![]() ![]() Barnet and Morse (1963: 52) summarize: “The limits of nature constitute scarcity. Malthus asserted that finite resources and unchecked population growth through procreation – “fixed laws of our nature” (Malthus 1798: 5) – inevitably come into conflict. ![]() In his 1798 Essay on Population, Thomas Malthus put forward a vision of natural scarcity, inevitable class division, and checks on exponential rises in population. Drawing from neo-Malthusianism’s critics, I present a different theory of population across geographical space based on anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism. I show how neo-Malthusianism works as an ideological justification for how capitalism and imperialism generate surplus populations and maintain inequality – highlighting racial, gender, and spatial components. I begin by briefly summarizing Malthus’ original thesis and clarifying how Malthus made a political, not predictive, argument against social equality. Malthus was wrong, then, in an ethical and political sense in that he provides an ideological framework for population control policies that imperialism and racial capitalism pursue by design – and broadly use to cause harm and maintain systems of oppression. In this paper, I argue that Malthus’ thesis on natural scarcity was primarily a normative argument against social welfare and economic equality. Malthusian “overpopulation” remains a powerful and frequently used shorthand to deflect from the ongoing legacies of genocide, colonialism, and neo-colonialism. The 2018 documentary Germans in Namibia opens with an interview in which a wealthy, German-descended landowner blames the economic plight of poor Namibians on overpopulation and unchecked breeding. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |