>This is what I can't understand about the Malthusians' argument. Why
>is the problem the population and not the resource consumption (and
>waste production)? Is it that they want to be able to maintain
>*their* high level of consumption, so eliminating almost everyone
>else might make the arrangement more sustainable?
>
It is not either or but both - the increase in population/resource ratio will inevitably lead to increased struggle for shrinking shares and may upset the existing insititutionalized class division. That may not necessarily be a bad thing because it may lead to on overhaul of the institutional status quo - as Robert Brenner convincingly argued (Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, _Past & Prestent_ 1982, 97:16-113). So the Malthusian argument is not necessarily all crap - especially when coupled with a class analysis.
wojtek