"The happiness of a country does not depend, absolutely, upon its poverty, or its riches, upon its youth, or its age, upon its being thinly, or fully inhabited, but upon the rapidity with which it is increasing, upon the degree in which the yearly increase of food approaches to the yearly increase of an unrestricted population." He argued that although human populations tend to increase, the happiness of a nation requires a like increase in food production. In 1798, Thomas Malthus proposed his hypothesis in An Essay on the Principle of Population. In spite of the variety of criticisms against it, the Malthusian argument remains a major discourse based on which national and international environmental regulations are promoted. Some modern proponents believe that the basic concept of population growth eventually outstripping resources is still fundamentally valid, and that positive checks are still likely to occur in humanity's future if no action is taken to intentionally curb population growth. Many critics believe Malthusianism has been discredited since the publication of Principle of Population, often citing advances in agricultural techniques and modern reductions in human fertility. Malthusianism has attracted criticism from diverse schools of thought, including Georgists, Marxists and socialists, libertarians and free market enthusiasts, feminists and human rights advocates, characterising it as excessively pessimistic, misanthropic or inhuman. Modern neo-Malthusians are generally more concerned than Malthus with environmental degradation and catastrophic famine than with poverty. He also worried that the effect of contraceptive use would be too powerful in curbing growth, conflicting with the common 18th century perspective (to which Malthus himself adhered) that a steadily growing population remained a necessary factor in the continuing "progress of society", generally. Malthus, a devout Christian, believed that "self-control" (i.e., abstinence) was preferable to artificial birth control. Neo-Malthusians differ from Malthus's theories mainly in their support for the use of birth control. In Britain the term 'Malthusian' can also refer more specifically to arguments made in favour of family planning, hence organizations such as the Malthusian League. Neo-Malthusianism is the advocacy of human population planning to ensure resources and environmental integrities for current and future human populations as well as for other species. A similar, more modern concept, is that of human overpopulation. Others further argue that due to lack of food availability coupled with excessive pollution, developing countries show more evidence of the trap as compared to developed countries. Others argue that the continuation of extreme poverty indicates that the Malthusian trap continues to operate. Some economists contend that since the industrial revolution in the early 19th century, mankind has broken out of the trap. Malthus suggested that while technological advances could increase a society's supply of resources, such as food, and thereby improve the standard of living, the abundance of resources would enable population growth, which would eventually bring the supply of resources for each person back to its level prior to its original level. These concepts derive from the political and economic thought of the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, as laid out in his 1798 writings, An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements, but almost always refers to advocates of population control. Such a catastrophe inevitably has the effect of forcing the population to "correct" back to a lower, more easily sustainable level (quite rapidly, due to the potential severity and unpredictable results of the mitigating factors involved, as compared to the relatively slow time scales and well-understood processes governing unchecked growth or growth affected by preventive checks). This event, called a Malthusian catastrophe (also known as a Malthusian trap, population trap, Malthusian check, Malthusian crisis, Malthusian spectre, or Malthusian crunch) occurs when population growth outpaces agricultural production, causing famine or war, resulting in poverty and depopulation. Malthusianism is the theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline. Thomas Robert Malthus, after whom Malthusianism is named
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |