MYTH! The concept of overpopulation originated in England in 1798, when the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus saw that food production increased incrementally, while people reproduced exponentially. Based on his calculations, he predicted that the world would be out of food by the year 1980. Malthus blamed reduced mortality rates and encouraged population reduction. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus calls for increased mortality among the poor: All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons… To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. (Book IV, Chap. V)
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 19:08:12 +0000
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