TYPOLOGIES OF VIEWS ON POPULATION GROWTH

1
TYPOLOGIES OF VIEWS ON POPULATION GROWTH

• There are different views on population growth
• Neo-Malthusian view
• Anti Malthusian view
• Cornucopian view
• Marxist view
• Conspiracy theories

2
NEO-MALTHUSIAN VIEWS(THE LIMITS THESIS)

• One of most commonly held views on population
  growth is the Neo-Malthusianism
• Derived from Malthus arguments
• They see birth control as a means of checking
  growth
• They believe that a reduction in population will
• Reduce social problems
• Reduce human suffering
• Lead to economic growth
• Improvements in human suffering

3
NEO-MALTHUSIAN VIEWS

• Belief that size of the population is the main
  obstacle to development especially in LDCs
• High population growth results in
• high natural resource depletion
• environmental degradation
• Widespread poverty
• Economic stagnation
• Rapid urbanization
• Unemployment
• Political instability

4
Limits to Growth

• 1972 Limits to Growth was published
• Commissioned by The Club of Rome based in MIT and
  relied on computer modeling to predict the future
• They concluded that global society was due to
  collapse in the future because of resource
  scarcity including food supplies and
  environmental degradation

5
Limits to growth
6
ANTI-MALTHUSIAN VIEW

• Group of theorists and thinkers view population
  and development in terms of economics
• Boserup believes that
• Population growth stimulates innovation and
  development in agriculture
• Population is the driving force for infinite
  scientific and technological progress.
• Growing population means a growing number of
  producers and consumers promoting economic growth
• Economies of scale

7
ANTI-MALTHUSIAN VIEW

• Economic growth leads to improvement in the
  standards of living and consequently to falling
  fertility
• It is unnecessary to intervene directly to reduce
  BR through family planning programs

8
ANTI-MALTHUSIAN VIEW Julian Simon

• Believes that population growth is not bad, that
  people are the ultimate resource
• The increase in worlds population is our victory
  against death
• Population growth brings with it an increase in
  stock of useful knowledge
• As resources are depleted, rising prices reduce
  consumption and increase the search for
  substitutes stimulating technological change
• there are no real resource limits
• population growth itself brings adjustments that
  continually put off doomsday.

9
Anti-Malthusian view

• The ultimate resource is people - skilled,
  spirited and hopeful people - who will exert
  their wills and imaginations for the benefit of
  mankind.
• More people implies more ideas, more creative
  talents, more skills and thus better technology -
  in the long run population growth is not a
  problem but an opportunity

10
CORNUCOPIAN THESIS

• There are limits to growth only if science and
  technology cease to advance.
• As long as technological development continues,
  the earth is not really finite
• Even if scientific advances cease, limits would
  be far away as the earth is huge relative to the
  demands being made on it

11
MARXIST PERSPECTIVE

• There is no population problem
• Poverty and resource depletion is not a result of
  population growth but of unequal distribution
  of resources between classes
• Where ownership of and control over resources is
  confined to a capitalist or land-owning class,
  potential exists for poverty and hunger
• Poverty occurs not because of overpopulation but
  through lack of access to means of gaining
  subsistence

12
Marxist perspective

• Humanity is not universally trapped in Malthusian
  dilemma
• Can escape the negative consequences of
  population problems by reordering society

13
Conspiracy theories

• Some believe that the real problem is not
  population growth but global inequalities in
  resource distribution North/South divide.

14
Issues related to population growth

• Exhaustible resource use
• Pollution
• Savings and investment
• Education
• City growth and urbanization
• Renewable resource degradation - rainforest,
  fishing areas

15
Issues related to population growth

• Health and education of children
• food security
• land fragmentation
• inflation
• informal housing
• Unemployment
• Literacy