The Malthusian Dilemma

The Malthusian Dilemma

Malthus was an economist in the 19th century that predicted that human population would outstrip food supply. Eventually famine would ensue, bringing food and population back into line. His premise was based on the theory that while populations grew exponentially, food growth was linear. What Malthus failed to factor in was the revolution in farming from feudal or subsistence agriculture, to single crop commodity production. The difference in methods would greatly increase the food supply, along with improved application of science with things such as chemical fertilizer and pesticides.

So while the population of the world had reached approximately 1 billion people, Malthus was preaching population control policies to avert a human famine catastrophe.

Two hundred years later, and the population has reached 6 billion and projected to grow to 9 billion. Obviously Malthus’ model was wrong.

If one wanted to be charitable, one could argue that at the current production methods of the time, if nothing changed, the population was hitting the limit of the system to support it.

That is precisely the reason why predicting future events is so fraught with danger. One cannot model all of the factors and their interactions. Moreover a new discovery, or unforeseen change, will lead to significantly different results.

Malthus was right directionally, he was spectacularly wrong in his timing. He failed to take into account the human ingenuity for innovation in addressing a problem.

What relevance does Malthus have for today? Today we still have the issue of population explosion, we have the issue of Global Warming, we have the issue of water shortage, we have the issue of ocean and air pollution, we have the issue of genetic engineering, we have the issue of biomass diversity and extinction, and we have the issue of mutual self destruction. We have a whole host of things where application of a Malthusian type theory can lead us to massive expenditures to correct for a problem in a manner that may or may not be appropriate or timely. We may have more science and information at our disposal; however we can never model the future. Not only is it too complex to do, but more so, we cannot know what we don’t know.

That was Malthus’s mistake; he assumed he had all the inputs. His theory was correct, but application of currently unknown techniques and science, would shift the problem into the future by hundreds of years.

So how do we deal with our major sustainability issues? We can take a Malthusian approach and say we may be wrong as to timing, but the issue is too important to wait for the time when it has become critical and immediate. It may work, and it may be timely; however in most cases it will be costly, controversial, and lead to significant problems in obtaining support for whatever policy is undertaken.

A more appropriate policy may be to allow the problem to develop, allow economics to deal with the issue of corrective measures. Such an approach would not be controversial, may address the problem at a stage when it is more costly to correct, but will help with the issue of obtaining support.

Unfortunately we are neither today, nor will we ever be in a position where wise men will be able to dictate policy. If we are to be truly democratic, we could allow the population to decide. This would be counterproductive as the fact that a majority feels that the answer is a or b, does not make them correct. Allowing the economic system through proper cost capturing and the dynamics of demand and supply would be an approach that in the long run would avoid controversy.

We need a feedback mechanism to correct for a given problem. Without an economic feedback mechanism we cannot steer the ship in a direction that is both appropriate and least controversial.

Some might argue that issues such as global warming need to be addressed prior to the event happening; otherwise it will be more difficult or impossible to correct. They may be right; however with proper monitoring and pricing of things such as CO2 production, we should be able to establish an appropriate mechanism for averting human calamities.

Unfortunately we can never know what we don’t know, and until unmistakeable symptoms appear, or the problem is glaringly evident to everyone, we cannot be expected to obtain support to correct a problem whose reality and timing is problematic.

Besides, we have bigger problems than that. Even if we could be certain that a catastrophe is imminent, given our current geopolitical structure, we would have political jockeying for obtaining advantage over other states, rather than focusing on the common problem.

Before we can solve any of these problems we need to assemble the appropriate project team. A project team with members who are not responsible for the problem, but are responsible to a power that has different political and economic priorities, will never be a united team. Obtaining alignment in such an environment is almost impossible. In this environment, there is no majority rule, and unanimity will be impossible to attain.

The first order of the day is to address the structure and rules of decision making by the project team. As we have one planet and one boat we need to have a common set of rules and methods for addressing future critical events.

The main function of such a team would be to set the rules for economic activity and the measuring and cost structure for guiding the eco-system forward.

Our problem is significant as we live on a single planet, but it is subdivided into geographically autonomous states, with different levels of cultural and technological evolution. We might even state that if everyone takes care of his own little corner, than the end result will be positive for all of us. There is certainly some merit for such an approach. In a world where we can affect climate change, ocean and air pollution, release of genetically modified bacteria, foods, chemical gases, and radioactive particles; it is somewhat naive to assume that our current Nation State approach to managing our planet will lead to positive results. Our current international Organizations report to National Governments and not to the population at large, moreover our international organizations are not democratic and we do not all have an equal say in their administration.

We can continue to muddle along, and wait for catastrophic events to unfold, either through wars, or environmental exhaustion or we can commence on a path to having a more appropriate and responsive management structure in place.

Malthus was lucky; the human ability at the time to devastate the planet was far from significant. Our current situation may be similar, however everything around us seems to be pointing to a more significant and immediate problem.