Population Control: the Elephant in the room

[ProgressiveThought]

It seems that few people are willing to talk about one of the main roots of the planet's problems, overpopulation. People are willing to wax poetic about smashing capitalism, redistributing resources and ending inequality but there seems to be a lack of discussion about the role our specie's high population numbers play in fueling these problems. Now I am not some sort of primitivist but I do feel this issue needs far more attention than it is getting. Sure it is uncomfortable but its a bridge we're gonna have to cross sooner rather than later.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

No, overpopulation is not a problem. It's quite typical of you "progressive liberals" to be into Malthusian shit, but still... crock of shit.

[Blake's Baby]

OK; my answer, is kill the Americans. They use 12 times more resources than the population of Africa (per head) so 300 million dead Americans means we can have 3.6 billion more Africans. Conversely, 300 million dead Africans is only 5 million Americans. Hardly worth the swap.

After that we kill 600 million Europeans and we can have another 3 billion or so Africans (Europeans only use about 5 times as much resources per head as Africans).

So we could nearly double the world population if we just killed the slightly-less than 1 billion people who were wasting resources with their obessity and internets and stupid Malthusian pseudo-learning (I generalise somewhat).

I never know whether I'm allowed to add the numbers of dead back on, or not, so I haven't. It's possible we might be able to bump those 6.6 billion new Africans up by nearly another billion. Leading to a total world population of 13.6 billion, even taking into account the 900,000 that would have to die.

Looked at like this it becomes absolutely obvious that the problem is not 'overpopulation' but 'failure to distribute resources'.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Over-population, the population problem and scarcity are all myths.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Actually the world's population is set to eventually decline, once the "developing world" starts following the same trajectory that the "developed world" is on.

In any case I don't believe that we're anywhere even close to the world's point-of-capacity or whatever...the problem is not the availability of resources and the technology to procure them, but rather the system in place that allocates them.

[wsg1991]

let's compare USA and black africa
* USA has the highest rate of cardio-vascular diseases , FAT population
*Black africa , like Somalia , suffers from malnutrition

==) there is a far more important problem , is the inequality and the lost of precious food and Medical supplies

[Mr. Natural]

The topic of population is a minefield on the left. Frankly, I am fed up with posters who deny the possibility of an overpopulation problem and attack anyone who suggests human beings are not meant to live in dense quarters. Humans evolved as social individuals in small bands of 20 to 30 persons and need space to move and breathe. A mass human society is a mess.

Human populations need to be optimized, not maximized.

A major problem facing humanity is the impending disappearance of cheap energy as "easy oil" is exhausted. An enormous human population has built up with this one-time source of oil energy. No plans have been made to provide energy to 7 billion humans by developing other sources, and billions of people will soon find themselves in desperate circumstances that place the planet's ecology in an increasingly desperate condition. A liberal but generally still accurate book that centers on this problem is William R. Catton Jr's Overshoot (1982).

I quickly abandoned this topic the last time it appeared as the thread degenerated into denunciations of anyone who saw human population problems as a racist liberal who wanted to get rid of people of color. It would be difficult for persons of color not to be concerned about a potential problem here, but I find most persons taking this line are white and are themselves the "racist liberals."

Human population is an exceedingly important topic that must be engaged and conscientiously, intelligently discussed by the left.

My red-green, rainbow best.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

sc4HxPxNrZ0

[Imposter Marxist]

It seems that few people are willing to talk about one of the main roots of the planet's problems, overpopulation. People are willing to wax poetic about smashing capitalism, redistributing resources and ending inequality but there seems to be a lack of discussion about the role our specie's high population numbers play in fueling these problems. Now I am not some sort of primitivist but I do feel this issue needs far more attention than it is getting. Sure it is uncomfortable but its a bridge we're gonna have to cross sooner rather than later.


my god he is right. The state capitalists have been breeding an army!

[Tukhachevsky]

The world isn't crowded, this is one of the most resilient lies I've been listening now days.
There is plenty space for expansion with vertical urbanization, there is plenty water for seaweed cultivation/farming, nuclear or electrical powered high-speed rails adoption is growing after europe union, more and more oil or gas based fuel is being rejected, and internet level of communication is allowing humans to live outside overcrowded metropolis, in the country side.

People should stop being so fatalist.

[Tukhachevsky]

scarcity [...] myths.

Famine is a myth too:rolleyes:

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Famine is a myth too:rolleyes:

Yeah, perhaps you're not fully understanding my post. Does scarcity exist? Yes, however it's artificial. We have enough resources, food, etc. to feed virtually everyone on the planet.

[Tim Cornelis]

The ease with which "overpopulation" is dismissed is quite dishonest.

[Arlekino]

Baltic States population decline. Well everybody can come and live is plenty spaces.

[Q]

The problem is not the population. The problem is also not distribution. Pointing to the latter is much too simplistic. The problem, in the core, lies with the way capitalism operates. This is based on the profit motive and thus we get the world we live in.

Putting the blame purely on "malfunctioning distribution" misses the point that capitalism never intended to feed those hungry people in the third world anyway. So, there is simply not enough food to distribute.

A rational solution cannot be found within this system, although the UN concluded back in 1980 (http://www.globaled.org/curriculum/UNC.html) that there were enough resources available to let 15 billion people live "comfortably" (whatever that means).

It sounds cliché, but only a rational plan can cope with that many people - and much more - on a durable basis. What such communist future might look like can be seen over at the Venus Project (http://www.thevenusproject.com/) (which are sadly way too depoliticized).

So, we come back at the same conclusion again: Socialism or barbarism.

[scarletghoul]

long into the future, by the time overpopulation actually does become a problem, we quite possibly will have developed the necessary technology through socialism to be able to go and live on other planets/moons/whatever.

so when it comes to overpopulation the best thing we can do is concentrate our thoughts on the nuances of stalinist space architecture, imo.

[Imposter Marxist]

Overpopulation is a serious issue brought about by the State Capitalist ruling classes.
We must struggle against the "Peoples" (:rolleyes:) republic of state capitalist China who is going to outnumber us with state capitalists soon enough.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Overpopulation is a serious issue brought about by the State Capitalist ruling classes.
We must struggle against the "Peoples" (:rolleyes:) republic of state capitalist China who is going to outnumber us with state capitalists soon enough.

I think you're one 'state capitalist' short of being right, comrade.

[Os Cangaceiros]

So, there is simply not enough food to distribute.

According to "The Meaning of Marxism" (which actually has a pretty good, although brief, section on overpopulation), the UN estimated in 2005 that food output per head has increased consistently over the past 30 years, with an annual growth rate of about 1.2 percent, and that growth rates for food production were actually higher in developing countries. And that furthermore there are enough stockpiles of grain alone to feed everyone on the planet.

[ProgressiveThought]

So your solution appears to be forced urbanization and development of large amounts of the remaining countryside. Sounds like hell to me.

[Hermes]

I'd just like to add that the U.S. has steadily declined in birth rate, to the best of my knowledge.

It's possible that people adjust normally to any problems of space or scarcity that may develop, and will naturally decline in birth rate.

(I'm probably wrong though)

[Ocean Seal]

It seems that few people are willing to talk about one of the main roots of the planet's problems, overpopulation. People are willing to wax poetic about smashing capitalism, redistributing resources and ending inequality but there seems to be a lack of discussion about the role our specie's high population numbers play in fueling these problems. Now I am not some sort of primitivist but I do feel this issue needs far more attention than it is getting. Sure it is uncomfortable but its a bridge we're gonna have to cross sooner rather than later.
The only thing, is that it doesn't. We have more than enough food, more than enough to devote to the development of sustainable energy, so overpopulation isn't the problem, capitalism is the problem.

[Sea]

People aren't going to rush to the Sarah desert and built a big metropolis and starve and die in terrible dramatic agony (as their children watch with teary eyes) of food and water shortage because they can't grow jack squat even though they worked their poor tired hands so hard (because they had faith) and the anarcho-primitivists laugh at them from the jungle and cast spells on them and mock them because population increase is SOOOO FUCKING TERRIBLE AND IT RUINED EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE EVER. THE END.

A growth in population isn't a sudden "how-the-hell-do-we-adapt-now??!" sort of thing. It takes time. A lot of people fail to keep this in mind.

[Raúl Duke]

So your solution appears to be forced urbanization and development of large amounts of the remaining countryside. Sounds like hell to me.

It depends on the nature of that urban development.

Urban public planners, particularly within the government (especially outside the US or outside the English-speaking world), are all away of the problem of urban sprawl and the ideas of 'sustainable urban development.' They want centralized and 'small' development and I think that was what was referenced to earlier (i.e. "vertical development," etc)

However, commercial developers and their politician tools prefer urban sprawl, suburbs. Also, other interests like the automobile industry.

As someone mentioned earlier, there's been quite a few studies that show that we can produce enough food or more than enough, perhaps even in our current model (i.e. with livestock fed corn, etc) to feed the world's population. Imagine how many can be fed with more efficient and sustainable agriculture? The reason why they go unfed has to do with, straight-up, capitalism.

To be honest, I'm not exactly worried yet about overpopulation. Look at the "developed countries" with their low birth-rates. In a socialist society, I imagine we will bring such a standard (using that word loosely) across the world leading to a world, perhaps quicker than capitalism, with no place that has the standards of a 'developing nation' and thus the population will reach a lower number...reach 'optimization.'

Finally, lets get to the crux of the matter. Overpopulation theories have a reactionary origin and have been used to support problematic or downright reactionary ideas. So, my question to the OP is: what do you propose to deal with this alleged overpopulation problem, hmm?

[ProgressiveThought]

So, my question to the OP is: what do you propose to deal with this alleged overpopulation problem, hmm?

Increasing access to contraception and looking into moving reproduction and gestation outside of the human body.

[Yazman]

Increasing access to contraception and looking into moving reproduction and gestation outside of the human body.

Have you ever read a book called Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, by any chance?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Increasing access to contraception and looking into moving reproduction and gestation outside of the human body.I don't think population is really the problem, but leaving that aside...

Access to contraception as well as education would probably help decrease unwanted births. Ending capitalism and creating more stable lives for people would also probably decrease the amount that people had more than a couple children. But what would that second suggestion do?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Increasing access to contraception and looking into moving reproduction and gestation outside of the human body.

This doesn't elaborate upon how you would enforce your population control. At the current rate population is soon to top out and begin to decline. Some have suggested that this will also form a sort of technological stagnation... but I digress. Although I do agree that a shift to artificial reproduction post-revolution would be beneficial, there's no way in hell that'd be a good thing in our current capitalist world - you would, I must sadly say, end up with some consumerist hell-hole of hard-wired structural hierarchies as in the loathsomely bad book mentioned by Yazman.

[Raúl Duke]

Increasing access to contraception and looking into moving reproduction and gestation outside of the human body.

Then, I don't see the problem.

All leftists support increased access and availability of contraception. This is something that many developed nations have, we support access and availability of contraception everywhere.

Not sure about the other part though, sounds like a sci-fi idea that while it may come to exist I'm not certain if it'll be widespread.

[MajorGeneralPineapple]

We are not overpopulated, in the sense that the Earth cannot support our numbers. But we do not live or plan efficiently. Obviously, there is inequality in the distribution of resources--- Africa is a testament to this---- but even in places where resources are abundant, like the US, we still use space inefficiently and irresponsibly. Forced urbanization might be hell to some, but suburban sprawl is a cancer. When capitalism is replaced by socialism, much of what necessitates suburban sprawl will disappear. The countryside, when necessary, will be used for food and other resource cultivation, not as a place for shopping malls and Wal-marts to spring up like weeds to be surrounded by endless horizons of white suburbs, surrounded by streets, streets, more streets, and trash.

[Mr. Natural]

A human society of the future--anarchist/communist--would be run by its people from the bottom up, and population problems would be addressed from this base.

Population questions seem to settle into two basins: the Earth's carrying capacity and quality of life considerations.

As for carrying capacity, there is a physical limitation in the numbers of people the Earth can support. This number is greatly reduced by capitalist relations. Indeed, capitalist relations are opposed to life and are cashing life in on Earth--a different but essential topic.

No one has responded to my concerns about finding energy sources for our present and future populations. Cheap oil is on its way out, and there are no replacements at present for this one-time energy source that has enabled humanity to increase its population so dramatically. Not only are there no current replacements for cheap oil, there are no plans to develop any.

As for the quality of life problem, what social organization, resources, and living space are needed to realize our human natures? The left has answers for the type of social organization to be created, but seems to ignore the population resource and living space questions. Here the left seems to believe that the rational economic systems and societies we will create will be able to accomodate virtually limitless numbers of persons who will happily live packed together in human ant hills.

Again: human population needs to be optimized, not maximized. Marx and Engels knew we are natural beings who need to learn how to live according to our nature. What is that nature? We will need to design our communities to nurture our nature, and current left dogma concerning population makes it difficult to even discuss this issue.

My red-green best.

[#FF0000]

So your solution appears to be forced urbanization and development of large amounts of the remaining countryside. Sounds like hell to me.

No one said this btw

[Blake's Baby]

The problem is not the population. The problem is also not distribution. Pointing to the latter is much too simplistic. The problem, in the core, lies with the way capitalism operates. This is based on the profit motive and thus we get the world we live in.

Putting the blame purely on "malfunctioning distribution" misses the point that capitalism never intended to feed those hungry people in the third world anyway. So, there is simply not enough food to distribute...

Not true.

I'm not claiming that you're deliberately misleading here, but there is enough food. Vast quantities of food are trashed, wasted, while swathes of the planet are on the verge of stavation if not starving (which obviously many are).

However, no-one's said that distribution is 'malfunctioning'. Capitalist production (as in, the technical capacity of capitalism) is developed enough to feed the planet as is, and then some. Capitalist distribution, on the other hand, which includes exactly what you have said about the profit motive as a reason for production, is the problem.

Technically, capitalism can ('in theory') feed several billion more people than currently live on the earth. In actuality it can't, because no-one could pay for these billions to be fed (just as it can't pay for the hundreds of millions or even billions who are underfed at present). But if the working class were to take hold of the machinery of production tomorrow, it could feed everyone on earth to a substantially better standard than now within a matter of weeks, without changing its technical practices - just by re-arranging distribution (which includes appropriating all property).

Of course, we would change our technical practices, because food production is crazy; it needs to be totally reorganised. But that doesn't mean that capitalism hasn't developed the means of production, including food production - it has; this was Trotsky's point in the '20s that the material conditions for socialism were ripe ('if not over-ripe'). Capitalism has done its job of developing production, it doesn't still have to develop; socialism will now solve the contradictions of capitalism, including that between the possibility of a society of plenty and the reality of deprivation and starvation.

Capitalism is not obsolete because it can't provide for everyone; it's obsolete because, though it can, technically, do it, it won't. It's the relations of production, the laws of property that say this belongs to that person even though another person needs it, that are the barrier to human progress, not the development of the means of production.

[Q]

Not true.

As I'm reading a bit more on the subject, like this 2011 article of The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/18200702), I'm inclined to agree and stand corrected.

However, as the article points out that:

In 1996 the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimated that the world was producing enough food to provide every man, woman and child with 2,700 calories a day, several hundred more than most adults are thought to need (around 2,100 a day).

It also points to the limits of the current Green Revolution techniques and furthermore (and more importantly in my opinion) how farmers are getting less incentive to expand production:

Other researchers, however, think global productivity is indeed slowing down, especially outside China. According to a study using different definitions from Mr Fuglie’s, growth in land productivity fell by over one-third between 1961-90 and 1990-2005, and growth in labour productivity fell by two-thirds. And as Mr Fuglie says, even if productivity is rising, it needs to rise more, from an annual gain of 1.4% to 1.75%, he thinks—a big leap. And though farmers might choose to increase yields later, their choice would depend partly on food prices rising more than prices of inputs such as fertilisers, which they may not (in 2007-08 fertiliser prices rose much more than food prices). So even if productivity is increasing—and that is not clear—on its own it is not enough.
So, there are limits: To the "easy" solutions in the environment and biology and the, from capitalism's point of view, "hard" solutions of market mechanisms. These factors might very well cause a food shortage somewhere along the line.

So, the core point of my previous post stands: There are no fundamental solutions within capitalism. The market mechanism needs to go and be replaced by rational planning.

[Blake's Baby]

...
So, the core point of my previous post stands: There are no fundamental solutions within capitalism. The market mechanism needs to go and be replaced by rational planning.

That's why I was trying to be very careful about what I was actually disagreeing with: because I fudamentally agree with and wholeheartedly support this analysis. Capitalism has to be abolished and the working class needs to re-organise both production and distribution.

[Qavvik]

The human population will eventually be balanced out by war and disease (but mostly disease). In the mean time, advancements in technology will, at the very least, be able to meet the needs of man in terms of hunger (but may not if the capitalists have all of the say). We should worry about more immediate topics rather than contemplating a crowded future that few of us are ever likely to see.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No one has responded to my concerns about finding energy sources for our present and future populations. Cheap oil is on its way out, and there are no replacements at present for this one-time energy source that has enabled humanity to increase its population so dramatically. Not only are there no current replacements for cheap oil, there are no plans to develop any.

Nuclear and large-scale renewables, including biogas (methane) derived from municipal sewage and organic waste. Incidentally methane is just as useful as crude oil.

As for development of these alternatives, the ruling classes will either do it, or watch as their system collapses, quite possibly taking them with it. Not that I would rely solely on increasingly expensive oil to lead to popular revolution.


Increasing access to contraception and looking into moving reproduction and gestation outside of the human body.

Just a note here, even though this poster's now banned - gestation outside the human body (I'm assuming he's referring to some hypothetical artificial womb technology) strikes me as something one would use if one wanted to raise a population quickly, such as an extraterrestrial colony or something like that.

[Qavvik]

.

[Mr. Natural]

Noxion, I have no doubt that sufficient energy sources and technology exist, but I also know that capitalism will not develop them. Capitalism demands massive, short-term profits; long-range planning for social welfare is not one of its demands.

The System has triumphed, and it has captured its bourgeosie, too. The ruling class is more ruled than ruler. The System rules.

And nuclear power is an unthinkable horror under the present System. Can you imagine disposal of nuclear waste "for profit"? We can share a shudder on this one, can't we?

My red-green best.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Noxion, I have no doubt that sufficient energy sources and technology exist, but I also know that capitalism will not develop them. Capitalism demands massive, short-term profits; long-range planning for social welfare is not one of its demands.

What about planning for their own survival? They're the ruling classes, not proverbial lemmings.


The System has triumphed, and it has captured its bourgeosie, too. The ruling class is more ruled than ruler. The System rules.

What is the basis for this assumption?

What is the basis for assuming that the state of affairs you suppose will remain unchanged?


And nuclear power is an unthinkable horror under the present System.

It beats shivering in the cold and dark because one can't afford electricity.


Can you imagine disposal of nuclear waste "for profit"? We can share a shudder on this one, can't we?

Well like I said, either the ruling classes will make some concessions to reality or they will lose everything, either through collapse and disaster or because the revolutionary classes get fed up and take it from them. The latter would be personally preferable, but I don't pretend to have a working crystal ball.

[Mr. Natural]

Noxion, The basis for my "assumption" that the ruling class has been captured by The System, too, is that capitalism is a systemic process, as Marx, Engels, and the materialist dialectic recognize, and that no class is as thoroughly "capitalist" as the bourgeoisie. Systems create their parts, and capitalism's globalization has manufactured an entropic system within which we all now live and think. We are all people-parts of capitalism now. The System rules.

One manifestation of The System's rule is the absence of any revolutionary organizing theory or revolutionary organizing.

This situation will inevitably change, of course. Life is change. But the situation can only change in the direction of a collapsing capitalism in the absence of any left alternatives.

Nuclear power is unthinkable under capitalism. Period. Under a nuclear capitalist "future," those poor shivering people you point to would be warmed by the radioactivity in their bodies.

I can definitely see nuclear power being intelligently employed as a transitional energy source by left societies, though. This might be a transitional necessity.

My red-green best.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Noxion, The basis for my "assumption" that the ruling class has been captured by The System, too, is that capitalism is a systemic process, as Marx, Engels, and the materialist dialectic recognize, and that no class is as thoroughly "capitalist" as the bourgeoisie. Systems create their parts, and capitalism's globalization has manufactured an entropic system within which we all now live and think. We are all people-parts of capitalism now. The System rules.

There is no "System" in the sense of a coherent framework for the operation of capitalism. It should be obvious that right now the ruling class is divided and ultimately clueless, which is why this economic crisis shows no sign of letting up. About the only thing the ruling classes can agree on is that everyone else but them should pay for their blunders, but that isn't working in terms of getting capitalism back on track.


One manifestation of The System's rule is the absence of any revolutionary organizing theory or revolutionary organizing.

I'd put that down to a still-lingering post-Cold War hangover, plus the whatever vestiges are left of the "end of history" hypothesis, although thankfully that particular canard seems to be dying a death.


This situation will inevitably change, of course. Life is change. But the situation can only change in the direction of a collapsing capitalism in the absence of any left alternatives.

The potential collapse of capitalism is independent of whether there is a revolutionary alternative.


Nuclear power is unthinkable under capitalism. Period. Under a nuclear capitalist "future," those poor shivering people you point to would be warmed by the radioactivity in their bodies.

Baseless hyperbole.


I can definitely see nuclear power being intelligently employed as a transitional energy source by left societies, though. This might be a transitional necessity.

"Transitional" my left nut. Nuclear fission has the potential to last us for centuries.

[seventeethdecember2016]

Why do you people think the population increases are going to slow down? Isn't it obvious? It is leveling itself out to meet what the world can sustain.

The bigger issue is resources, but again it will slowly level down.