve army of labour. In other words, the seeming excess of population that Malthus attributed to the seemingly innate disposition of the poor to reproduce beyond their means actually emerged as a product of the very dynamic of capitalist economy."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus

[Technocrat]

The earth is overpopulated.

Ecological footprint is the amount of land area required to produce all the resources that you consume. Worldwide, the human population is consuming the equivalent of 1.4 earths, or is consuming 40% more than can be sustainably produced. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint). This is only possible because we are consuming resources at a rate faster than they are replenished by natural systems.

Improved technology can improve the situation by reducing the amount of resources required to produce standard of living. The basic problem, however, is the capitalist world economy and its built-in mandate for growth.

It should also be noted that capitalism is incredibly inefficient at using resources. Capitalism encourages over consumption since profit is required regardless of if human needs and desires have already been satiated.

Malthus assumed that population growth would occur exponentially but that production technology would only increase linearly (by a fixed amount and not a %). This has proven to be true - we have nothing close to an exponential growth in production technology. Malthus was wrong in his predictions, but his assumptions were correct.

This reminds of "the boy who cried wolf." Yes, the boy lied about there being a wolf - but eventually there was one and the boy was eaten.

[Coggeh]

Malthus was actually very much accepted in the past even Darwin owed many of his ideas to him (Dedicating the origin of species to him and amongst others) However one thing Darwin didn't conclude until later in life was that humans are not like other animals, Humans can manipulate their environment, develop technology, organize society a certain way to fit a certain need.

Marx threw out the Malthusian bullshit in one argument, that is by Malthusian logic if only 2 people existed in the planet then they'd be fair rich , in fact overpopulation has been argued throughout the past 2 centuries constantly by the capitalist class. However production , GDPs and standard of living continue to increase and with the correct organisation of society i.e moving from capitalism to socialism this can be push far further. Overpopulation is a myth and nothing else.

[Coggeh]

His argument might work if war did, in fact, keep population growth down.

Rather, what we've seen is that economically and infrastructurally mature societies engender population deflation. Education level is also cited as a population - stunting relationship.

What are the pop. growth rates of these nations in a state of conflict?
Afghanistan 2.65
Sudan 2.24
Pakistan 2.14
USA .91
Iraq 2.52
Mexico 1.01
Congo 1.79
Somalia 2.19
Israel 1.78
Georgia -1.18
Russia -.10



And relatively peaceful nations?
Switzerland 1.27
Sweden .78
Iran 1.30
Denmark .59
New Zealand .95
Iceland 1.86

.
I think your wrong here, Their is a correlation between waring countries and population growth however, look at the countries you listed as being at war everyone one of them is a 3rd/2nd(does second even exist? you know what i mean.. a mix) world nation. They always have a higher growth of population than first world ones. Iran isn't at war but it has a higher population growth than Russia, Georgia and the US.

I think the only signifcant correlation is the one you already mentioned. High education etc leads to lower population growth. I think war if anything to do with it, it would lower the population growth just by common sense.