Chapter 2 - 10

10 Geography

Listen to a discussion in a geography class. Fill in the diagram with the information that you hear.

W: Today, we’re going to start our unit on overpopulation by asking whether Thomas Malthus’s theory on overpopulation was accurate or whether it was downright wrong.

But first, who is Thomas Malthus and what is overpopulation? Thomas Malthus was a famous political economist of the 18th century.

He believed that at the rate our world’s population was growing, we would soon use up all our resources and reach a point where the Earth would no longer be able to sustain us.

This situation is called overpopulation. Now, when a country experiences overpopulation, it often faces a series of economic difficulties.

For instance, India, which is predicted to surpass China’s population in the next fifty years, has so many people that the country is facing poverty and is running out of land to put people.

Thomas Malthus predicted these types of problems over two hundred years ago and came up with his famous theory about overpopulation.

Now in his theory, Malthus said that the world’s population was progressing at a geometric rate. This is when you have a series of numbers where each number is being multiplied by a particular amount to get the next number in the sequence.

For example, think of the sequence 2, 4, 8, 16, 32−each successive number in the sequence is multiplied by 2. That’s kind of how our population works.

On the other hand, Thomas Malthus thought that while our population was progressing geometrically, our food supply was progressing at only an arrhythmic rate, when the same number is added to each successive number.

Think of 1, 2, 3 or 2, 4, 6, 8 − the same amount is being added to each number. So if our population is growing geometrically, and our food supply is growing at an arithmetic progression, what’s going to happen?

M: There’s not going to be enough food for everyone.

W: Right. Hence, we have overpopulation, a situation in which there is not enough resources to go around. Now Malthus believe that the only way to stop overpopulation was through misery and death.

He wrote in his essay that once the population exceeds the power of the Earth to support it, then “premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race”.

This death would most likely come through war, severe famine, or the spread of plague-like diseases.

M: But didn’t he think that there could be other, less gruesome ways to deal with overpopulation? What about, uh, doing what China did by limiting the amount of children each couple could have?

W: He did propose the use of such techniques, mostly for the poor and the working classes. But overall Malthus thought that the horrible outcomes of poverty and widespread death resulting from overpopulation were inevitable. Mankind would suffer until enough people died that the world could once again sustain the human population.

Now in reality, Malthus’s beliefs were correct on certain levels. For instance, overpopulated countries do have lots of impoverished citizens, shortages of food, and other economic difficulties.

However, many of Malthus’s apocalyptic predictions did not come to pass. Can any of you think of an example?

M: Well, Malthus predicted that we’d have widespread famine and starvation across the world. That didn’t happen. Even though there are famines in some parts of the world, Malthus’s prediction was that we would see massive famines across the entire world. We don’t see that happening.

W: Correct. In particular Malthus believed that widespread famine would occur in Europe, which did not happen. Malthus also believed that social reform and higher wage increases wouldn’t benefit society in the long run, because he felt that more prosperous families would have the means and the desire to have more children, thus increasing the population even more.

Now, looking at current worldwide trends, this appears to be false, because our most economically wealthy countries like the United States, Japan, and the European continent are actually experiencing decreasing population rates. Yes, did you have a question?

M: Yes, I just wanted to point out that Malthus also didn’t really take technology into account, right?

W: Yes, Malthus did not adequately consider what advances in technology could do for mankind. Advancements in technology and science have prevented Malthus’s predicted catastrophes from taking place.

In fact, experts from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization believe that with our current technology and production processes, our Earth can produce enough food to be able to sustain our current population of six billion people.

1) According to Malthus, what has to happen in order to put the population back into balance?

2) What did Malthus believe would happen with wealthier populations?

3) According to the passage, which of the following is correct about the world’s population?