I am doing some research work regarding natural resource conflicts, especially in the developing context. so I am looking for some suitable theories that can be use to understand and examine this issue
Dear Chaminda, I would say that Malthus theory per se was perhaps too early. Human civilization has proved its ability to grow for 200 years, both in population and GDP per capita. However, the message that the Earth is finite is always true. An important return to validity of Malthus ideas happened in 1970s with the work of Meadows et al for the Club of Rome; see http://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to-Growth-digital-scan-version.pdf . It was indeed not to late to act that time and to limit global population by peaceful methods (like China did it). Since 1990s we observe inability of the Earth to replicate its resources (now we harvest about 120-150% of what the Earth reproduces), and this leads to extinction of species and the decline of population of remaining. At the same time, during the last 20 years the problem of overpopulation was not treated as the major environmental threat, being replaced by global warming, and I think that this was wrong.
I want to attract your attention to recent book of Brian Czech: http://steadystate.org/act/help-promote-supply-shock/ . I read it with interest and I recommend it because it gives a lot of new insights that are not available in the rest of literature. It is rather cheap, you may buy used or find it in a library; http://astore.amazon.com/steadystateor-20/detail/0865717443
I was also concerned with this problem and produced a paper in 2004, similar to the ideas of Meadows, but my equation is less dimensional, while it captures the core of the problem. See the whole article online: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278110040_Low-Dimensional_Nonlinear_Dynamical_Systems_as_a_Tool_for_Socio-Economic_Modelling
Conference Paper Low-Dimensional Nonlinear Dynamical Systems as a Tool for So...
Dear Yuri Yegorov ·
Thanks lot for you reply. surely your ideas and recommendation will be great help to increase my knowledge regarding 'Malthus demographic theory'
Dear Kumara
Though I have not worked about the issue. However, the phenomenon (say, climate change) may be cyclic, still it is not conclusive. Moreover, may be possible that the total population of all creatures may be same since centuries, and some may be increasing, while some may be decreasing and became extinct. Similarly, earth productivity, it may be constant, as we do't know all the interactions and feedbacks between different processes and entities. It is only a perspective and may and may not be right, pl.
Regards
I recommend the book of Julian Simon - The Ultimate Resource.
PS: Malthus was wrong.
I think that Malthus' theory was not even unchallenged in his time. He was rather elitist and did not consider that even at his time hunger was the result of poverty in a society that was industrializing, where people in the industries hardly earned a living wage, where people when they fell sick or had work accidents had nothing as no health insurance or workmen's compensation acts existed. Manchester capitalism did produce many poor people in the industries and those affected by the industries (such as the handloom weavers; interesting in the early 1990s there was an episode of starvation of handloom weavers in Andhra Pradesh….)
Also Malthus' suggestion that poor people should be prevented to marry to keep population growth down sound strange as if unmarried people could not have children.
Today it is clear that Malthus' prediction did not come true. In the past few decades per capita food supply has increased by around 20 percent worldwide. Hunger is caused by poverty.
When Malthus lived (1766 – 1834) the global population reached its first billion (in 1804). Today we have 7.6 billion. Even when we can find many arguments that this number is far too high for a sustainable situation on our planet there is statistically enough food produced for everybody of these 7.6 billion. Malthus predicted already in 1798 that population will outrun food supply leading to famine, conflicts over resources, etc.
Although since then many famine have happened, not all were the result of insufficient food production, and in all cases it affected poor populations. Most famines of the 20th century had in addition to povery specific situations, such as wars, civil wars, etc. It is very difficult to argue that they were soley the result of crop failures or sharp population growth.
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