Malthusian disaster

A Malthusian catastrophe or Malthusian trap ( English Malthusian crisis or English Malthusian nightmare ), also - after the most famous example - called population trap , is a possible obstacle to economic development and growth outlined by Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834).

General

Originally, Malthus' model of the population law envisaged a forced return to subsistence-based conditions because population growth clearly exceeded that of agricultural production. Malthus became known worldwide. Ferdinand Lassalle's bronze wage law was derived from it. Later predictions of technical-industrialized development, change and redistribution, such as those made by Wilhelm Fucks (1954 and 1965), forecasts and estimates of available energy sources such as the global oil production maximum (1956) by Marion King Hubbert or the rather pessimistic assessment of the club, which has been updated to this day of Rome by Dennis Meadows (1972) - like almost all prognoses on the future of technology, industrial revolution and modernity - a distinction is made up to the present day according to whether they are oriented analogously to Malthus' ideas or these.

The population trap at Malthus

Before Malthus, it was generally assumed that a growing population meant a country's greater economic performance. Malthus disagreed with this view in 1798 in his essay The Principle of Population ( German  Population Act ) vehemently. He proposed that the population was growing exponentially , but that food production was only growing linearly . As a result, food supply and demand diverge. Food prices would therefore have to rise and real wages (paid (nominal) wages minus the rise in food prices) should fall below the subsistence level . There is a reciprocal relationship between population growth and per capita income of the respective economies .

Impoverishment growth

Malthus founded poverty , hunger , disease , slum formation and the resulting social unrest in the English cities of his time. According to Malthus, it is a matter of a natural law cycle in which the population is reduced again in the course of the progressive impoverishment of the population through disease and epidemics . Then the cycle starts again.

No way out of the population trap

Unlike other thinkers of his time, Malthus did not believe in the problem-solving ability of the market economy . In later editions of his Principles of Population , he advocated abstinence and late marriage in order to get population growth under control, but also advocated investment in education as a tool to lower the birth rate. He rejected contraception and abortion as sins. In the event of insufficient preventive checks on the birth rate, the limitation of resources would inevitably reduce the standard of living and the death rate rise ( positive checks ). In emigration he saw only a temporary alleviation of the problem.

His contemporary David Ricardo accused Malthus of giving "the rich a very pleasant formula to endure the misfortunes of the poor," a criticism that Karl Marx and others later shared. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon pointed to statistics according to which, on the one hand, poverty is increasing faster than the population and, on the other hand, the average level of prosperity is even increasing.

The population trap in empiricism

Falsification in the industrialized countries

Malthus underestimated the speed of technological progress , mainly in agriculture , the productivity significantly increased. The increased efficiency of productivity is essentially due to three mechanisms: 1. Division of labor and mass production, 2. Innovations, and 3. Socially institutionalized rules that support the first two points. These mechanisms are only made possible and necessary by a growing population.

By increasing productivity, the resource scope - which according to Malthus was only limited - was enormously expanded. The population growth of the industrialized countries also declined as a result of rising incomes . The increase in productivity of animal production in the industrialized countries is also caused by the increased import of cheap animal feed from developing countries (and the overexploitation of nature there).

Neo-Malthusianism

The development theory of neo-Malthusianism argues that the fertility of a population increases if the population is not limited by scarcity of resources. If one accepts several groups with different fertility, then the fertility of the population will approach the fastest growing group, just like

${\displaystyle f(t)=a\cdot {1{,}01}^{t}+b\cdot {1{,}02}^{t}}$ With ${\displaystyle b\neq 0}$

for ${\displaystyle t\rightarrow \infty }$

${\displaystyle g(t)=b\cdot {1{,}02}^{t}}$

approximates no matter how big or are. ${\displaystyle a}$ ${\displaystyle b}$

In other words, the Neo-Malthusian Theory says that groups in a population who are more fertile (e.g., because they reject or are resistant to contraceptives) are evolutionarily favored because they have more children so that they can make an ever larger proportion of the total population and the fertility of the total population finally equalizes, i.e. increases.

Application to developing countries

Most developing countries have had high growth rates for decades. Malthusians see the rapid population growth due to lower death rates (due to better health care and nutritional situation) and high birth rates as the main reason for economic stagnation .

Since the majority of the world's population now lives in emerging and developing countries, the topic is still one of the most pressing in the economic and social sciences . In China , however, the instruments already recommended by Malthus are being used: birth control (at times through the one-child policy ) and promoting education in the lower classes of society.

An interesting exception was the Pacific island of Tikopia , where the population was kept constant for centuries through strict birth control.

Criticism from research in developing countries

The main criticism of Malthus came from Ester Boserup , who examined population development and agricultural production as positive correlations. According to her studies, population growth in developing countries leads to innovation in agricultural technologies. Beginning with shifting cultivation with fallow land lasting several years, population pressure forces to shorten the fallow periods and ultimately to permanent crops with fertilization and irrigation. The population creates the conditions for further growth for itself through innovation. The closed loop at Malthus has become a spiral that widens upwards. The higher the degree of agricultural intensification and the resulting increase in production, the more working time is required not only per area, but also per yield. This means that when even more manpower is deployed, a limit is reached when it can no longer be fed.

Ukara , an island in East African Lake Victoria, is an example of an area with a high population density and intensive agriculture for centuries . This development comes from an emergency, as soon as the population shrinks or more land is available, it reverts to extensive cultivation methods.

See also

• Overpopulation
• Emerging market

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Population growth: Standstill in 70 years, Der Spiegel 18 (1954) [1]
2. ↑ Wilhelm Fucks : Formulas for power . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1965, especially pp. 28–119; 4th revised edition 1970. Rowohlt, Reinbek b. Hamburg. ISBN 3-499-16601-1
3. ^ Marion King Hubbert : Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels . Drilling and Production Practice. American Petroleum Institute & Shell Development Co. Publication No. 95 (1956), esp. Pp. 9-11, 21-22
4. ↑ Dennis Meadows among others: The limits of growth . Report of the Club of Rome on the situation of mankind (original title: The limits to growth , translated by Hans-Dieter Heck), DVA, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-421-02633-5 (16th edition 1994)
5. ↑ Nicholas Wade: In Dusty Archives, a Theory of Affluence. New York Times, Aug. 7, 2007
6. ↑ Justin Lahart, Patrick Barta and Andrew Batson: New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears , The Wall Street Journal . March 24, 2008. 
7. ↑ David Price: Of Population and False Hopes: Malthus and His Legacy . In: Population and Environment . tape 19 , no. January 3 , 1998 ( html ).
8. ↑ Alan Mcfarlane: Thomas Malthius and the Making of the Modern World . 2013, ISBN 978-1-4903-8185-5 ( PDF ).
9. ^ RN Ghosh: Malthus on Emigration and Colonization: Letters to Wilmot-Horton . In: Economica . tape 30 , no. 117 , February 1963.
10. ^ Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: Système des contradictions économiques, ou philosophie de la misère. Oeuvres Complètes, Vol. I, ed. by C. Bouglé et H. Moysset, Geneva Paris 1982, p. 190.
11. ^ Ester Boserup: The Conditions of Agricultural Growth. The Economics of Agrarian Change under Population Pressure. London 1965. Giovanni Federico: Book Review ( Memento of April 27, 2001 in the Internet Archive )