Malthusian catastrophe

A Malthusian catastrophe, sometimes known as a Malthusian check, is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. Theories of Malthusian catastrophe are very similar to the subsistence theory of wages. The main difference is that the Malthusian theories predict over several generations or centuries whereas the subsistence theory of wages predicts over years and decades.

Non-occurrence of the catastrophe

At the time Malthus wrote, most societies had populations at or near their agricultural limits. But by the late 20th century, the new agricultural technologies of the green revolution had greatly expanded agricultural production throughout the world, and what famines still occurred were largely caused by war or political unrest rather than crop failure.

Related Topics:
20th century - Green revolution - Famine - War - Political unrest - Crop failure

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In addition, most technologically developed countries had by this time passed through the demographic transition, a complex social development in which total fertility rates drop drastically in response to lower infant mortality, more education of women, increased urbanization, and a wider availability of contraception. By the end of the 20th century, these countries could avoid population declines only by permitting large-scale immigration. On the assumption that the demographic transition would spread to less developed countries, the United Nations Population Division estimated that human population would peak in the late 21st century rather than continue to grow until it exhausted available resources.

Related Topics:
Demographic transition - Total fertility rate - Infant mortality - Education of women - Urbanization - Immigration - Less developed countries - United Nations Population Division - 21st century

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Another problem is that there is no strong evidence that the human population—nor any real population—actually follows exponential growth. In plant or animal populations that are claimed to show exponential growth, closer examination invariably shows that the supposedly exponential curve is actually the lower limb of a logistic curve, or a section of a Lotka-Volterra cycle. Also, examination of records of estimated total world human population (http://www.geohive.com/global/linkg.php?xml=hist2&xsl=hist2 http://www.geohive.com/global/linkg.php?xml=hist3&xsl=hist3) shows at best very weak evidence of exponential growth:

Related Topics:
Logistic curve - Lotka-Volterra cycle

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Clearly this is close to linear. In fact, the correlation coefficient is practically the same for linear growth, or very slow exponential growth (with a characteristic time of about 60 years).

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The annual increase graph is worse; for exponential growth, it should itself be an upward trending exponential curve whereas it has actually been trending downward since 1986. Also the rate of increase should increase, whereas, of the increase between the early 1950s and today, five-sixths occurred in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s (presumably attributable to the Green revolution); it then rose to a peak in 1989 and has since declined to levels approaching those of 1970.

Related Topics:
1986 - 1950s - 1960s - Green revolution - 1989 - 1970

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Though short-term trends, even on the scale of decades or centuries, do not necessarily disprove the underlying mechanisms promoting a Malthusian catastrophe over longer periods, the relative prosperity of the human population at the beginning of the 21st century, and the apparent failure of spectacular predictions of mass starvation or ecological collapse made by activists such as Paul R. Ehrlich in the 1960s and 1970s, has led many people, such as economist Julian Simon, to question its inevitability.

Related Topics:
21st century - Paul R. Ehrlich - 1960s - 1970s - Julian Simon

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