Less is more

[xchrom]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/MJ26Dj01.html

On October 31, the world's seven billionth inhabitant will be born. This should be a matter for deep mourning. Not only does inexorably increasing population pollute the planet, and lessen the likelihood that the majority rather than a minority of the world's inhabitants can achieve a Western living standard, it also hugely raises the probability of a crisis in which billions are killed.

When Thomas Malthus wrote in 1798, the world's population had not yet passed 1 billion, a milestone it was to reach in 1804. At that point, the world's increasing trade and technology following


the Renaissance had allowed the global population to double in the preceding 300 years. As is well known, Malthus believed that by 1798 the planet was close to its carrying capacity, certainly in the more populous areas such as China, India and Western Europe. Extrapolating the population growth rate of 1500-1800, we can estimate that, without the Industrial Revolution after 1800, global population might have grown to 1.62 billion by today.

It is now clear that the Industrial Revolution, by increasing the planet's productive capacity, allowed global population to increase artificially far beyond its natural level. Instead of the great majority of infants dying in childhood, the majority began to survive, producing population growth rates far in excess of historical precedent. As Malthus pointed out, any such population surge without industrialization would quickly have resulted in mass famine. Thus the increase in population from today's natural level of 1.62 billion to its current 7 billion is entirely due to a one-off technological change.