Sam Pawlett wrote:
> >
> > and it wanted plenty of workers for its factories.
> Mark, I find all this confusing. You seem to be trying to draw
> Malthusian conclusions from marxian concepts. I'm not sure this can be
> done.
>
> The Haute Bourgeoisie or the aristocracy are and always
> have been the main force behind Malthusianism.
I meant the big commercial and industrial owners who as a class were very
interested in having large populations to sell to and exploit. They were not
Malthusians. They were the bourgeois politicians who agreed to the 8 hour
and to various public health measures in order to keep their workforces
alive.
> Only a fool believes that
> > surplus population is not a problem *today*.
>
> And in what sense is it a problem? That "they" are putting too much
> pressure on the world's food supply or that "they" do not have
> sufficient income which will in turn lower their birth-rates. M's don't
> understand that even from standard dismal science it is economically
> rational to have as many children as possible. To an impoverished
> family, the marginal costs of childbirth are lower than the gains.
Well, now you're saying it better than I could. Exactly. But my general
point is this: it is true that the real "problem" population (in terms of
carrying-capacity and burden on the ecosphere) is the over-consuming
population of EuroAmerica. This goes without saying, but should be repeated
all the time anyway because the Zeropopulation people and the Goreites
(AFAIK) don't get it, and often (not always) refuse to talk about US
population except in terms of immigration, and when they do talk about
overpopulation it is, as you say, mostly about the populations of India,
China etc. But their racism, and the anti-immigration chauvinism of the
EuroAmerican working classes, must not blind us to the truth, we shouldn't
just reflexively oppose whatever the enemy is saying without considering the
matter further.
The *real problem* for capitalism is precisely *LACK* of population, and
always has been. Capitalist growth absolutely does depend on a growing
"reserve army of labour". If you look at the figures for immigration into
the US/Canada, and compare them to growth figures, you see they are in
lockstep, and a lot of research has been done on this. The great pulses of
mainly east European immigration into N America at the turn of the 19th/20th
centuries stimulated a huge growth wave in the N American economies.
Shrinking populations have the reverse effect. It is a primary reason for
Japan's problems, and is a growing problem in Italy and elsewhere, today:
i.e. the problem of falling populations. Capitalism's own dynamics of growth
and change automatically summon whole new populations into existence, and it
feeds off them. Most of the post-war growth wave was fuelled by the
recruitment of peasants and agricultural workers into the cities of Europe
and N America. This did not happen in Britain only because it had already
happened 100 years before, and this is one of the main reasons for the
post-war British record of slow growth, structural rigidities etc.
So growing populations of domesticated, urban workers, to be consumers and
producers are strictly necessary if capitalism is to grow. One of the
factors behind deflationary processes outside America is a marked slowing in
demographic growth trends. World population growth has slowed, and there
haven been substantial migratory movements (not least towards the US). And
this dynamic is what is so dangerous to the environment. It is not a
question of blaming ANYONE for being alive or for having children, WHEREVER
they live, east or west, north or south. It is a question of acknowledging
that one of the most baleful, dangerous and menacing legacies of another
century of unimpeded capitalist accumulation, has been an increase of world
population wildly beyond planetary carrying capacity. This just was not an
issue for the Founders of socialism, because they were not living in what
Herman Daly called 'Full-world'. They were still living in a half-full world
where it did make sense to speak of huge new economic growth for the benefit
of all, in conditions of social justice and equality. There were one billion
people in 1900. There are 6 billion going on 9 billion today. That is a
fatal, disastrous result! Surely we cannot help seeing that this is one of
the worst problems we shall inherit. Obviously, there will be a demographic
transition and either the population will stabilise or it will shrink (or
there will be a mass dieoff of billions of people, also probable). Social
justice requires an enormous redistribution of wealth and resource from the
west to the rest, but until the human population falls to (by some
estimates) 2 billion or less, the threat of total, irreversible ecosphere
collapse remains. Socialists have to start getting their heads around this.
Today, according to some estimates only 10-20% of land area and natural
resource use (including water!) is left available for *all other species*.
Humankind already takes 80+% of everything. That is already unsupportable
and is already producing a mass extinction, with unknowable consequences for
biodiversity and for the integrity and viability of the ecosphere (on which
we depends) as a whole. This is the mess hurrah-capitalism has made of it.
>
> On a per capita basis and in an absolute sense, the rich (and everyone
> else) in the OECD countries consume many times more resources than the
> poor and working class in the south who consume and pollute relatively
> little. The rich then would be the target for kill off. The main reason
> it doesn't happen is they have greater military force. Can you imagine
> what would have happened if the cops/army had not been performing their
> role in Seattle or Washington?
>
Of course, this is true, and if all the 'poor' will killed off it would make
little difference to some forms of resource use and eco-destruction BUT it
is a matter of fact that poor people do also put enormous pressure on
biodiversity, do cause run-off, use biomass fuel etc. No-one is blaming them
for this, on the contrary, they have an absolute right to life. But my real
point is this: capitalism called into existence this colonial, neocolonial,
peripheral reserve army into existence. They may think they can do without
it, but they cannot. Without these vast hostage populations in the barrios
of third world megacities, capitalism in EuroAmerica will slide into
irretrievable and profound economic slump. People still do not get this,
because either they think that I am wrong to argue that capitalism
'requires' and 'summons into existence' a surplus population, or they think
that in nay case, peasants or unemployed people in places like Zimbabwe
(unemployment = 50%) or S Africa (unemp = 30+%) are structurally and
functionally NOT part of the global capital labour pool, the so-called
'reserve army'. I've just been arguing this on M-Fem with someone who lives
in Southern Africa and argues this way. I tried to explain that he is wrong
and that the unemployed and underemployed are indeed part of the 'surplus'
population available to capitalism, just as say the Irish in the 19th
century, or the people of the Indian subcontinent, were available to the
British Empire, and were conscripted and used. But make the thought
experiment of imagining a capitalist world which was serious about reducing
population. You could murder 200m people and it would make no difference
(Hitler did that, and it made 0.0 difference to the problem of world
overpopulation). You could lose a billion people through engineered
democides/genocides and it would make no difference. As long as capitalism
grows at 1.7% p.a., population growth will keep in lockstep, demographic
cusp or no demographic cusp. Nations which went through a cusp will start to
grow again (e.g., USA) and growth will recur on a world scale in step with
economic growth. So in order (still continuing my thought experiment) to
reduce population growth long term, simply massacring people in the third
world isn't a solution. You'd have to impose a Chinese style solution on a
whole world scale. You'd have to have a universal state, powerful enough to
really control fertility. And you'd have to accept as a premise, *falling*
economic demand, empty houses, towns returning to wilderness etc. In fact,
this WILL happen, one way or another, because there are just too many people
for global carrying-capacity. But my argument is simply that capitalism
cannot do this. It does not have the institutions, ideologies, politics to
do this, and it cannot motivate its rulers and owners, the
socially-powerful, to do this. There are no profits in declining populations
(there is plunder, Russia q.v., but no profit).
> Yes, but in Marx's view the sp is relative (Capital 1,ch25).
> Malthusianism is about absolutes and absolute natural barriers to the
> growth of the productive forces.
This is a good point. I also constantly refer to it as 'relative' surplus,
but relative to what? Relative to the requirements of capitalist growth
dynamics. In fact, Marx was very concerned about ecological issues and his
remarks on the destruction of soil fertility show this. Marx absolutely did
not believe that capitalist growth was a good thing in and of itself,, he
talked constantly about growth being at bottom 'growth in its own
contradiction', and he was right. I think anyone who argues that there are
NO "absolute natural barriers to the growth of the productive forces" has
got some serious explaining to do. The planet is not growing. For a decade
after the 1973 the reinventers of hurrah capitalism talked non-stop about
how energy and GDP had been 'decoupled' and how energy was a 'declining
component of unit GDP' and how economies were 'virtualising' and
'dematerialising' This was ALL hogwash, bullshit. Energy consumption and net
material resource consumption has continued its inexorable rise; look at the
figures for oil consumption, 25% higher than 1979, and that's AFTER the
collapse of the USSR's huge high-energy consuming economy. Capitalist growth
is basically about the growth in production of material goods, commodities,
and about growth in population. It is obvious, absolutely self-evident, that
there are indeed 'natural barriers' to economic growth without any limits.
It's not Marxists who have a problem with Malthus; it's capitalists.
> Marx thought that laws of population are relative to the mode of
> production while Malthus(ians) think the law of population is eternal.
Well, there do appear to be some law-governed processes at work in the
self-regulation of populations in nature, where population explosions and
dieoffs do occur all the time with different species, but an overall balance
is maintained. With hindsight, won't such generalisations also apply to the
human species, whose population grew without limit when new resources were
suddenly made available (fossil fuels) and will die off when they cease to
be available? And that, BTW, is surely compatible with ALSO arguing that
"laws of population are relative to the mode of> production".
> > Socialism *cannot permit unrestrained population growth*
> (assuming such a
> > tendency emerges in a socialist state).
>
> But why is the population growing as fast as it is in the places that
> is? Why would you assume such a tendency and how are you going to
> restrain it? Population growth is negative in places, mostly in
> NOrthern countries (and it's not because of die-off.)
Why are you so sure that there are not elements of dieoff involved? Sure,
there are longstanding social and historical reasons to explain why people
choose smaller or no families now, but there is also an underlying but real
problem about declining fertility (falling sperm counts, declining ovarian
fertility etc). But population is not declining, even in Italy. It's
growing, fuelled by immigration, which can surely only increase. Workers are
entering Europe from the Horn of Africa, the Balkans, and much further
afield, even China. There is a tide of illegal immigration, same as in the
USA. Workers who one week are rural uneremployed poor in Central China, a
week later are working in London sweatshops and catering.
Why is that? Why
> do birth rates differ across countries or any other geographical areas?
> So far under capitalism, birth and death rates have fallen. The problem
> is that death rates fall before birth rates because of the high birth
> rate of the past. The large number of child bearing age people is due to
> past high birth rates. So it takes 2-3 generations for absolute numbers
> to level off assuming there is no jump in the death rate during those
> 50-150 years.
>
> The experience of China and of India
> > are both decisive in this respect. And when Clinton argues that
> the best way
> > to reduce population growth in places like India is by empowering women,
> > raising literacy standards, lifting the veil, etc, he is saying
> no more than
> > the present Kerala government does, or than Lenin, Krupskaya,
> Kollontai etc
> > did, or than Mao and Mme Mao did, in their time.
>
> Yes and they are right. Amartya Sen has shown and proven that
> Malthusianism is false. It is a problem of distribution and
> production.Check out his article in the July 24 issue of
> The Nation (Population and Gender Equity--if someone has access to this
> article please post it--it is very good) or better yet read his books.
> Sen shows that the birth rate has fallen in Kerala and two other Indian
> states because of the promotion of literacy, "empowering women" etc. The
> birth rate has in fact fallen below rates in some OECD countries.
> Malthus was wrong to think that the birth rate increases as the
> impoverished gain a higher standard of living. The truth is the exact
> inverse. But all Capitalism ,in its very best planned-socdem form, can
> do is a declining ratio of poor to rich yet an increase in the absolute
> number of poor.
But who is disagreeing with any of this! This is exactly why I point to the
experience of Kerala (and also China). Of course, there can be a demographic
transition. But if in 50 years time, the world population as a whole begins
to decline, instead of increasing at about 1.6% p.a. as now, then capitalism
(other things being equal) will run into critical realisation/valorisation
problems. Falling populations are not compatible with capitalism. This is
why, after 150 years of relative demographic declines, starting in the
first-industrialised states (Britain, etc) and spreading around the world,
and despite the effects of rising living standards and public health
standards, with more literacy and social justice, all helping reduce birth
rates: despite all this, the population has grown from 500m in Malthus'
lifetime to 6 billion today. Think about it. *As long as capitalism
persists, the population will tend to rise, barring disasters created by
capitalism itself*. To this extent, Malthus was right. And growth must have
limits. Either we will find them, or Mother Nature will find them for us.
The demographic transition will occur, but population will continue rising!
It is WRONG to be optimistic about the future of capitalism, or its ability
to reform and renew itself and overcome its inherent contradictions. You may
think you are taking a Marxist position and opposing a reactionary
Malthusian position, but in fact you are defending a rosy, optimistic and
quite unwarranted view of the capitalist future. No, capitalism cannot solve
its 'Malthusian' problem, just as it cannot solve its energy problem. People
like Doug Henwood are in denial. They are the Plekhanovs of our day, the
Grand Old Men of sage and moderate wisdom, who believe implicitly that world
capitalism will always exist and always overcome its problems. There is no
energy crisis, just a short-term problem. According to these Solomons there
is no population crisis, just an (indefinitely-protracted) demographic
transition. This is nonsense, and the fact that some people are spouting
nonsense in a stuffy and patronising way doesn't make it any less nonsense.
There is an energy crisis, and you can only not notice that if you keep your
eyes shut and only read CIA, USGS and EIA handouts, and switch your brain
off too. And there is a problem of overpopulation, and we have to face it.
Mark Jones
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