[lbo-talk] Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Sun May 7 10:48:17 PDT 2006


Justin wrote:
> Maybe this has been said already in the later
> discussion, but three points:
>
> 1) There are real Malthusian crises, but these are the
> results of the combination of population increase and
> the structure of social organization. Jared Diamond
> gives good examples of these propositions in his book
> Collapse, e.g., the Rwandan disaster, the Mayan
> empire, several Polynesian societies. Very densely
> populated societies like Belgium can be very well off
> for almost everyone.

This is correct. Before the rise of (full-scale, industrial) capitalism, labor productivity in agriculture did not rise fast enough to avoid "Malthusian" crises. (I use scare quotes because Malthus simply _assumed_ that labor productivity wouldn't grow fast enough, without really knowing that he was making the assumption.)

Of course, this didn't end population crises, since the distribution of food is still a problem. The problem in Rwanda could (in theory) have been solved by redistributing food to Rwanda from the over-eating Americans, etc. The failure to redistribute is part of the institution of imperialism.


> 2) Malthus' idea, that population necessarily outruns
> food production, has been overwhelmingly refuted by
> the last 200 years with its vast increase in
> population and even vaster increase in agricultural
> productivity

right. But capitalism "passes the torch."

While pre-capitalist institutions (modes of production) typically dealt with falling labor productivity (and revenues received by the ruling class) by squeezing the agricultural direct producers, capitalism raises labor productivity. (Eventually, the rise of labor productivity swamps the effects of the rise of population growth rates encouraged by capitalism. Urbanization, the welfare state, etc. eventually end the population surge, in the "demographic transition.")

The problem is that under capitalism, labor productivity is measured wrong. Instead of measuring it as "net benefits" per labor input, capitalist labor productivity is "net saleable commodities" per labor input. The difference is that net saleable commodities leaves out the external costs of production, polluting the air and water, wasting water and other "common property" resources, etc. In fact, as K. Hunt points out, the profit motive _implies_ the drive to externalize costs (and internalize benefits), i.e., to figure out _new_ ways to raise profits by dumping costs on others and on Nature.

Thus, the torch has been passed, from Malthusian crises to ecological crises: capitalism creates a new global crisis of external costs, i.e., global warming, the ozone thinning, etc.

(On the "Malthusian" end, the spread of capitalism can also cause over-population because (1) it tends to destroy pre-capitalist societal checks on population growth (infanticide, etc.); and (2) can raise the number of infants who survive to be adults via higher nutrition and the like.)


> 3) It seems true that the carrying capacity of the
> earth ecologically speaking will not support a
> bourgeois Western lifestyle with two SUVs in every
> garage, suburban housing with cars, strip malls,
> individually owned everything, and consumption of
> energy at current levels. Even if we can generate
> enough power and do not run out of nonrenewable
> resources like oil, global warming is a real threat.

I don't believe in peak oil, but I guess peak oil fears can be a good thing if they encourage conservation, i.e., efficiency in energy use.


> But this problem will not be solved by reducing
> population or reducing the rate of increase of
> population -- that might slow the effects but we are
> getting the problems right now. We need to change our
> expectations, not necessarily lower them, but change
> them. Use more public transit, rely on low-emission
> renewable resources, concentrate jobs near residences,
> promote communal use of tools like washers and dryers
> (people do this in cities as it stands).
>
> The likelihood that any of what is needed will happen
> in time to avert collapse -- not revolutionary
> transformation, just collapse -- does bot seem very
> high. Or maybe I'm just being depressive.

it seems that now, more than ever, socialism is needed. Planning is needed to deal with the ecological crisis. And it can't be the corporate/IMF/World Bank style of planning but a democratic kind. -- Jim Devine / "Sanity is a madness put to good use." -- George Santayana.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list