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Page added on September 11, 2016
Incorrect theory from 18th century still guides policy
Tom Hanks lands a plane on the Hudson River in a movie out late last week, starring in “Sully,” a biopic about Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who did it in real life in 2009. Hanks hits the big screen again next month as Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist of novelist Dan Brown’s creation.
“Inferno” opens in late October, so your humble columnist re-read the book recently, refreshing my memory of the Italian intellectual romp of the brilliant professor. Hopefully it won’t give away too much of the plot to say I had forgotten there was a modern Malthusian madman involved.
Robert Malthus, an 18th-century English cleric and writer, formulated a theory that lives today and affects public policy and private lives. In “An Essay on the Principle of Population,” Malthus posited human population would grow exponentially while human ability to feed humankind would grow only mathematically.
Increased food production, according to Malthus, would lead to overpopulation, which would lead to famine, disease, etc., creating a “Malthusian catastrophe.” Malthus wrote, “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”
Population control groups from the United Nations to Planned Parenthood to Al Gore’s climate change crowd are at least tangentially informed by Malthus. Books like “The Population Bomb” in 1968 and “Famine 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive?” came in close proximity to the Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that legalized abortion, the ultimate population control technique.
To state the obvious, the Malthusian Catastrophe never happened. Yes, food insecurity still exists, but biological (including, yes, genetically modified crops) and technological innovation have enabled farmers to produce more food efficiently and economically, particularly here in the United States.
“The U.S. is on track this year to post the longest stretch of falling food prices in more than 50 years, a streak that is cheering shoppers at the checkout line but putting a financial strain on farmers and grocery stores,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. “The trend is being fueled by an excess supply of dairy products, meat, grains and other staples and less demand for many of those same products from China and elsewhere due to the strong dollar.”
In fact, the Journal wrote, “The glut is so severe in some places that dairy farmers have been dumping millions of pounds of excess milk onto fields.” The federal government recently bought $20 million worth of cheese to help out dairy farmers.
Empirically, Malthus was wrong. The “settled science” of Malthus wasn’t so settled, whether his followers will admit it not. The other side of the Malthusian equation is not happening either.
Population growth in the developed world is barely at replacement levels. “By 2025, it is likely that deaths will exceed births in the developed countries, the first time this will have happened in history,” according to the Population Reference Bureau. This unsettles “settled” public policy.
“The number of retired workers is projected to double in about 50 years. People are also living longer, and the birth rate is low,” the Social Security Administration writes in Social Security’s Demographic Challenge. “As a result, the Trustees project that the ratio of 2.8 workers paying Social Security taxes to each person collecting benefits in 2015 will fall to 2.1 to 1 in 2037.”
The Economist magazine commissioned a survey in 19 countries and found attitudes in the developing world are increasingly aligning with the developed world. In Peru, Mexico, Indonesia, China and India, parents desire about the same number of children, a bit more than two, as parents in the U.S. Only in more agrarian Africa do parents want more kids than basic replacement levels.
For a couple of centuries, the “informed elite” set public policy based, knowingly or not, on Malthus’ formula. History and observable facts show us Malthusianism and Dan Brown’s “Inferno” share a trait: Both are fiction.
13 Comments on "Incorrect theory from 18th century still guides policy"
Davy on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 9:07 am
Here is some inconvenient Malthus. We have created a Beast and it is us.
“Why A 2% Move In Stocks Feels Like 20%”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-11/why-2-move-stocks-feels-20
“Everything is 10-times bigger now,” said the CIO. A 2% move in stocks feels like 20%. And a 10bp move in bond yields feels like 100bps. “It’s the kind of thing that happened to Alice in Wonderland.” When you combine negative rates with leveraged carry strategies, anything becomes possible. You can justify almost any price for an asset provided policy makers can suppress volatility. “But elevated asset prices come at the cost of systemic fragility. Because to suppress volatility requires feeding the beast with ever more stimulus.”
rockman on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 9:26 am
Interesting. Being an Internet junkie thought I would dig up facts to refute some/all of this report. Instead found some support from, believe it or not, some rather liberal organizations. So first the good news from worldhunger.com:
“The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, which saw a 42 percent reduction in the prevalence of undernourished people between 1990–92 and 2012–14. Despite this progress, about one in eight people, or 13.5 percent of the overall population, remain chronically undernourished in these regions, down from 23.4 percent in 1990–92. As the most populous region in the world, Asia is home to two out of three of the world’s undernourished people.
There has been the least progress in the sub- Saharan region, where more than one in four people remain undernourished – the highest prevalence of any region in the world. Nevertheless, the prevalence of undernourishment in sub-Saharan Africa has declined from 33.2 percent in 1990– 92 to 23.2 percent in 2014–16, although the number of undernourished people has actually increased.
Hunger continues to take its largest toll in Southern Asia, which includes the countries of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The estimate of 276 million chronically undernourished people in 2014–16 is only marginally lower than the number in 1990– 92. Eastern Asia (where China is by far the largest country) and South-eastern Asia (including Indonesia, Philippines, Mynamar, Vietnam and others) have reduced undernutriton substantially.
Latin America has the most successful developing region record in increasing food security.”
So:”…saw a 42 percent reduction in the prevalence of undernourished people…” So is there any bad news? Just speculation on my part but yes: a healthy world and, more specifically, how it has come about. Basically it takes energy to support mankind’s life. Any and every form of energy. And given that global energy consumption (especially in the underdeveloped countries) has dramatically increased it shouldn’t be a surprise to see health improvements.
Often folks point angry fingers at the US for its disproportionate consumption of oil. But a good bit of it goes to agriculture…exported agriculture that feeds a very large potion of the world. Then add the export of US refinery products made from about 1 BILLION BBLS OF OIL per year. And some of those exports are used to improve foreign ag production.
You should be getting the idea by now: increased fossil fuel consumption has been a big factor in improving global health. Improved health which increases survival rates and allows for more population growth. Which, in turn, creates a greater demand for energy.
Which wouldn’t be a problem if the planet was creating more fossil fuels. But not only is it not we’ve developed technology that has allowed the world to recover (i.e. deplete) this FINITE resource even faster.
So bottom line IMHO: this article is BS. The “theory” is correct but it didn’t contemplate the complexity of the dynamic between population growth, health as well as energy consumption AND depletion. There does seem to be a catastrophe coming. And the grim reaper wears a PO mask. Unfortunately it’s more of a two-sided mask (i.e. happy/sad) represented by the POD. The POD, at times like today, can give the impression that all is well when it comes to energy production and world health. But eventually the other side of the POD mask will eventually show itself.
So far mankind has been unable too separate the conjoined twins (good news/bad news) of the POD. And doesn’t look like it will anytime soon.
Lucifer on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 9:48 am
The human population will start to decline before 2030. By then most of the heavily populated parts of the world will be on fire and all hell will break loose. You can take my word on that, so good luck everyone, you all have a great future to look forward to.
regardingpo on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 10:29 am
Thank you Lucifer, very kind of you to warn us yoomans in advance.
Anonymous on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 10:37 am
Sorry, rockman, but the uS does not use FF energy, to grow massive surpluses of not-quite-food, then export them to a hungry, yet grateful world(or so goes the merican fairy tale), out of the goodness of their black heart. And its not entirely about ‘profits’ either. The uS uses its subsidized food surplus system to undermine agricultural self-sufficiency around the world, ‘friend’ or foe scarcely matters. IoW, food production has been weaponized, like much else in the empire. Us uses its food-FTA system to exert control over how nations feed themselves. Why do you think so many Mexicans are forced to move to the uS in search of a ‘better’ life? uS efforts to undermine domestic mexican ag have been a absolute boon to the uS slave labor plantation systems(corporate ag), uS construction , and the garden and lawn care industries, and many others to be sure.
The idea that the uS, a nations that is a NET importer of FF, ‘increases’ foreign food production in the manner you suggest, is laughable on its face. The uS, its ‘free-trade’ teams, and its concentrated corporate food system, have indeed been increasing foreign food production. BUT, they been forcing the third world to grow high-value, high volume export crops on vast uS style(and owned) plantations. In S. America, Africa, Asia, anywhere they can gain a foothold. For export to where again? Oh yea, to keep exotic, high value foods artificially cheap, mainly for obese uS consumers of course. The idea that uS food policy, is geared towards ‘feeding’ poor and hungry people around the world, even its an only an accidental afterthought of its weaponized corporate food system, is a joke.
Many countries are quite capable of being largely, or wholly food self-sufficient, or even food exporters on their own, w/o any of the beign assistance from uS corporate food. But uS policy, is very broadly focused on preventing that very situation from ever arising. uS entities like Monsanto, Cargill, Nestle, etc, undermine food production and food quality globally, not ‘enhance’ it.
Apneaman on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 11:09 am
“Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty — less than $1.25 a day.
1 billion children worldwide are living in poverty. According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
805 million people worldwide do not have enough food to eat. Food banks are especially important in providing food for people that can’t afford it themselves. Run a food drive outside your local grocery store so people in your community have enough to eat. Sign up for Supermarket Stakeout.
More than 750 million people lack adequate access to clean drinking water. Diarrhea caused by inadequate drinking water, sanitation, and hand hygiene kills an estimated 842,000 people every year globally, or approximately 2,300 people per day.
In 2011, 165 million children under the age 5 were stunted (reduced rate of growth and development) due to chronic malnutrition.”
Preventable diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia take the lives of 2 million children a year who are too poor to afford proper treatment.
As of 2013, 21.8 million children under 1 year of age worldwide had not received the three recommended doses of vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.
1/4 of all humans live without electricity — approximately 1.6 billion people.
80% of the world population lives on less than $10 a day.
Oxfam estimates that it would take $60 billion annually to end extreme global poverty–that’s less than 1/4 the income of the top 100 richest billionaires.
The World Food Programme says, “The poor are hungry and their hunger traps them in poverty.” Hunger is the number one cause of death in the world, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-poverty
Texas high school football stadium to cost $70 million
http://boingboing.net/2016/09/02/texas-high-school-football-sta.html
Jerry McManus on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 11:20 am
From the article:
“The trend is being fueled by an excess supply of dairy products, meat, grains and other staples and less demand for many of those same products from China and elsewhere due to the strong dollar.”
Wow, that is far and away one of the more convoluted mental pretzels I’ve ever seen trotted out in defense of economic collapse.
Perhaps the author should consider a career as a circus freak…?
JuanP on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 11:47 am
Malthus was right; population growth is unsustainable. You have to be incredibly stupid to not understand this. Anyone who thinks this will end well is living in denial. We are headed towards an incredible amount of human pain and suffering, and we are responsible for it. We couldn’t behave more stupidly if we tried.
onlooker on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 12:11 pm
Absolutely Juan. We have tried to cheat Nature and its laws. But you can only do that for so long
Hernan Vargas Alvarado on Sun, 11th Sep 2016 8:27 pm
Knoxville says, For a couple of centuries, the “informed elite” set public policy based, knowingly or not, on Malthus’ formula. History and observable facts show us Malthusianism and Dan Brown’s “Inferno” share a trait: Both are fiction.
Oh really? I assume the reference is to unfettered population growth and a total absence in planning.
rockman on Mon, 12th Sep 2016 12:15 am
Apeman – First, who said anything about US food exports being down out of kindness by anyone? The subject is the world is consuming more food and improving survival as a result of increasing food availability. And as seen below fossil fuels have played a vital role. A role it will be increasing less able to maintain as ff continue to deplete:
“Until recently, it seemed that cheap oil could override constraints imposed on agriculture by lack of land, soil and water. What is the oil connection? Where is oil (or more generally, fossil fuel) used in agriculture?
We’ll use the example of corn production in the US, focusing only on farm production. That is, we’ll exclude energy inputs associated with processing the corn into food products. What are the major energy inputs into corn production?
In decreasing order (by kcal/ha; where kcal = kilocalorie [kilogram calories] or quantity of heat equal to 1000 gram calories), the “big 8″ in US corn production are:
nitrogen fertilizers
irrigation
gas + diesel fuels
machinery (including energy costs of manufacture)
drying of harvested corn
seeds (includes all inputs required to produce the seeds)
phosphorus fertilizers
herbicides
In fact, as you might expect, fossil fuel energy inputs into agricultural production increased rapidly over most recent decades. Again, using corn in the US as an example (see Pimentel et al. on the supplementary reading list and the update in Pimentel and Dazhong), the energy efficiency of production, calculated as the ratio of corn energy out to energy put into its production (energy out/energy in) changed as follows (ignoring the sun’s input of energy, which is the greatest, of course!):
(ratio of corn out/energy in):
Ratio in 1945 = 3.5
Ratio in 1983 = 2.5
Between 1910 and 1983, corn yields in the US increased by 346% (on a per area basis), which the energy inputs increased by 810%, also on a per area basis!
That is, we are putting more and more fossil fuel energy into production for a given level of output! Viewed slightly differently, we’re not getting as much more corn out as we are putting extra energy in; the efficiency ratio is worsening over time!”
IOW the efficiency ratio, while it has decreased global malnutrition, is declining as the fossil fuels that efficiency is dependent upon are depleting.
That’s the unfortunate dynamic I was pointing out: global health has improved and allowed population growth in large part due to increased fossil fuel production. Production that has a finite lifetime.
HARM on Mon, 12th Sep 2016 5:27 pm
“Empirically, Malthus was wrong.”
Perhaps the Knoxville News idiot can point out how world population is decreasing (or at least slowing down), AGW is reversing, extinct species are spontaneously regenerating, forests are making a comeback, glaciers are re-freezing, continent-sized plastic trash gyres are dissipating, badly depleted water tables are replenishing, and wars over dwindling resources are winding down. Until then, I’ll regard this as yet more hopium induced BS.
onlooker on Mon, 12th Sep 2016 5:31 pm
Wow superb post Harm