The Malthus Factor THE Poverty, Politics and Population in CORNER Capitalist Development HOUSE homas Malthus, a 19th century cleric of the Church of Eng- land, is today remembered chiefly as the originator of a Ttheory about human population. The principal tenet of that theory is that, because the number of people doubles every 25 years (unless checked), thus growing at a geometric rate (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc), while food production increases at just an arithme- tic rate (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc), population will always outstrip food supply. Today, as in Malthus’s time, this assumption persists as a com- mon explanation for poverty, death and environmental degrada- tion. Despite formidable and compelling criticism,1 it continues to produce in the West and among Western-influenced elites an unremitting anxiety about “over-population”. Its greatest achieve- ment, however, has been to provide an enduring argument for the prevention of social and economic change and to obscure, in both academic and popular thinking, the real roots of poverty, inequal- ity and environmental deterioration. As such, no other ideologi- cal framework has so effectively legitimised Western interests, development theories and strategies, especially the Green Revo- lution and, now, genetic engineering in agriculture. The Malthusian argument has consistently overwhelmed other explanations of poverty. Malthusian famine scenarios have sys- tematically distracted attention from the fact that it is not peo- ple’s reproductive habits that are the principal source of most of the misuse or waste of the world’s resources, but the contradic- tions and motives of capitalist development. 1. See, for example, Coontz, S., Population This briefing aims to show that today’s debates about such Theories and the Economic Interpretation, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1961 issues as welfare, the minimum wage and immigration continue (first published 1957). to be influenced by obscurantist Malthusian arguments which re- affirm the privileges of the few over the hopes of the many. THE CORNER HOUSE It first outlines Malthus’s theory and its aims, in particular, to PO BOX 3137 defend private property and to absolve the state and wealthier STATION ROAD segments of society from responsibility for poverty. It then looks STURMINSTER NEWTON at the theory’s uses in eugenicist, anti-immigration and certain DORSET DT10 1YJ UK environmentalist arguments, and considers uses to which Malthu- TEL: +44 (0)1258 473795 sian thinking has been put by Cold War and Green Revolution FAX: +44 (0)1258 473748 interests. Finally, the briefing explores some of the ways in which EMAIL Malthusian thinking is currently employed in discussions of <[email protected]> globalisation, violent conflict, immigration and the environment. WEBSITE http:// www.icaap.org/Cornerhouse The briefing concludes by noting that the rejection of Malthu- sianism involves systemic social change. July 2000 The CornerHouse Briefing 20: Poverty, Politics and Population 1 Malthus’s “Law of Nature” In Malthus’s first Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, population pressure is treated as a “law of nature” which makes 2. Most theories about the roots of poverty or poverty natural and inevitable.2 The “positive checks” of disease and underdevelopment fall into two general camps: one regards poverty as the result of starvation are regarded as the chief routes through which that pressure societal arrangements and thus susceptible can (and even should) be alleviated. to change for the better through a structural transformation of society; the other assumes Although Malthus was convinced that “the root cause of pauperism that poverty is largely the product of cir- was the excessive procreation of the lower classes”, he nevertheless cumstances beyond human control: innate 3 physical or genetic features of the popula- regarded birth control among the poor as morally unacceptable. In- tion in question, relatively intractable cul- stead, he proposed, at most, delayed marriage or “moral restraint”. His tural or psychological characteristics, as- aim was not to reduce population pressures but to reduce the obligation pects of a population’s environment which impede economic and social development, of the rich to mitigate human misery. In particular, he advocated abol- or the inevitable consequences of popula- ishing the poor laws, the closest thing that existed in his time to social tion increase, as in the case of Malthusian 4 theory. Explanations which naturalise pov- welfare. erty and underdevelopment and try to neu- By suggesting that the fertility of the poor – rather than chronic or tralise the influence of alterable economic and social conditions tend to reinforce each periodic unemployment, the fencing of common lands, or high food other. Between these two general perspec- prices – was the main source of their poverty and by implying that the tives — one seeking systemic change, the other denying its likelihood or necessity — poor’s fertility could not be significantly influenced by human inter- lies a world of irreconcilable political aims vention, Malthus acquitted the property-owning class and the political over which people have contested strenu- economic system of accountability for poverty. ously for centuries. These differences are not simply theoretical. For too many peo- Indeed, far from wanting to reduce population pressures, Malthus ple, their implications have been a matter viewed population growth and poverty as the chief stimuli for the poor of life and death. See Kegel, C., “William 5 Cobbett and Malthusianism”, Journal of to seek work and thus “a necessary stimulus to industry”. He was, the History of Ideas, 19, 1958, pp.348-62; after all, primarily an economist, even if today he is considered as one Harvey, D., “Population, Resources and the 6 Ideology of Science”, Economic Geogra- of the “patron saints” of modern demography. phy, 50 (3), 1974, pp.256-77. 3. Malthus branded known and used birth control methods such as non-coital sex, withdrawal, abortion and contraception as The Defence of Private Property “vice” or “improper arts”. Withdrawal or coitus interruptus was in fact “the main Many seeming contradictions and inconsistencies in Malthus’s writ- brake on fertility” in 19th century Europe and one of the most popular and effective ings can be resolved by recognising his political agenda. This was to forms of contraception well into the sec- defend a system of private property and to attack common property ond half of the 20th century, largely because 7 it was safe, free and remarkably effective. regimes. See McLaren, A., Reproductive Rituals: Malthus’s work emerged at a time when anxieties about the legiti- The Perception of Fertility in England from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth macy of private property were high. When his first Essay was pub- Century, Methuen, London, 1984, p.75; lished, England was in the midst of an agricultural revolution, which Santow, G., “Coitus Interruptus in the Twentieth Century”, Population and De- was transforming long-standing agrarian relations between landlords velopment Review, 19 (4), 1993, pp.767- and tenants. The power of landed interests was being challenged by an 92; Glass, D., “Family Planning Pro- ambitious middle-class attempting to forge a modern, competitive mar- grammes and Action in Western Europe”, Population Studies, (19) 3, 1966, p.228. ket. The country was also on the verge of an industrial revolution, which 4. See Chamberlain, N., Beyond Malthus: would make it the paramount manufacturing nation in Europe. Population and Power, Basic Books, New York, 1970, pp.3-4. Moreover, England was five years into a counter-revolutionary war 5. quoted in Glass, D., “Malthus and the Limi- with its growing commercial rival, France, where a decade or so ear- tation of Population Growth” in Glass, D., (ed.) Introduction to Malthus, Watts and lier, revolution had “destroyed the landmarks of the old established Company, London, 1953, p.29. order in politics, economics, social life and thought”8 and unleashed 6. Teitelbaum, M. and Winter, J., (eds.) Popu- lation and Resources in Western Intellec- many threatening ideas about the legitimacy of private property. tual Traditions, Cambridge University Malthus continuously reworked his theory over the years to adapt it Press, Cambridge, 1989; Coleman, D. and to changing conditions in the European social and industrial landscape. Schofield, R., (eds.) The State of Popula- tion Theory: Forward from Malthus, Basil What never changed, however, was its role in trying to legitimise pri- Blackwell, Oxford, 1986; Caldwell, J. and vate property. First, Malthus negated radical contemporary ideas of Caldwell, P., Limiting Population Growth and the Ford Foundation Contribution, social progress, many of which were associated with the abolition of Frances Pinter, London, 1986, p.5. private property, by proclaiming the inevitable and dismal consequences 7. See Waterman, A.M.C., “Analysis and Ide- ology in Malthus’s Essay on Population”, of population increase on the available means of subsistence. Second, Australia Economic Papers 31 (58) 1991, he absolved the system of private property of responsibility for human pp.203-13.; Harvey, D., op. cit. 2. 8. Thomson, D., Europe Since Napoleon, Pen- misery by describing the latter as a natural effect of irrepressible guin, Harmondsworth, 1966, p.49. biological urges on the part of a class that, innately or otherwise, had July 2000 The CornerHouse 2 Briefing 20: Poverty, Politics and Population little capacity for rational control. Finally, he argued that any form of social welfare was little more than a subsidy for the fertility of the poor (at the expense of the well-to-do) and therefore brought about further misery. (This argument studiously ignored the question of how the poor subsidised the well-to-do.) In fact, Malthus insisted that anything that humans might do through their own social or political efforts to redress inequalities or to mitigate suffering would be counterproductive because it would only increase population and therefore place more pressure on productive resources.