Re: Issues

Perplexed in Peoria <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote or quoted:

> The Top 25 [problems driving research]
>
> * Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?

This one seems a bit embarassing to me.

Here's what Malthus wrote:

``This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of
production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must
constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to
me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society.
All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in
comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the
weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. No fancied
equality, no agrarian regulations in their utmost extent, could remove
the pressure of it even for a single century. And it appears,
therefore, to be decisive against the possible existence of a society,
all the members of which should live in ease, happiness, and
comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety about providing the means of
subsistence for themselves and families.''

- http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/malthus/malthus.1.html

Unless someone is claiming that all members of society:

``live in ease, happiness, and comparative leisure; and feel no anxiety
about providing the means of subsistence for themselves and families.''

....I don't see where Malthus was mistaken.

Human society is - and probably always has been - resource limited.

Like Malthus, I would be very suprised if the pressure of
resource-limitation were removed "even for a single century".

Human population growth could do quite a bit of work in that
space of time - and it would take a very dramatic and rapid
influx of abundance to outstrip it for very long.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@xxxxxxxxxxx Remove lock to reply.

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