Malthusian Ideology and the Myth of Overpopulation
In conversations about climate change, pollution and resource management, two ideologies and theories are often the most prevalent. The first is the Malthusian ideology of overpopulation, an ideology that is commonly held whether people know they ascribe to it or not, and the ideology of overconsumption which is rooted in Marxist theory. Powerful people with a deep influence on domestic and foreign policy around the globe often ascribe to the Malthusian ideology, but the question remains, was Malthus right and should the concept of overpopulation continue to hold such a large influence on politics and decision making, or is it time for a new mode of thinking that focuses not on population numbers but on the consumption of a select few. By destroying the Malthusian myth a more holistic and truthful understanding of climate change, pollution, resource management, and other important topics can be established.
In 1798 Thomas Malthus, an English cleric and economist published An Essay on the Principle of Population. This essay is the most important for understanding Malthusian ideology and the concept of overpopulation and has been incredibly influential in overpopulation politics. In this essay, Malthus argues that overpopulation is one of the greatest threats facing mankind and will lead to immense human suffering if not kept in check (Malthus, 1798). Overpopulation will be caused by the exponential growth of the human population but the arithmetic increase of food supply and the finite level of resources (Malthus, 1798). This concept of overpopulation has been incredibly influential, and into the twentieth-century neo-Malthusians led by scholars such as Paul Ehlrich. Overpopulation and Malthusian ideology have had a very important role in modern politics and policymaking with figures from the British Royal Family, to politicians, to environmentalists like Jane Goodall espousing Malthusian rhetoric.
Despite continued population growth the Malthusian crisis, the ‘population bomb’ as Ehlrich called it, has never happened. In recent years an analysis of Malthusian thought has taken place and numerous flaws and criticisms have emerged as a result. The largest flaws most often brought up by critics is that resource consumption is not a static factor and that resource consumption is not equal across the plane (Khan, 2021). Programs to curb population growth are riddled with colonialist and racist undertones (Khan, 2021).
As technology changes, required resources increase and decrease. For example, more energy-efficient washing machines mean that fewer resources such as energy, water, and food are needed, and more water-efficient crops and farms mean less drain on water resources (Stuart et al., 2020). Although Malthus recognized that technology increases efficiency and the availability of resources, he failed to predict the level at which development would progress and how efficient things would actually become. In fact, in his lifetime he saw the failure of his own doctrine as the cataclysmic collapse of the human population he predicted never materialized. Many of the problems he saw, such as hunger and disease were ameliorated while populations continued to grow (Hammond, 2020).
Another issue with this theory is that proponents of Malthusian ideology often do so in an attempt to deflect from their own personal responsibility for issues such as climate change, pollution, and resource usage. Programs to control or reduce population focus on underdeveloped, under-consuming regions such as parts of Africa, Asia, and countries like China and India (Khan, 2021). Ignoring this element of the Malthusian movement would be wrong and counterproductive, as many critics believe that the Malthusian movement, as it exists today, exists to deflect responsibility from the very wealthiest and powerful (Khan, 2021).
To understand why some critics claim the Malthusian movement is racist and colonialist, it is important to understand what overconsumption means. Overconsumption means that a population or an individual consumes more resources than they need (Hakansson, 2014). Population scientists predict that the human population will level out at around ten billion people. There is, however, no established scientific consensus on how many people the Earth can sustain despite Malthusian claims to the contrary (Khan, 2021). Globally humans are using 1.6 Earth’s worth of resources, but the distribution of where these excess resources are being used is not in areas with large populations but in generally less populous regions such as Europe and Canada (Stuart et al., 2020).
When looking at consumption trends globally an interesting pattern emerges. Parts of the world, predominantly the poorest parts that have been victims of colonization, are consuming less than they need to sustain an acceptable lifestyle while other parts of the world are consuming drastically more than they need to be (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015). There is a drastic level of divergence in the level of resources consumed worldwide, one way to quantify this is by looking at carbon output by region, one of the leading causes of climate change. Looking at carbon emissions by region, and especially per capita allows us to see which regions are over and under-consuming. The poorest 3.5 billion people produce only ten percent of all carbon emissions, while the richest ten percent produce forty-nine percent of all carbon emissions (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015). This clearly shows a disparity in the levels of consumption. In some parts of the world, the vast majority of people targeted by population control programs, are under consuming leading to issues like malnutrition, lack of access to education, healthcare, and other ills not experienced as widely in the overconsuming parts of the world (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015). On the other hand, North America produces more than three times as much carbon as the global average with carbon emissions growing but with no substantial increase in quality of life (Stuart et al., 2020). Even within North America, the wealthiest residents emit fifteen times the emissions per capita of the average North American (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015; Stuart et al., 2020). Overconsumption of a select wealthy few, and the underconsumption of the poorest had led to a wide disparity in living standards globally. But as climate change and resource crises become something more and more people are aware of, a common tactic of the overconsuming few has been to deflect responsibility from their own lifestyle habits and instead look at the growing populations of the global south as the leading driver of environmental degradation and climate change. One of these deflecting their own consumption is star of the royal family Prince William.
Prince William of the British Royal family is one of the most predominant people who express Malthusian beliefs on a regular basis. Most recently Prince William was criticized for comments blaming the degradation of Africa’s environment on Africa’s population growth (Mohamed, 2021). This event is incredibly important for understanding the colonial and racist undertones of the Malthusian movement and the exponents of overpopulation. First, the British Royal family as an institution has gained much of its wealth and power from a history of colonization. Secondly, the average emissions of the Royal family as a whole, and Prince William as an individual, are magnitudes higher than those of the average resident of the African continent. The Royal family emits on average 3 810 tons of carbon emissions a year, Prince William emits through travel alone 11.2 tons of carbon emissions (Howell, 2021). In Kenya, one of the countries Prince William has criticized for its growing population destroying the environment (Khan, 2021; Mohamed, 2021), the average per capita carbon emissions are less than a ton (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015; Khan, 2021; Stuart et al., 2020). Despite the vast difference in carbon emissions and consumption, Prince William and Malthusians like him are more concerned about the potential carbon emissions of a growing underprivileged population than they are about their own current emissions. The racist and colonial undertones of the Malthusian movement cannot be ignored when criticizing it. The hypocrisy in the thought process, that the most common proponents of the ideology are often extraordinarily over-consuming individuals, highlights the flaw in overpopulation as a metric and lens for understanding climate change and environmental degradation.
Overpopulation and Malthusian ideology are inadequate ways to understand and analyze societal woes and issues such as resource depletion, climate change, and poverty. While useful if resource distribution was equal across the world and resource usage was static and not affected by technology and societal trends, in a world of unequal distribution brought about by overconsuming actors and with resource usage fluctuating dramatically Malthusian ideology fails to provide a meaningful ideology for analyzing societal woes. Malthus never predicted how food production would outpace the human population, where we now produce more food than we need but some fail to access it due to over-consuming, profit principles, or supply lines (Hakansson, 2014).
Overconsumption, the idea that some individuals consume more than they need, and likewise, some countries consume more than they need, is a much more useful metric. Overconsumption looks not at how much of a resource is produced but how that resource is distributed and if it is equitably used or used by a select few. Overconsumption also prioritizes those who are most disenfranchised in its understanding, while Malthusian ideology often puts the blame on the disenfranchised for their problems (Stuart et al., 2020). Any understanding that does not centre on the disenfranchised and looks at how issues such as environmental degradation, climate change, and lack of access to resources will fail to adequately understand the situation. Oxfam predicts that the worst effects of climate change will affect those who did the least to cause it (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015). While advocates for Malthusian doctrine and population control programs claim to have the best interests of the planet and of the people whose population they are seeking to control, they often have a disproportionate effect on climate change and environmental degradation. Prince William advises British working-class people and African people to have fewer children while he consumes individually more resources than the average British or African family (Extreme Carbon Inequality, 2015; Howell, 2021) and has welcomed his third child into the world (Khan, 2021; Mohamed, 2021).
Malthusian rhetoric serves as a way to blame those who consume the least for their problems and deflect criticism from the most wealthy and consuming. Malthus warned that if populations continued to grow, the quality of life would collapse but he himself has eleven children (Malthus, 1798). Despite population increases the quality of life has continued to improve, including within Malthus’ life span. Population and food production has increased beyond Malthus’ calculations with food now cheaper to produce than ever before. But some parts of the world have not seen the benefits of this, the parts of the world that are exploited by and ravaged by colonialism and imperialism. The wealthy and powerful tell the poor that they are having too many children and threatening the environment while the wealthy fly in private jets and use more resources in a year than some will use in their lives is exactly why Malthusian doctrine needs to be exorcised from modern environmental discourse.
