Saturday, June 10, 2006

Malthus was right

Maybe Thomas Malthus was right after all.

"Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio."

-- Malthus 1798, quoted in wikipedia.org

Malthusian economics posits an extremely dim view of the future, one in which population growth basically outstrips the supply of food. I don't have to tell you what happens next; forget the stock market, anyone with a square metre and a hoe will just have to use them.

Put him in City Hall MRT station on a Saturday afternoon, then send him back to his time. I'm pretty sure he'd have died a much more worried man.

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