The classic one is the Irish Potato famine. But that was caused by English land lords not by the potato blight. There was plenty of food, Ireland was a net food exporter at the time. Just a lack of Potatoes.
So enlightenment Malthus is pure evil. It is nothing more than an excuse for evil to be done by the rich to the poor and called just.
But it is still intuitive. It seems obvious that if there is more people there is less to go around. But that misses the point that stuff comes from people. So if there is more people there is more to go around.
Is there anything that can be saved?
Human misery is not tied to population density. Or even density in a given region. But privileged ratio. There is always plenty to go around except when someone else thinks they should get some of your stuff.
It's not population pressure its co-operative frame work.
>>So enlightenment Malthus is pure evil. It is nothing more than an excuse for evil to be done by the rich to the poor and called just.
Reality can be pure evil. Thomas Malthus invented his population theory during a time when a lot of other things were invented too (and birth rates were going down). Ironically, Malthusianism was one of those things invented just when inventions were breaking the Malthusian curse in the Western world.
>>But that misses the point that stuff comes from people. So if there is more people there is more to go around.
Stuff is made from natural resources, by people. Take away one and nothing is being made.
>>There is always plenty to go around except when someone else thinks they should get some of your stuff.
If population increases enough compared to available resources, that someone else is not just an upper class person, but every hungry neighbor.
Technology. Includes capital, and fertilizer but also technique, and crop varieties and some other stuff.
Co-operation. This includes how stuff is shared, how much goes to parasites, but also specialization. You can make more on your farm if you can buy your seeds and chicks from a specialist. And you can get more money if you focus on cash crops for trade instead of trying to be 100% self-sufficient.
Labor. Includes, hours but also skill and care and knowledge.
Outputs.
Subsistence.
Luxury.
Slack.
All 4 inputs are flexible. People can (damn near) always work harder, longer, better, smarter or more careful.
There is (damn near) always more land to bring under cultivation. Its just not as good. But its good for something.
Technology, technique, and even the plants themselves are always improving.
Co-operation can always improve. This is usually the easiest.
I hope its ok that I am working out my thoughts in the comment section of your blog. I'm just going to leave these here for now. If you think I have made a mistake please point at it.
Malthus (I think) has only land (maybe labor) as inputs and only Subsistence as an out put.
Possibly the last 200 years were just a happy, flukey interruption to Malthusian inevitability. Continued population growth by itself doesn't seem to be enough--after all, population has doubled in 50 years as global poverty has plummeted. Still, if obstacles to innovation keep piling up as they have been, Malthus may be vindicated.
>>Possibly the last 200 years were just a happy, flukey interruption to Malthusian inevitability.
I hope not - I believe in space colonization! (The space station variety)
I don't think population growth in itself causes a Malthusian conditions. I think the growth of low-tech populations does. And the populations that are growing today are almost all low-tech.
You'll be interested in Russ Roberts' most recent podcast episode with Zach Weinersmith, about the challenges of space and of creating living conditions on e.g., the moon and Mars.
I certainly would, if I had the patience to listen to podcasts (Rob Henderson recently helped me to justify that lack of attention and patience https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/how-i-read )
I hear you. Knowledge is infinite but our time and capacities aren't. ON the other hand, Roberts' Econtalk is one of the most intelligent podcasts and IMHO the best on economic topics. The point of that particular podcast episode was that conditions in space, on the moon, and other planets are far harsher than our sci-fi fantasies ever allowed. For example, because of the absence of wind and moving water on the moon, the dust particles are jagged and hence highly toxic. Keeping them out of living spaces would be a major challenge, on top of all the other ones. So if you're interested in space colonization, the episode might add perspective.
I think "disproven" is a strong word for a condition that has formed so much of human existence for such vast amounts of time. The last 200 years has showed that the Malthusian condition is not a completely inescapable destiny. Still, innumerable people have lived under Malthusian conditions and many still do. I'm rather sure that we haven't seen the last of it.
There is clearly famine, fights for land, etc., throughout human history.
Most think, assume, believe this caused by material lack.
Human flourishing since Malthus shows that the real lack is applying human mental resources
Think of the well known ‘resource curse’. Too much easy material wealth brings poverty, due to human laziness.
Medieval Spain. Etc..
Underlying assumption seems to be that of materialism, only matter exists. Mind, free-will, human ingenuity, discovery are not physical, therefore they’re not real.
If can’t be weighed, measured, mathematically described, not real, not significant.
Recalls debate about primary and secondary qualities. Descartes, galelio,
The modern resource curse brings poverty through human greed not laziness.
The modern resource curse means wealth can be gained and controled by controling one valuable resource oil for example. The one who gains control then no longer needs to build a wide collation to maintain power and support. Does not need to co-operate or share with the wider population. And actively destroys value produced by others since he doesn't control it and it could lead to a separate power base that could threaten him.
The russians aren't poor because they are lazy. They are poor because Putin wants them that way. Or more importantly he can't afford for them to be rich.
(There are better examples but not more topical ones.)
How does Turchin align his theory with the history of the last 200 years? In the early 1800s Western elites made up, say, 5% of the population and 95% or so were near subsistence. Today those proportions are reversed. (Marx was writing just as the facts on the ground were proving his theories nonsensically false.) Though the non-Western world is a few generations behind, the same dynamic has taken place there over the past 50 years. Though it's not hard to find reasons to be pessimistic, so far the benign trend hasn't reversed. So I agree with Tove; Turchin has work to do.
>>How does Turchin align his theory with the history of the last 200 years?
I think that is one of the problems with Turchin's method: He doesn't align his theory with modern times. He just applies it on modern times and finds that it roughly fits.
The same dynamic is taking place in large parts of the non-Western world. Still, I suspect that something Malthusian is going on in less successful parts of the Third World. I once looked up the birth rates of the Third World countries that export the most refugees to Sweden. Those birth rates were all unusually high. I suspect that some parts of the world are actually still truly Malthusian and shed surplus population to places that aren't.
Yes, some parts of the world still seem to fit the Malthusian dynamic. But the fact remains that as a general model the Malthusian argument fits poorly, it seems to me, given that an ever-shrinking proportion of the world is subject to it. Given the trends of the last 200 years globally, and in what used to be called the Third World more recently, the model looks increasingly out-dated.
Africa is growing rapidly. I won't be surprised if population growth in Africa offsets technological progress elsewhere, so the Malthusian condition starts affecting a larger part of the population of this planet again.
Turchin's theory doesn't make much sense for history either. There has always been a strong desire from the other classes to join the elite, so there has always been a state of elite overproduction. Maybe some societies like the High Middle Age with a rigid class system toped by a titled nobility had less of a problem but that is unusual in world history and even in Europe it didn't last long as the emerging bureaucratic and mercantile classes achieved power and wealth and eventually even titles.
According to Turchin's theory, in history elite overproduction was mostly the result of a higher birth rate and higher survival among children in the higher classes. Turchin claims that cycles are notably shorter in polygynous societies, like in the Arab world, compared to largely monogamous societies only for that reason.
This is one point that I think could deserve to be investigated further: Obviously, present-time elites don't overproduce organically as elites did a few hundred years ago. Are the same principles still valid? I think it could be worth some attention, but it doesn't get that attention in Turchin's books.
As a datum, I recall reading in one of Gregory Clark's books that up until 1850, lineages generally experienced downward mobility but after 1850 in Britain, they started having upward mobility.
Turchin's ideas are interesting, but I've not heard of any objective measure of "elite overproduction"; you'd need some way of measuring that in order to show that society had cycles of excess elites.
In regard to Haidt's ideas, I remember Trivers preface to The Selfish Gene where he pointed out that there's great importance to not revealing to others one's motivations, actual dedication to conflict, etc. From there, it becomes clear that there's a conscious mind (the part that talks) that is only allowed to know what it is safe to reveal to others and a subconscious mind (that determines behavior). In a society with a moral code it becomes important to construct explanations why one's actions are driven by morality, when usually they are driven by self-interest.
In regard to the economic situation from 1970 to now in the US, much of it seems to have been driven by "globalization", that is, importation of manufactured goods from countries with lower labor costs. As long as you didn't do manufacturing work, it was great, but if you did, you were competing with former peasants. But around 2015, China's manufacturing costs started approaching the US's and there are no other countries that can quickly deliver a lot of workers into export industries. And recently, the wages of working-class people in the US have started to rise relative to the "professional class".
> In a society with a moral code it becomes important to construct explanations why one's actions are driven by morality, when usually they are driven by self-interest.
Self interest aligns with dedicated cooperation more often than it might seem. Indeed, our entire existence is dependent on cooperation: We are comprised of cells, the default behavior of which is to work in tandem with others, and to kill itself when it is told its existence is no longer needed, or when it detects some error in itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis
Human beings are not as cooperative as the cells in our bodies, but, they do have clearly defined roles within a large society. Like cooperative cells, we commit suicide when we realize we are a burden. Like cooperative cells, we work together and share resources. And similarly, most people have strong moral drives which are difficult to override when opportunities for self advancement arise. Those people who lack moral drives are abnormal, and so rare as to be given a clinical diagnosis of psychopathy. For most people, the subconscious is actually full of irrational attachments, inhibitions, and prosocial compulsions.
>>Turchin's ideas are interesting, but I've not heard of any objective measure of "elite overproduction"; you'd need some way of measuring that in order to show that society had cycles of excess elites.
Turchin uses the cost of higher education and the ratio of lawyers to the population as a whole as a proxy for elite overproduction. It's not perfect, but it is some kind of measurement.
I am imagining a collaboration between Fran de Waal and Peter Turchin. What happens when primate social status games are separated from reproductive success?
I think "What happens when primate social status games are separated from reproductive success?" is one of the most puzzling questions present-day evolutionary psychologists have to answer.
Don
I agree.
I’m including laziness as the desire to steal, control, use - the resources of others instead of working, developing one’s own.
Like the ancient king wrote . . .
“ My son, if sinners try to entice you, do not consent.
If they say:
“Come with us. Let us set an ambush to shed blood.
We will lie hidden, waiting for innocent victims without cause.
We will swallow them alive as the Grave does,
Whole, like those going down to the pit.
Let us seize all their precious treasures;
We will fill our houses with spoil.
You should join us,
And we will all share equally what we steal.”
My son, do not follow them.
Keep your feet off their path,
For their feet run to do evil;
They hurry to shed blood.
It is surely in vain to spread a net in full sight of a bird.
That is why these lie in ambush to shed blood;
They lie hidden to take the lives of others.
These are the ways of those seeking dishonest profit,
Which will take away the life of those who obtain it.’’
This from three thousand years ago. Not a new problem.
Note the appeal to ‘equality’.
Thanks for comment.
Clay
What is one example of a pure Malthus collapse?
The classic one is the Irish Potato famine. But that was caused by English land lords not by the potato blight. There was plenty of food, Ireland was a net food exporter at the time. Just a lack of Potatoes.
Ok.
So enlightenment Malthus is pure evil. It is nothing more than an excuse for evil to be done by the rich to the poor and called just.
But it is still intuitive. It seems obvious that if there is more people there is less to go around. But that misses the point that stuff comes from people. So if there is more people there is more to go around.
Is there anything that can be saved?
Human misery is not tied to population density. Or even density in a given region. But privileged ratio. There is always plenty to go around except when someone else thinks they should get some of your stuff.
It's not population pressure its co-operative frame work.
I'm working though this one so come at me.
>>So enlightenment Malthus is pure evil. It is nothing more than an excuse for evil to be done by the rich to the poor and called just.
Reality can be pure evil. Thomas Malthus invented his population theory during a time when a lot of other things were invented too (and birth rates were going down). Ironically, Malthusianism was one of those things invented just when inventions were breaking the Malthusian curse in the Western world.
>>But that misses the point that stuff comes from people. So if there is more people there is more to go around.
Stuff is made from natural resources, by people. Take away one and nothing is being made.
>>There is always plenty to go around except when someone else thinks they should get some of your stuff.
If population increases enough compared to available resources, that someone else is not just an upper class person, but every hungry neighbor.
Reality could be evil, but it isn't.
There are 4 inputs and 3 out puts.
Land.
Technology. Includes capital, and fertilizer but also technique, and crop varieties and some other stuff.
Co-operation. This includes how stuff is shared, how much goes to parasites, but also specialization. You can make more on your farm if you can buy your seeds and chicks from a specialist. And you can get more money if you focus on cash crops for trade instead of trying to be 100% self-sufficient.
Labor. Includes, hours but also skill and care and knowledge.
Outputs.
Subsistence.
Luxury.
Slack.
All 4 inputs are flexible. People can (damn near) always work harder, longer, better, smarter or more careful.
There is (damn near) always more land to bring under cultivation. Its just not as good. But its good for something.
Technology, technique, and even the plants themselves are always improving.
Co-operation can always improve. This is usually the easiest.
I hope its ok that I am working out my thoughts in the comment section of your blog. I'm just going to leave these here for now. If you think I have made a mistake please point at it.
Malthus (I think) has only land (maybe labor) as inputs and only Subsistence as an out put.
Possibly the last 200 years were just a happy, flukey interruption to Malthusian inevitability. Continued population growth by itself doesn't seem to be enough--after all, population has doubled in 50 years as global poverty has plummeted. Still, if obstacles to innovation keep piling up as they have been, Malthus may be vindicated.
>>Possibly the last 200 years were just a happy, flukey interruption to Malthusian inevitability.
I hope not - I believe in space colonization! (The space station variety)
I don't think population growth in itself causes a Malthusian conditions. I think the growth of low-tech populations does. And the populations that are growing today are almost all low-tech.
You'll be interested in Russ Roberts' most recent podcast episode with Zach Weinersmith, about the challenges of space and of creating living conditions on e.g., the moon and Mars.
I certainly would, if I had the patience to listen to podcasts (Rob Henderson recently helped me to justify that lack of attention and patience https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/how-i-read )
I hear you. Knowledge is infinite but our time and capacities aren't. ON the other hand, Roberts' Econtalk is one of the most intelligent podcasts and IMHO the best on economic topics. The point of that particular podcast episode was that conditions in space, on the moon, and other planets are far harsher than our sci-fi fantasies ever allowed. For example, because of the absence of wind and moving water on the moon, the dust particles are jagged and hence highly toxic. Keeping them out of living spaces would be a major challenge, on top of all the other ones. So if you're interested in space colonization, the episode might add perspective.
Well . . .
Malthus’ idea has been disproven by what’s happened to population since his time.
More food now with eight billion than his time with less than one billion.
See Julian Simon.
Tupy on ‘superabundance’.
Todd Rose on “Collective Illusions”
Thanks
Clay
I think "disproven" is a strong word for a condition that has formed so much of human existence for such vast amounts of time. The last 200 years has showed that the Malthusian condition is not a completely inescapable destiny. Still, innumerable people have lived under Malthusian conditions and many still do. I'm rather sure that we haven't seen the last of it.
Tove
There is clearly famine, fights for land, etc., throughout human history.
Most think, assume, believe this caused by material lack.
Human flourishing since Malthus shows that the real lack is applying human mental resources
Think of the well known ‘resource curse’. Too much easy material wealth brings poverty, due to human laziness.
Medieval Spain. Etc..
Underlying assumption seems to be that of materialism, only matter exists. Mind, free-will, human ingenuity, discovery are not physical, therefore they’re not real.
If can’t be weighed, measured, mathematically described, not real, not significant.
Recalls debate about primary and secondary qualities. Descartes, galelio,
See Julian Simon’s bet with Paul erlich.
Thanks
Clay
The modern resource curse brings poverty through human greed not laziness.
The modern resource curse means wealth can be gained and controled by controling one valuable resource oil for example. The one who gains control then no longer needs to build a wide collation to maintain power and support. Does not need to co-operate or share with the wider population. And actively destroys value produced by others since he doesn't control it and it could lead to a separate power base that could threaten him.
The russians aren't poor because they are lazy. They are poor because Putin wants them that way. Or more importantly he can't afford for them to be rich.
(There are better examples but not more topical ones.)
How does Turchin align his theory with the history of the last 200 years? In the early 1800s Western elites made up, say, 5% of the population and 95% or so were near subsistence. Today those proportions are reversed. (Marx was writing just as the facts on the ground were proving his theories nonsensically false.) Though the non-Western world is a few generations behind, the same dynamic has taken place there over the past 50 years. Though it's not hard to find reasons to be pessimistic, so far the benign trend hasn't reversed. So I agree with Tove; Turchin has work to do.
>>How does Turchin align his theory with the history of the last 200 years?
I think that is one of the problems with Turchin's method: He doesn't align his theory with modern times. He just applies it on modern times and finds that it roughly fits.
The same dynamic is taking place in large parts of the non-Western world. Still, I suspect that something Malthusian is going on in less successful parts of the Third World. I once looked up the birth rates of the Third World countries that export the most refugees to Sweden. Those birth rates were all unusually high. I suspect that some parts of the world are actually still truly Malthusian and shed surplus population to places that aren't.
Yes, some parts of the world still seem to fit the Malthusian dynamic. But the fact remains that as a general model the Malthusian argument fits poorly, it seems to me, given that an ever-shrinking proportion of the world is subject to it. Given the trends of the last 200 years globally, and in what used to be called the Third World more recently, the model looks increasingly out-dated.
Africa is growing rapidly. I won't be surprised if population growth in Africa offsets technological progress elsewhere, so the Malthusian condition starts affecting a larger part of the population of this planet again.
Good stuff; I'm with Anders on this one.
Turchin's theory doesn't make much sense for history either. There has always been a strong desire from the other classes to join the elite, so there has always been a state of elite overproduction. Maybe some societies like the High Middle Age with a rigid class system toped by a titled nobility had less of a problem but that is unusual in world history and even in Europe it didn't last long as the emerging bureaucratic and mercantile classes achieved power and wealth and eventually even titles.
According to Turchin's theory, in history elite overproduction was mostly the result of a higher birth rate and higher survival among children in the higher classes. Turchin claims that cycles are notably shorter in polygynous societies, like in the Arab world, compared to largely monogamous societies only for that reason.
This is one point that I think could deserve to be investigated further: Obviously, present-time elites don't overproduce organically as elites did a few hundred years ago. Are the same principles still valid? I think it could be worth some attention, but it doesn't get that attention in Turchin's books.
As a datum, I recall reading in one of Gregory Clark's books that up until 1850, lineages generally experienced downward mobility but after 1850 in Britain, they started having upward mobility.
Turchin's ideas are interesting, but I've not heard of any objective measure of "elite overproduction"; you'd need some way of measuring that in order to show that society had cycles of excess elites.
In regard to Haidt's ideas, I remember Trivers preface to The Selfish Gene where he pointed out that there's great importance to not revealing to others one's motivations, actual dedication to conflict, etc. From there, it becomes clear that there's a conscious mind (the part that talks) that is only allowed to know what it is safe to reveal to others and a subconscious mind (that determines behavior). In a society with a moral code it becomes important to construct explanations why one's actions are driven by morality, when usually they are driven by self-interest.
In regard to the economic situation from 1970 to now in the US, much of it seems to have been driven by "globalization", that is, importation of manufactured goods from countries with lower labor costs. As long as you didn't do manufacturing work, it was great, but if you did, you were competing with former peasants. But around 2015, China's manufacturing costs started approaching the US's and there are no other countries that can quickly deliver a lot of workers into export industries. And recently, the wages of working-class people in the US have started to rise relative to the "professional class".
> In a society with a moral code it becomes important to construct explanations why one's actions are driven by morality, when usually they are driven by self-interest.
Self interest aligns with dedicated cooperation more often than it might seem. Indeed, our entire existence is dependent on cooperation: We are comprised of cells, the default behavior of which is to work in tandem with others, and to kill itself when it is told its existence is no longer needed, or when it detects some error in itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apoptosis
Human beings are not as cooperative as the cells in our bodies, but, they do have clearly defined roles within a large society. Like cooperative cells, we commit suicide when we realize we are a burden. Like cooperative cells, we work together and share resources. And similarly, most people have strong moral drives which are difficult to override when opportunities for self advancement arise. Those people who lack moral drives are abnormal, and so rare as to be given a clinical diagnosis of psychopathy. For most people, the subconscious is actually full of irrational attachments, inhibitions, and prosocial compulsions.
>>Turchin's ideas are interesting, but I've not heard of any objective measure of "elite overproduction"; you'd need some way of measuring that in order to show that society had cycles of excess elites.
Turchin uses the cost of higher education and the ratio of lawyers to the population as a whole as a proxy for elite overproduction. It's not perfect, but it is some kind of measurement.
I am imagining a collaboration between Fran de Waal and Peter Turchin. What happens when primate social status games are separated from reproductive success?
I think "What happens when primate social status games are separated from reproductive success?" is one of the most puzzling questions present-day evolutionary psychologists have to answer.