
Who are you calling Malthusian? - Hooke
https://growthecon.com/blog/Malthus/
======
rrherr
“The answer to anyone who talks about the surplus population is to ask him
whether he is the surplus population; or if he is not, how he knows he is
not.” —G.K. Chesterton

~~~
cgag
That only seems to matter if you're trying to off people. I just want them to
not be born.

~~~
keebEz
Should you have not been born?

~~~
cgag
I think I'm willing to bite that bullet

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bufordsharkley
A true Malthusian is a dangerous thing, in my opinion, insofar as they fully
claim that the only way that we can all be rich is by limiting population.

It's possible, at any rate, to accept most of the correlations in this article
and to reach a very different conclusion: that the earth is capable of more
and more population while still redistributing its proceeds. This argument was
made by Henry George more than 130 years ago, and still is worth reading[0].

[0]
[http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP10.html](http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/George/grgPP10.html)

~~~
Bullingdon
And the argument may have appealed, 130 years ago. Since then we've quintupled
our population and gained a much better understanding of carrying capacity.
That capacity may be larger or smaller than our current population, but in
either case, indefinite growth is not a sustainable plan — unless we know
where our next planet is.

~~~
bufordsharkley
It's simultaneously true that infinite growth isn't feasible, and yet true
that most predictions on resource depletion haven't been borne out. We can
make soil more productive, find new ways of creating potable water, create
energy out of seemingly nothing... Most of the suffering from limited
resources have been a case of artificial scarcity owing to monopolistic
control.

I don't think it's unduly optimistic to agree with the mindset of "Spaceship
Earth":[0]

> It is a well-provisioned ship, this on which we sail through space. If the
> bread and beef above decks seem to grow scarce, we but open a hatch and
> there is a new supply, of which before we never dreamed. And very great
> command over the services of others comes to those who as the hatches are
> opened are permitted to say, "This is mine!"

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_Earth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceship_Earth)

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>been a case of artificial scarcity owing to monopolistic control.

Well, that sounds like an excuse. 1.6bn people are living in poverty via the
Human Poverty Index (HPI) measurement, which is defined as less than earing
$1.50 a day. Worse, if we raise the value to $2.50 a day, then we're talking
almost half the population of Earth! Half of every living and breathing human
right now is poor on a level that I can't comprehend.

Oh we can add more and more excuses like bad government, 'lazy' people, people
who should 'move to better jobs', etc but it doesn't make a difference. If the
political and economic engines of the world can't keep almost 1/3rd of us out
of poverty then its time to consider that maybe we know more about the Earth's
carrying capacity today than we did 130 years ago and that you can't just wish
post-scarcity into existance nor wish away the effects of human economic
activity that ultimately hurts us like climate change as a "Chinese hoax."

We probably can continue to add people but we'll just be making larger numbers
in each category, mostly poverty and the poor. Hey, I'm doing well because
poor countries tend to work for my interests but that's an accident of birth.
Unfortunately, not everyone gets to be born into the life of an urban
westerner.

~~~
stale2002
And 30 years ago, how was life for these 1.6 billion that were in poverty?

Answer: it was much much worse.

Yes, things are bad right now. But in the past things were worse. And now they
are getting better, very quickly.

I see no evidence that this trend won't continue.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
The problem with your reasoning is this:

[http://i.imgur.com/cRzjXWQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/cRzjXWQ.png)

Sure you can point at some changes but you don't know what is causing them and
when they're begin to peter off. We do know that a lot of the poverty fixes of
late are almost exclusively linked to the fall of communism in Asia. Now
they're all on market economies and we still have 1/3rd poverty and 1/2 living
with under $2.50 a day.

Now we've eliminated communism, now what? The market approach has itself
bottomed out and even wealthy states are struggling with late stage capitalism
which is extremely low growth and rising unemployment and taxation unable to
keep up with entitlements. On of the dirty little secrets of capitalism is
that rich countries need poor countries to stay rich. You can't just raise
everyone up. Limited resources will always mean uneven distributions, the same
way economies don't naturally have an even distribution of money/resources.

Also one of the main reasons things are better today is become of liberalism
in regards to abortion and the lowered population in especially hopeless areas
in the 70s and 80s that led to starvation and resource warfare, thus these
people aren't here anymore to pad poverty stats. They're dead. We shouldn't
see that as a win for economic prosperity.

~~~
stale2002
You don't have to look at just the last couple decades.

You can look at the last 200 years.

Every decade some smart academic makes the same, Malthusian, population bomb,
peak oil, or whatever argument.

And every decade that person gets proven wrong, for the last 200 years.

Is this decade different? Are the Malthusians going to proven right NOW even
though they have been wrong every single other time they make these
predictions? Maybe. But I think I am going to wait a little while before
giving that argument any weight at all.

No arguments, no predictions, only evidence.

We are in late stage capitalism once living standards stop going up, and they
have yet to do that.

~~~
WildUtah
The people that said you wouldn't be able to afford an apartment in
overcrowded SF were dead-on right. The people who predicted widespread traffic
jams were right.

The people who said that third world countries needed to cut birthrates before
they could get richer turned out to be right everywhere.

The people that said Bengala-Desh would get to be like Bengala-Desh were
right. As were the people who predicted overcrowding and exodus from the
Sahel.

~~~
stale2002
OK, and what does living standards look like for all of these people?

Would you rather live in 1950s SF or 2017 sf? Would you rather live in 1950s
bengala desh or 2017 Bengala desh?

How about 1950s third word or 2017 third world?

Yes, there are costs to a growth centric economy. But there are also benefits.
And apparently the benefits massively outweigh the costs.

~~~
WildUtah
I pick 1960 San Francisco, when it was the home of emerging 1960s culture and
twenty year olds with unskilled 3/4 time jobs could buy a house and start a
family. (That's the exact same house you need to make $550k to buy today)

I pick 1950s Bengala-Desh because you didn't have to risk your kids lives from
flooding because of overpopulation and DDT was just ending the malaria problem
(some came back after the ban).

Lots of 1950s third world countries are first world today, like Mexico or
Korea. In that case, I'd pick today over 1950s.

There are lots of benefits to growth in per capita income. There are no
benefits to growth in GDP from population increase while GDP per capita
stagnates.

~~~
stale2002
[https://www.google.com/search?q=bangladesh+life+expectancy](https://www.google.com/search?q=bangladesh+life+expectancy)

[http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations...](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=BD)

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sulam
At the risk of distracting from the article itself, that graph is very odd
from the perspective of this theory. Apparently wages started dropping in
anticipation of a population increase?

After rolling this around in my head for a few minutes (clearly I need my head
examined) I wonder if the direct cause of the wage increase was simply
people's willingness to accept a job in a fixed location. If you told me today
that some deadly disease outbreak was under way in San Francisco, I'd leave
town, but I'd be able to keep working. That likely wasn't possible during the
Black Death.

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stale2002
What county does this guy live in?

Is it America?

Because Malthusian economics seems to be trivial to prove false.

Population growth has stalled in 1st world countries and living standards are
continuing to rise.

(yes, they are. The world today is much better than it was in the 90s. By
EVERY measurable quality of life statistic)

~~~
67726e
> Population growth has stalled in 1st world countries and living standards
> are continuing to rise.

For whom exactly? Insofar as I'm aware, the current situation seems to be the
exact opposite. Things are trending downward.

~~~
legitster
Income inequality is up and disposable income is down, but neither of these
are measures of living standard. Access to information, quality of life,
expected lifetime, food security, leisure time and spending, etc are all
improved.

~~~
67726e
Can I get some further reading or a citation on that? That really runs counter
to every thing I've been hearing. Insofar as I can tell, my prospects as a
"millennial" are shit. I've definitely heard that expected lifetime is going
down. I'm also not sure how "spending" is going up if "disposable income" is
down. Especially when there was something posted the other day about how folks
are earning less than their parents.

~~~
legitster
We are specifically talking about quality of life though, which is not income.
Here's one on leisure time:
[https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/Workingpapers/PD...](https://www.bostonfed.org/-/media/Documents/Workingpapers/PDF/wp0602.pdf)
You can find these for a ton of different metrics.

As an anecdote: when my father was my age, he was married, worked three jobs,
had to build his own house, didn't have A/C, did his own car repairs, didn't
have consistent heat, didn't have a TV. Maybe he made more money on paper, but
I feel I definitely have it easier.

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vdnkh
For a Malthusian exploration of the psychological/technological impact of
overpopulation, check out "Stand on Zanzibar" by John Brunner. It's a bit
pulpy but has some very cool ideas.

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jereme
Sure human populations are increasing and quality of life is going up too, but
what about the environment and biodiversity of the planet? We hit peak-human a
lonnng time ago if you care about anything beyond how many you can pack on the
planet. Toggle through these graphs and you will see everything is collapsing
except humans:
[http://wikipop.org/species/rhinos](http://wikipop.org/species/rhinos)

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albertTJames
Self-determination is another variable that suffers both from population
growth and increased communication, in a culture which still values crude
evolutionary units of dominance.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
determination_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination_theory)

On a more personal note, I have never understood how educated people could
believe ressources are indefinite.

~~~
erispoe
Does anybody really believe that, though? It's something different to say that
we have large reserves of productivity to feed both economic and demographic
growth for the foreseeable future, taking into account the natural slowdowns
that advanced development bring (demographic transition...) and to to say that
resources are literally infinite. I dont think anyone believes the latter, and
it's a little of a strawman argument.

~~~
albertTJames
I do believe a large amount of people, in the world, think ressources will
never lack. Another large amount of people do not care, and those who believe
we "have a large reserve of productivity to feed both economic and demographic
growth for the foreseeable future" are behaving as if there was no limit. So
whatever their belief, there is no qualitative difference between the three
groups.

You need to feel constrained to act.

We have a false sense of abundance in the west, as we are draining ressources
away from developing countries and our infrastructure is more robust. 2008 was
also a major food crisis for the majority of the world population:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_world_food_pri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007%E2%80%9308_world_food_price_crisis)
Although it was not felt in developed countries, the tension is real, on a
very large scale.

The worst are religious natalist, and preachers of morality, who oppose beyond
logic any proven fact about the state of the world.

You see homeostasis everywhere in living organisms, dynamical systems converge
to energetic minima, to believe our ingenuity will allow us to fix as we go
the complex system that is Planet Earth is reckless. To think we are not as
fragile as the weakest link in the food chain is foolish.

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/abs/nature09...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/abs/nature09678.html)

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plantsoftware
HA. This article doesn't show you what happened after the great enrichment.
Classic malthusian. In the late 1600s, we broke the inverse relationship
between people and 'misery'. This is a joke, if not an attempt to perpetuate a
ridiculous and unfounded worldview.

The great enrichment, google it.

~~~
valuearb
Apparently the author believes that people are equally productive whether
serfs, or freemen.

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SilasX
Not sure if choice of domain name is too OT, but ...

Anyone else read the domain name as "grow the con"?

~~~
WildUtah
expertsexchange.com whorepresents.com

