Geoscience Reference
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Despite these criticisms, many modern scholars
still broadly support Malthus's worldview (see
Ehrlich, 1968; Homer-Dixon, 1999; Kaplan, 1994;
Meadows et al, 1973; Ophuls, 1977; 1997; 2011).
These so-called neo-Malthusians are united by
a belief that despite the proven ability of tech-
nological developments to provide resources to an
expanding global population, there are still real
limits in the biosphere's ability to supply these
resources and absorb the pollution that their
use often entails. Donella and Dennis Meadows,
working with a team of scientists at the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, produced one
the most famous modern statements of neo-
Malthusian work. The MIT team were able to
bring Malthus into the computer age by using
complex computational models to predict the
likely resource implications of population growth.
In their
Limits to Growth
report, Meadows et al
predicated that economic development would be
severely restricted if levels of population growth
and resource use continued to expand (Meadows
et al, 1973). Beyond computer models of future
limits to growth, other neo-Malthusians have
argued that the Malthusian future may already be
with us. In his infamous account of demographic
change and political struggle in West Africa, Robert
Kaplan (1994) claimed that in certain parts of the
world negative population checks were already
evident. Kaplan argued that rising population
levels and resource scarcity were leading to hunger
and conflicts over scare resources in regions such
as West Africa. Most troubling of all, Kaplan
suggested that these positive checks on population
growth were associated with the rise of anarchy in
West Africa, and the associated breakdown of the
rule of government and law.
In his on going analysis of the connections that
exist between politics and resource scarcity,
William Ophuls (2011) suggests that what is
happening in regions such as West Africa may
provide salutary insights into what our collective
political future may look like. According to
Ophuls, over the last 200 years humanity has been
experiencing an age of resource abundance.
Ophuls claims that there is a connection between
the unusually high levels of resource availability
and the liberal, democratic systems that have
emerged throughout large parts of the world
(Ophuls, 2011). At the heart of liberal societies,
such as those in North America and Europe, is the
political principle that individual freedom and
liberty are key features of a just and fair society (so
long as these freedoms are not used to cause harm
or reduce the freedom of others). Ophuls, however,
recognizes that the formation of liberal societies
has depended on resource abundance. Resource
abundance has essentially enabled individuals and
corporations to exploit resources without negating
the ability of others to exploit available resources
elsewhere. The free societies that many of us take
for granted, are, according to Ophuls at least,
dependent on there always being more resources
elsewhere. As soon as resources become scarce
(as Malthusians and neo-Malthusians argue they
will), Ophuls claims that one person or corpora-
tion's exploitation of a resource will negate the free
ability of others to exploit the very same resource
(there will essentially be nowhere else to go!). In a
situation of aggregate resource scarcity Ophuls
claims that the world will be confronted with
two possible futures. The first will see increasing
conflict, and associated forms of anarchy, as people
scrabble for available resources. The second will see
the emergence of an increasingly authoritarian
society, within which governments will have to
restrict the economic freedoms of individuals in
order to ensure that there are enough resources to
go around. The neo-Malthusian future, it would
appear, could be a rather undesirable mix of chaos
and authoritarianism.
For a detailed discussion of the Limits to
Growth report and its political impacts
go to:
