Malthusian Population Principle

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Could anybody point me towards a leftist critique of Malthus' ideas on population? One of my modules this year requires a short essay on the subject. I've already got a couple of sources, including Bebel's Women and Socialism which has an excellent literature survey-style review of Malthus' approach to population.

Wondering what other stuff i'm missing, marxists.org doesn't really allow for an adequate search of the materal.

[L.A.P.]

I think if you can make a good case for Marx's theory of overproduction then that will pretty much blow Malthus' theory of overpopulation out of the water. In fact, Capital Vol. 3 is all you need to show how much shit Malthus was full of.

[bricolage]

this is good: http://www.noii.org.uk/2010/01/13/too-many-of-whom-and-too-much-of-what/

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think if you can make a good case for Marx's theory of overproduction then that will pretty much blow Malthus' theory of overpopulation out of the water. In fact, Capital Vol. 3 is all you need to show how much shit Malthus was full of.

Yeah, i've quoted a little bit of Marx, and his quoting of Laing. Tbh there are so many historical and contemporary critics of Malthus...Marx, Laing, Bebel, Kenny, Pereira...even the likes of JS Mill were critical. Funny that Malthus is still taught as this important theory.

To the above poster, thanks for the link, will take a look.

[L.A.P.]

Yeah, i've quoted a little bit of Marx, and his quoting of Laing. Tbh there are so many historical and contemporary critics of Malthus...Marx, Laing, Bebel, Kenny, Pereira...even the likes of JS Mill were critical. Funny that Malthus is still taught as this important theory.

It really is crazy how much even my high school likes to emphasize Malthus' overpopulation theory, they treat more like a modern ideological equivalent to Judgement Day than a substantial politico-economic theory.

[Revolutionair]

Well you have to admit. It's not worth much as a politico-economic theory.

Also there's an anti-Malthus group on RevLeft. Maybe they have something worthwhile there.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=226

[Zulu]

Well you have to admit. It's not worth much as a politico-economic theory.

Also there's an anti-Malthus group on RevLeft. Maybe they have something worthwhile there.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=226
Lol! Their group picture is about as good as the anti-Malthus critique ever gets...

Without strict global population planning and control policies, communists will be unable to handle the population/resources/waste/pollution rates any better than capitalists.

[L.A.P.]

Lol! Their group picture is about as good as the anti-Malthus critique ever gets...

Without strict global population planning and control policies, communists will be unable to handle the population/resources/waste/pollution rates any better than capitalists.

How can you be a Malthusian and a Marxist at the same time? His overpopulation theory completely contradicts Marx's crisis theory and thus goes against a lot of Marxism's core theoretical tenets. Capitalism has already created an adundabce of resources that go beyong the needs of the whole world, the idea is for the working class to take control of the distribution of those goods.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Could anybody point me towards a leftist critique of Malthus' ideas on population? One of my modules this year requires a short essay on the subject. I've already got a couple of sources, including Bebel's Women and Socialism which has an excellent literature survey-style review of Malthus' approach to population.

Wondering what other stuff i'm missing, marxists.org doesn't really allow for an adequate search of the materal.

I think Marx directly criticized Malthus, though I can't remember where.

John Bellamy Foster has written about this subject and would be a good source if you can find some internet excerpts or articles.

Haymarket published a short book by Chris Williams that goes into the politics of overpopulation and Malthus. He mostly deals with Malthusian policy as it is right now in both governmental environment policy and even within liberal environmentalism, but he also does a good overview of the assumptions of these ideas and the Marxist critique of them.

He has an ISR article here:
Population, hunger, and environmental degradation
Are there too many people? (http://www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml)

http://www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml

[Jimmie Higgins]

How can you be a Malthusian and a Marxist at the same time?IMO you can't. Malthusian arguments require a mechanical and distinctly non-dialectical (or at least non-dynamic) look at the natural world. It also requires ignoring the labor theory of value and the existence of class society.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I think Marx directly criticized Malthus, though I can't remember where.

John Bellamy Foster has written about this subject and would be a good source if you can find some internet excerpts or articles.

Haymarket published a short book by Chris Williams that goes into the politics of overpopulation and Malthus. He mostly deals with Malthusian policy as it is right now in both governmental environment policy and even within liberal environmentalism, but he also does a good overview of the assumptions of these ideas and the Marxist critique of them.

He has an ISR article here:
Population, hunger, and environmental degradation
Are there too many people? (http://www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml)

http://www.isreview.org/issues/68/feat-overpopulation.shtml

In Kapital Marx made some comments on population, I think. I quoted him from Bebel, and him quoting Laing too.

Bebel's chapter on population in Women under Socialism was magnificent. Nearly choked on my cereal reading it, just ripped the Reverend to pieces.

[Bronco]

Murray Bookchin wrote a couple of essays criticising it

The Population Myth I (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives8.html)
The Population Myth II (http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bookchin/gp/perspectives15.html)

Not read the second one but the first is pretty good

[Zulu]

How can you be a Malthusian and a Marxist at the same time? His overpopulation theory completely contradicts Marx's crisis theory and thus goes against a lot of Marxism's core theoretical tenets.

I was first a Darwinist and Malthusianist and then became a Marxist-Lenininst. The point is, how do we escape the "Malthusian trap"? How is the human race to remain "favored" and survive? Marxism-Leninism is the answer.

But being a Marxist-Leninist also involves being constantly self-critical, always maintaining critical approach to the Marxist-Leninist thought itself. See, historically the most tragic development during the rule of Josef Stalin - second only to Stalin's June '41 mistake, when he became convinced that the Nazis would not launch the Barbarossa - was Lysenkoism. And this rejection of Malthusianism just because "it's anti-worker" smells very much like Lysenkoism. And it carries a potential danger of disastrous consequences should the socialists take over the world. Lysenkoism only managed to harm genetics and applied biology in the USSR, as it was basically limited to this area of science, while the effects of idealogical interference along the "anti-Malthusian" lines can be much more devastating.

(By the way, tendencies similar to Lysenkoism occured in other areas of science in the USSR, when the Theory of Relativity came under harsh criticism as "un-Marxist" and "anti-worker", and a group of Soviet physicists wrote a letter to Lavrenty Beria warning him of the potential negative consequences to the military might of the USSR, if the "social thinkers", who didn't understand squat about natural science, managed to pull a Lysenko on this one. Beria got the letter... and got the message.)





Capitalism has already created an adundabce of resources that go beyond the needs of the whole world, the idea is for the working class to take control of the distribution of those goods.
Yeah, and the population has been racing to catch up with that abundance hasn't it? Just like Malthus predicted it would.

Neither Marx's, nor Lenin's, nor Bebel's, nor anyone's (Malthus & Darwin included) writings should be treated as some Holy Scripture. But I think that they would have questioned their own opinions on the problem themselves, if only they could have foreseen that the Earth's population would quadruple in a hundred years, that the global climate would begin to get affected.

If you're interested, also check out this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/scarcity-myth-t168629/index.html), in which I've debated about Malthusianism in more detail.

[Zulu]

I've just read Bebel's critique of Malthusiaism in his Chapter 30 of "Woman & Socialism". And frankly, it sucks. I mean, he writes all those things about how bad capitalism is and how exploitaion causes all the shit in life. Basically all those things that have achieved the state of being truisms among Marxists. But he completely misses the point: exploitation and all the other related vices of capitalism are just the form in which the Malthusian principle manifests itself in the capitalist society. Turn the society into a socialist one, and once the initial benefits of it are used up, that principle will manifest itself in some other form.

Bebel's own footnote is most telling and reveals how lacking the classical Marxism in the field of science actually is:

"That Darwin and others also become followers of Malthus only proves that a lack of economic studies leads to the most biased views in the realm of science", Bebel writes.

Lolwut? What can "economic studies" contribute to, say, chemistry? Just as biological research has nothing relevant to add to chemistry, and has to be based itself on as full understanding of chemistry as possible, and just as chemistry has to be based on physics without contributing anything to it, political economy can and must be based on biology, without any hope to contribute anything to it, because, sadly, giraffes and pines don't have an economy. It's a one way street really: physics -> chemistry -> biology -> humanities. Because humans are, of course, social animals, which means that they are animals first and social second. There might be "bourgeois" and "un-Marxist" theories in the field of humanities, but no theory in natural science can be labeled as such. It's all right to criticize a particular application of a scientific theory to the social issues by some scientist who is ignorant in this field, but the critic has to have at least basic understanding of the scientific theory the application of which he intends to criticize. And anyway teaching the scientists how to do their thing is outright wrong. It's some kind of intellectual chauvinism that is actually born of ignorance on the Marxists' part.

Another sad Bolshevik story of this kind happened between Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov. Lenin (himself a lawyer by education) went out of his way to critisize Bogdanov's (a medic by education) views on the philosophy of science, and in effect completely busted his credibility in the party, although early on Bogdanov had been one of the staunchest supporters of Lenin's Bolshevik line as far as the politics was concerned. Bogdanov had to retire himself into the non-political field of activities (He died when voluntarily subjecting himself to an experiment researching blood transfusion).

And this problem was also present in Germany: many doctors and scientists actually supported the Nazis, because they kind of showed more interest in actual science, than the communists and the social democrats. Of course, it wasn't pretty when the Nazis took off science what suited their preconceptions best and discarded the rest. But that only mirrored the predominant attitude of many of the Marxists, with the exception that they never bothered to even pretend to take natural science any more seriously, than Marx himself.

[Ocean Seal]

I don't really understand the need for a Malthusian critique. The idea is blatantly false even in its most elemental form. Within 50 years the world's population will start to decrease (that will be before it doubles), and we already produce enough food to feed the world more than twice over.

[Zulu]

I don't really understand the need for a Malthusian critique. The idea is blatantly false even in its most elemental form. Within 50 years the world's population will start to decrease (that will be before it doubles), and we already produce enough food to feed the world more than twice over.

Because it's not only about food any more, but about oil, fresh water, clean air and in the end about inhabitable planets.

The funniest thing is that the UN extrapolation that "within 50 years world's population will begin declining on its own" is based on the assumption that the trends prevalent today in the CAPITALIST society will remain. What is that if not a confirmation of Malthus' rule?

[L.A.P.]

I was first a Darwinist and Malthusianist and then became a Marxist-Lenininst. The point is, how do we escape the "Malthusian trap"? How is the human race to remain "favored" and survive? Marxism-Leninism is the answer.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you ideology! There is some external metaphysical force that is the "Malthusian trap" that's going to fuck our shit up unless we strive to fit into some ideal such as "Marxism-Leninism" and put our faith into it. Everything will then be okay.:D


But being a Marxist-Leninist also involves being constantly self-critical, always maintaining critical approach to the Marxist-Leninist thought itself.

Hence my point that you're trying to fit into some ideal by following the demands of ideology.


See, historically the most tragic development during the rule of Josef Stalin - second only to Stalin's June '41 mistake, when he became convinced that the Nazis would not launch the Barbarossa - was Lysenkoism. And this rejection of Malthusianism just because "it's anti-worker" smells very much like Lysenkoism. And it carries a potential danger of disastrous consequences should the socialists take over the world. Lysenkoism only managed to harm genetics and applied biology in the USSR, as it was basically limited to this area of science, while the effects of idealogical interference along the "anti-Malthusian" lines can be much more devastating.

What? so "Lysenkoism" somehow eneter into Joseph Stalin's conscious and caused him to predict that Nazi Germany wouldn't invade the Soviet Union, and "Lysenkoism" has similarities to any thought that rejects Malthusian theory. Thus Lysenkoism is bad and being anti-Malthusian is also bad, therefore being a Malthusian is good. Am I following here?


Yeah, and the population has been racing to catch up with that abundance hasn't it? Just like Malthus predicted it would.

No, not really.


Neither Marx's, nor Lenin's, nor Bebel's, nor anyone's (Malthus & Darwin included) writings should be treated as some Holy Scripture. But I think that they would have questioned their own opinions on the problem themselves, if only they could have foreseen that the Earth's population would quadruple in a hundred years, that the global climate would begin to get affected.

If you're interested, also check out this thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/scarcity-myth-t168629/index.html), in which I've debated about Malthusianism in more detail.

No thanks, Malthus was a hack.

[Zulu]

Hence my point that you're trying to fit into some ideal by following the demands of ideology.
The opposite. I'm trying to fit an ideal of an ideology into the corpus of science, which BTW said ideology claims to be based on but has so far had some serious discrepancies with.

If anything this should be a Marxian dialectical thing: Malthus submitted the THESIS, Marx came up with the ANTITHESIS, and the time has come for the SYNTHESIS.

Of course, Malthus was a conservative, and you can't spell it without "con". But his evil scheme is not such that he correctly draws conclusions from the wrong premises. On the contrary, his gets his premises right and then draws incorrect conclusions from them. Or discards correct conclusions (which he sometimes proposes himself) on the basis that they seem undesirable to him!

"The sorrows and distresses of life... seem to be necessary... to generate all the Christian virtues" - that's actually the last ditch where Malthus and all the cons have to retreat to, when their scheme gets exposed for what it really is. But when you deny the obvious they have all the reason to laugh you out as a wishful thinker.

Anyway, being an ardent anti-Malthusian puts you to the same side of the argument with the authors of this fine example of critique of Malthusianism (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8773/pg8773.html). Just so you know...





What? so "Lysenkoism" somehow eneter into Joseph Stalin's conscious and caused him to predict that Nazi Germany wouldn't invade the Soviet Union, and "Lysenkoism" has similarities to any thought that rejects Malthusian theory. Thus Lysenkoism is bad and being anti-Malthusian is also bad, therefore being a Malthusian is good. Am I following here?

No, Lysenkoism was unrelated to the surprise effect of the Nazi invasion. I just said that it was a tragedy topped only by the Nazi invasion. And being anti-Malthusian is bad because it smells of Lysenkoism. Lysenkoists rejected Weismann's views as anti-scientific, because they were un-Marxist, anti-worker and you name it. Lysenkoists were generally Lamarckists, which possibly has something to do with the fact that Darwinism as abridged for socialists by Engels in "The Part played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" was indistinguishable from Lamarckism. So the real Darwinists, like Nikolai Vavilov and his followers were purged, imprisoned and in effect the real science (and agriculture) suffered from it - throughout the entire socialist bloc, actually. So, while there indeed were vermin and wreckers in the Soviet science, the NKVD got the wrong guys.





No thanks.
Well suit yourself.

[L.A.P.]

The opposite. I'm trying to fit an ideal of an ideology into the corpus of science, which BTW said ideology claims to be based on but has so far had some serious discrepancies with.

So you're trying to do one of those "Marxism is a science" thing, how ideological.


If anything this should be a Marxian dialectical thing: Malthus submitted the THESIS, Marx came up with the ANTITHESIS, and the time has come for the SYNTHESIS.

That is such a ridiculous simplification of Hegelian dialectics.


words


Anyway, being an ardent anti-Malthusian puts you to the same side of the argument with the authors of this fine example of critique of Malthusianism (http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/8773/pg8773.html). Just so you know...

This is such a harmfully simple way to think. Saying someone who think Malthus was an idiot does not automatically put you in the same camp as another idiot who just so happens to not like Malthus. That's like saying anyone who opposes US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is on the same side as Islamists, or Trotsky was a fascist because he opposed Stalin.;)


No, Lysenkoism was unrelated to the surprise effect of the Nazi invasion. I just said that it was a tragedy topped only by the Nazi invasion. And being anti-Malthusian is bad because it smells of Lysenkoism. Lysenkoists rejected Weismann's views as anti-scientific, because they were un-Marxist, anti-worker and you name it. Lysenkoists were generally Lamarckists, which possibly has something to do with the fact that Darwinism as abridged for socialists by Engels in "The Part played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man" was indistinguishable from Lamarckism. So the real Darwinists, like Nikolai Vavilov and his followers were purged, imprisoned and in effect the real science (and agriculture) suffered from it - throughout the entire socialist bloc, actually. So, while there indeed were vermin and wreckers in the Soviet science, the NKVD got the wrong guys.

Cool story bro

[NoPasaran1936]

1) There's statistical evidence to suggest that food production out grows popoulation increase.
2) The ideas of Malthusians that we're going to end up having famine, war and environmental disasters are nothing more than speculation, famine in Somalia haven't been caused by over-population, but by war.
3) birth rates are falling, whilst death rates are rising. As a result of bringing women into the economy, women are no longer 'reproductive property' (to the extent they were beforehand). They are now seeking careers, and putting aside the traditional gender role.
EDIT: http://www.colorado.edu/Sociology/gimenez/work/popissue.html <- Malthusian theory of population comes up a lot in sociology, for obvious reasons. This is a basic, but a pretty good against/for argument.
EDIT2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

[Thirsty Crow]

If anything this should be a Marxian dialectical thing: Malthus submitted the THESIS, Marx came up with the ANTITHESIS, and the time has come for the SYNTHESIS.

What utter, unadulterated dialectical crap. Take heed boys and girls, this is what dialectics is for, it's for taking up completely opposite approaches and meshing them together in an indiscriminate way!

To clarify, you really can't synthesize Malthus and Marx. The former was quite distinct in his approach - arguing that in any social formation population rises exponentially, which is a patent absurdity and refuted by the empirical data, but without providing any evidence. So, in conclusion, what we have here is an ahistorical approach which is obviously ideological (and empirically false) in that it openly defends the practices of the ruling class - to continuously dominate, exterminate the destitute labourers since if their standard of living were to rise, then food supplies would be depleted and everyone would be worse off.
But guess what, in recent history, it's been documented that actual food production grows even faster than the global population does. The rate of population growth actually peaked in 1960s, as is noted in the article posted in ISR (lin above; have no doubt you didn't bother to look at it) and continues to decline; and, in fact, the food produced in 2007 amounted to more than 2800 kilocalories for every single person on Earth.


Furthermore, the notion that population will increase exponentially without regard for specific social relations and standard of living misses the actual reality of poverty which furthers, and not hinders (as the original Malthus' argument went), population growth, and consequently it is to be expected that population will equilibrate when a decent standard of living is achieved for all.

All in all, what's stated goes for the overpopulation myth, and not for a general concern with ecological sustainability, which indeed will be a concern well worth investigating and practicing in socialism (one that is hardly attainable in capitalism).

[Zulu]

arguing that in any social formation population rises exponentially.
That's not what Malthus said. He said population would rise exponentially, if it weren't for the omnipresent "checks". And on some occasions, when the checks weren't working, due to the "low base" start, population did grow exponentially for some time, like it was during the first couple of centuries of North American colonization.





in that it openly defends the practices of the ruling class
That's why his weapon must be taken from him and used to attack the ruling class, together with the Marxist weapon.





But guess what, in recent history, it's been documented that actual food production grows even faster than the global population does.


Malthus wasn't talking about food only. He was talking about the "means of subsistence". That includes medical supplies (and doctors), oil, fresh water, fresh air, etc.





All in all, what's stated goes for the overpopulation myth, and not for a general concern with ecological sustainability, which indeed will be a concern well worth investigating and practicing in socialism (one that is hardly attainable in capitalism).
Yeah, and it's just so happens, that population and its characteristics are the basic categories of ecology. And it just so happens, that many actual scientists (whom you'll have to work with to sort that out), all the ecologists, environmentalists, climatologists, to whom science has been more appealing than history since high school, and who therefore don't give much damn about socialism or capitalism, actually build their studies around the laws of nature and mathematical models, as they are generally recognized in the scientific community. And the Malthusian principle is one among those. Like it or not, but That Other Charlie incorporated it into science. It's like Newton's 1st Law in physics: not the only law, but an important and inextricable one nonetheless.