was Malthus right?

[LeftWingPunk]

In history class this semester, I remember learning about him and how he was against giving certain people money because it makes them have more children.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Now that is a complex question...

if you combine him with the Tragedy of the Commons we might be onto something.

That said, a safety net actually lowers fertility, see Europe. Why? Kids are part of that safety net for old age in traditional societies.

And boy I am giving you the true cliff's notes on this. But in traditional societies having kids ensures you have somebody to feed you when you are old and cannot do it.

[havocmom]

2. So, we should keep giving the uber-rich more money, because they hoard it?

[blogslut]

3. And who were these "certain people"?

?

[old mark]

4. Obviously not Malthus or his crowd.....nt

[LeftWingPunk]

5. the certain people that Malthus was talking about

was people that would be receiving welfare. I would consider myself economically liberal as I support the health care bill, but I'm not sure what to think about welfare. Welfare is something to help people get back on track while searching for a job to help them get off of it. But some people use it as a way to live off of and will only have more children. It is a problem if too many people below the poverty line have large families. Imagine what would happen if everyone above the poverty line had two kids and everyone below had five children.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. And modern Europe has proven this to be bunk

you realize this is an OLDER population? You also realize why right? See answer number one.

[blogslut]

12. I was once on welfare

Your argument that people "use" it to live off the government and have more children is probably based on your lack of understanding of how the system works. These "people" you speak of are for the most part, single mothers.

The monies and support one receives from the welfare system barely covers the basics of shelter, utilities and food. If a single mother on the program gets a job, no matter how low paying or minimal hours, they are dropped from the welfare rolls. Are you aware of just how expensive child care is? Most minimum wage jobs won't cover the cost of daycare when basic survival expenses are added. This leaves single moms with having to choose between working for nothing or staying on the program.

If you think women deliberately get pregnant so they can live in shitty housing with barely and extra cent for anything, you really aren't thinking at all.

[The Magistrate]

14. The Root Of Your Argument, Sir

Is the idea that people should be allowed to starve if they are economically surplus, and that indeed, this is essential and necessary to the function of society. The upper crusts of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries can at least be given good marks for not flinching from the logical conclusions of their drives for self-aggrandizement at the expense of others.

But social environments in which one frequently must step over a starveling corpse are well below optimum, and a surprisng number of people will cut a throat before they will starve.

Once long ago, the Sage wrote: "Having little to live on, the people know not to value life too much."

[pepperbear]

16. hmmm...with all due respect, and I don't mean to be rude...

"certain people?" really?

are you sure this site is for you?

[B Calm]

18. How do you feel about drug testing Wall Street Banksters?

[The Magistrate]

21. There Will Be No Answer, Sir....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=256627

[B Calm]

23. Looks that way. . . It's always the poor, not the rich. . .

[scarletwoman]

32. Hah! I called it yesterday!

I had seen one other OP by this punk, and as soon as I saw this one I sent an alert: "Mark my words, this is a troll."

:hi:
sw

[The Magistrate]

36. Glad To See We Think Alike, Ma'am....

A pleasure to see you about the place!

[Warpy]

6. Like all of those old boys, he was partially right and partially wrong

For instance, many creatures from bacteria to Gypsy moths to coyotes breed beyond their food supply. When the food supply collapses, they die off and the whole process starts again.

People aren't such simple creatures, however, and depriving them of the funds it takes to educate themselves is wholly counterproductive. It's been demonstrated across cultures that the way to get women whose only value is as producers of as many male children as they can crank out is to educate them and/or give them the means to become economically independent. The birth rate drops like a rock. Thus Malthus's idea of starving such women was cruel, short sighted, and utterly wrong.

Unfortunately, Malthus was from a long line of punitive, Puritanical moralists who thought people had to be punished into doing what he thought was the right thing.

The work of B. F. Skinner completely disproved that, finding out that reward, even intermittent and unpredictable reward, was a much better way to shape human behavior, probably why he's out of favor in our own age of stone faced moralists.

I will expect you, of course, to do the requisite Google searches because if you just copy and paste what I have written, you will be busted and humiliated, and deservedly so.

[LeftWingPunk]

8. i like your point Warpy

but didn't the GI Bill of Rights, which was signed just before the end of WWII, cause mass overpopulation?

[Warpy]

9. No, it didn't.

What happened in the post war years was a confluence of women who had delayed marriage and childbearing, women of prime childbearing age, and women who were marrying very young all having their families together.

People weren't cranking out families of 15 children during those baby boom years. It was women across 3 separate decades of life all having their children at the same time. Piss poor birth control and lack of access to abortion also drove the birth rate.

By the way, the early baby boom years were times of scarcity. The military had been taking so much of the food supply out of the system that it took quite some time to get the civilian pipeline up and running again.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. And the average family size was 2.5 kids

these days it is 1.7 if memory serves. Oh and this is bellow replacement, the only reason why the US keeps growing are immigrants, like Europe...

[Boojatta]

31. Can you name some studies of people by B. F. Skinner?

Studying mice and pigeons and then trying to generalize to all organisms, including people, is one thing. Actually studying people to see how they behave is another thing.

[Warpy]

33. Google is your friend.

[bridgit]

10. Malthus believed Protestants should only have 1.3 children if any...

As a way to lesser impact upon evermore scarce resources and thought having too many children unduly burdened society with a host of ills not the least of which being, to his mimd, the irresponsible untehthered sexual relations of unclean masses http://desip.igc.org/populationmaps.html Population was the driver for his thoughts on the occurance of war in pursuit of those resources - ultimately less for you & me, and more for the people that think like Malthus

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/3/26/851130/-Republicans-stop-unemployment-benefits-AGAIN!

[David__77]

13. Malthus was wrong and morally bankrupt.

He was anti-human to the core and progressives should utterly reject and condemn Malthusian thinking. Humans are at the center of the progressive worldview.

[ThorDem]

15. it is for the good of humanity

that population must be limited. For those of us in the environmental sciences, you know we are most likely at least 4 billion over our global carrying capacity. You just have to limit births. There is no choice. You can't leave it up to natural forces because those forces no longer apply due to technology - especially in the developing world. You'll create a time bomb with multiple triggers that no one will be able to defuse.

Think about it, you have 100 million people using coal fired energy - no problem, the atmosphere will take care of that. You have 3 billion people using coal...well, you've got a problem, sir. You have 10 million people drinking bottled waters, no problem, we can melt that shit down, we can bury it for 10,000 years. You have 100 million people drinking bottled water and you've got a plastic whirpool in the Atlantic (yep, there's another one now). You have enough people farting in a room and someone lights a match and WHOOF.

Sustainability procedures can only do so much. You can only fit so many clowns in a car. Any of this getting through?

[David__77]

17. "Any of this getting through?" Really...

Yes, I understand what Malthusians say and I comprehend fully their worldview; however, I do not agree. Economic development is the key, and the development of nuclear power worldwide.

[ThorDem]

25. Nuclear power isn't sustainable or clean

There isn't enough fissionable material on the planet to keep nuclear power going for 6 billion people. Such a small fraction of the planet uses nuclear power, wind and solar right now. The technologies aren't being developed fast enough to keep pace with population growth. Honestly, if you had the slightest idea what you were talking about, you'd be advocating hydrogen power which creates water as a by product and is fueled by the most plentiful element in the universe.

As far as nuclear power goes, another problem with it is that the waste from it is dangerous and can lead to groundwater contamination. Economic development and industrialization is precisely what is screwing us right now. I'm not advocating letting the 3rd and 2nd worlds starve, I am, however, trying to remind you of the big picture which can no longer be ignored.

Global warming is not just linked to greenhouse gas emissions - it's linked directly and proportionally to population growth (not crude growth mind you). Even though the worldwide population growth has decreased over the past 10 years, it's still well on it's way to 10 billion by 2040. Ever hear of methane hydrates? Do you know what will happen if the oceans warm up enough and the tundras melt? Look up "Great Burp" or "Great Dying" and you'll see what is scaring the pants off of climatologists around the world.

I also recommend that you read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson.

[The Magistrate]

26. Why On Earth Would You Recommend That Piece, Sir?

Why not go whole hog, so to speak, and recommend perusing the works of Mr. Dolcett?

[blogslut]

19. That is why women worldwide must be recognized as equal, autonomous humans

Societal/religious oppression against women prevents them from gaining access to proper birth control and the right to say - "No. I don't not want another/any child."

Picking on welfare moms is not going to help anyone.

[antigone382]

20. No, he was dead wrong.

I'd recommend a sociology course to understand what motivates the desperately poor (particularly in the third world) to have large and seemingly unsupportable families. Children will grow into the adults who will provide for their elderly parents in societies that don't have a decent social safety net. Growing up, their help is desperately needed in societies that rely on subsistence agriculture. Further, high infant mortality rates make it desirable to produce more children, to ensure that more survive to adulthood.

Overpopulation cannot be combatted by allowing people to starve. If that was the case the global population would have stabilized a long time ago, but it hasn't. Education, access to healthcare and reproductive options, and the implementation of sustainable agricultural and economic practices--all with a strong focus on empowering women--are what is needed to end population growth.

As a side note, I recall a statistic a while back that over the course of his or her lifetime, one child born in an industrialized nation (presumably with a stable population, as all or most have) will consume as many resources as twenty children born in one of the least industrialized nations. A little food for thought.

[PassingFair]

22. No. He left out the part about educating WOMEN.

When women are educated, they have fewer or no kids.

Typical male-centric thinking on his part.

[Taverner]

24. Yes he was - his numbers were a little off and he didn't anticipate the ind. rev.

But he was right - the Earth can only sustain so much human population

[Blue-Jay]

27. .

[handmade34]

28. may I suggest a 'modest proposal'?

not only should we give them no money, but we should eat them...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. No.

Look at Japan. Negative population growth.

[Odin2005]

30. Malthusianism is a BS excuse to let the poor starve.

[Dr Morbius]

34. Buckminster Fuller pretty much proved Malthus wrong.

In Malthus' time, it was known that one farmer can basically feed himself but the labor level is so high that he won't be able to feed another, and that one farmer with an animal (like an ox) is able to feed basically twenty people. His calculations were based on this. But Fuller demonstrated that technological innovation improved a farmer's ability to feed to over 400, and it's much higher than that now. Malthus didn't take into account the advances in science and technology when he made his dire predictions.

Obviously, there's a ceiling beyond which the Earth can't support more people. We aren't there. We could feed all of humanity if we wanted to do so.

[The Magistrate]

35. Indeed, Doctor

Human hunger is rooted in systems of distribution, not in the amounts of food available. Even in Mr. Malthus' day, this was more true than otherwise.