Message-ID: <365ED0E5.11F8036@thegrid.net>
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1998 17:19:17 +0100
From: Christopher Christie <refugee@thegrid.net>
Reply-To: refugee@thegrid.net
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To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
CC: Jfoster@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU
Subject: Re: More on "established facts"
References: <1.5.4.16.19981125142005.29ef99b4@oregon.uoregon.edu>
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> >John Bellamy Foster wrote:

> >> First, for those like myself who approach population questions primarily
> >> from the standpoint of global ecological crisis it has to be admitted that
> >> overpopulation, though a factor in this crisis, is a relatively minor one
> >> compared to the two other sources of environmental impact (according to the
> >> PAT formula): affluence and technology.  World economic output is increasing
> >> much faster than population and contrary to the latter there is no
> >> expectation that it will level off.  On top of this there has been a
> >> technological shift in the last half century to the production of toxic and
> >> radioactive "byproducts" that threaten the biosphere and the health of all
> >> the species within it at levels that we are only just beginning to
> >> understand.  Neither of these factors--affluence or anti-ecological
> >> technology--can be attributed directly to population growth.
> >
> > Who says that "there is no  expectation
> >that it will level off" and how do they justify such a view in the face of
> >resource limits? Can you point to any models that will support that assertion.
> > Certainly the information provided by Meadows, Meadows and Randers in "Beyond
> >the Limits" (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1992) would not.
> 
> RESPONSE: Over the last century world population has increased by a factor
> of 3, world output by a factor of 20.  UN projections point to eventual
> replacement level population, virtually no one (aside from Herman Daly and
> handful of others) is talking about a replacement level economy.  For that
> to occur would mean the disintegration of the current system of
> accumulation, which is "unthinkable" within the present order. It could only
> take place under a fundamentally different social order, no longer geared to
> the accumulation of capital.  Hence, for those in the mainstream (even
> mainstream ecologists) the fundamental conflict between increasing world
> output and ecological sustainability within the current system is generally
> ignored.  It is much easier to take a neo-Malthusians tact which pretends
> that population growth is the whole problem, and the avoid the tougher issue
> of accumulation, which would mean a confrontation with power.  Likewise the
> issue of anti-ecological technology (automobiles, pesticides,
> petrochemicals, the production of toxins) raises radical social issues,
> unlike approaches that place the blame on population.

I essentially concede to you on your good point concerning relative importance
of the impact of affluence and technology on the global environment as it
relates to global effects such as warming. I think it is important not to
understate the importance of local effects of population growth such as
habitat destruction and species endangerment or extinction that are driven by
local growth rates and/or inmigration. I don't have the figures, but while per
capita production of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants is relatively high
in industrialized nations, one should not ignore the contribution and future
contribution by the several billion people in the fast growing developing and
lesser developed nations. There is also a need to realize that while
technology and affluence are important factors, the three variables have
tended to work together synergistically to increase overall impact - with
population increasing if and when technology and affluence create a positive
environment for such growth, and with population growth providing added
incentives for more efficient and affluence providing technology as population
pressures mount. While demographic transition theory has accounted for
stabilizing populations in many developed nations, it may be breaking down at
the national level in the face of Globalism and increasing international
migration. While the theory may or may not apply at the global level, several
thoughtful people have indicated that generalized misery and resource scarcity
will occur prior to any stabilization, and hopefully, reduction, in world
population. 

Do you disagree with the view (I would say self-evident fact) that world
resources are ultimately limited? You did not respond to my questioning your
apparent assertion that "there is no expectation that it [world economic
output] will level off."

I think a lot of us so-called neo-Malthusians would welcome "a fundamentally
different social order, no longer geared to the accumulation of capital" and
have said so in different ways. I certainly would. Some of us deplore growing
multinational corporate control of nations and economies. Many that I am aware
of are not as blind to the significant contributions of technology and
affluence (consumption) as others seem to be to the role of population growth,
which has become nearly a taboo subject in many circles. It is almost as if
some would pretend that an additional human being does not represent an
additional increment of consumption, pollution and environmental degradation
in the real world.
> >
> >I think that a case can be made that in fact, both affluence and technology
> >can in part, if not in full, be directly attributed to population growth.
> >Whether you want to accept it or not, growth in animal (incl. human)
> >populations tend to expand to the limit of the local (not global)
> >environment's ability to sustain it. Momentary or prolonged affluence in terms
> >of available resources initially can be seen to allow for increased
> >populations which ultimately create scarcity. These pressures in humans
> >populations cause humans to pause and scratch their heads long enough to
> >develop technologies (food growing technology, energy technologies, etc.) to
> >support the increased population which in turn brings increased affluence as
> >long as resources and pollution sinks remain available to support the
> >technologies, and call remains at a manageable complexity. Increased affluence
> >in turn feeds increasing populations (for example, see "Perceived prosperity
> >raises fertility" in "Population Politics" by Virginia Abernethy, Plenum
> >Press, 1993) at least until the society in which the growth is taking place
> >reaches a level of technological development similar to modern industrialized
> >societies. (Does population growth always stop and stabilize in modern
> >industrial societies as predicted by the demographic transition?
> >Not if the society allows or feels a need for high levels of immigration due
> >to intractable economic problems or misguided ideologies.)
> >
> RESPONSE: I don't understand where you get the asumption that growth in
> animal (including human) populations automatically tends to expands to the
> limit of the local environment's ability to sustain it.  Here it is
> interesting that you seem to think that the same exact laws apply to humans
> as rabbits and mice.  You don't seem to have advanced as far as Malthus in
> his thinking who was forced to acknowledge moral restraint as a
> characteristic specific to human beings.

The evidence of this is everywhere in the anthropological and historical
record from the territorial behavior of hunter-gatherers and
horticulturalists, to food shortages associated with agricultural societies,
and, with or without moral restraint, it seems to apply. It appears that food
collectors and horticulturalists dealt with environmental resource
restrictions quite well (by moving for instance) prior to contact with
intensive agricultural societies and the encroachment of populous centralized
agricultural state societies. Intensive agriculturalist are clearly associated
with food shortage and famine in the anthropological and historical
literature. I suspect that economic as well as other incentives and
disincentives play a far more important role than "moral restraint" in
reproductive matters. I was thinking of these groups and the less developed
nations in particular when I made the prior statement above. I do however
recognize that there are many complexities and that modern industrial
societies live well beyond the local carrying capacity due to the importation
of globally held resources.
> 
> According to one basic text, "Cultural Anthropology," by Ember and Ember
> >(Prentice Hall 1999 sic.) "most anthropologists think" that population growth
> >at both local and global levels caused the change in technology from simple
> >and benign food collecting technologies to food producing technologies.
> >
> >I conclude the population growth is a major factor that drives technology and
> >affluence directly.
> 
> RESPONSE: Western anthropologists as is well known have historically
> embraced all sorts of chauvanistic views, including Malthusianism, social
> Darwinism, racism, etc.  To know what to make of this I would have to know
> why they think as they do, i.e. what is the basis for their views. In any
> case the point that you make is a pretty lame one.  Who would deny that
> population is a major factor? 

I was hoping, certainly, that you would not.  I was however responding to your
assertion that "Neither of these factors - affluence or anti-ecological
technology - can be attributed directly to population growth."

> But technology and socioeconomic order are
> obviously factors too.  And they all influence each other.  What you want to
> argue of course is that population is the most important factor, the
> efficient cause, but you haven't shown this, and thus fall back on the point
> that is a cause (among others).

Population may or may not be the most important factor when all is considered,
I am not sure about that, but it is enough that people recognize that it is
obviously a very important factor. It is clear that when you look at the
increase in GDP compared to population over the last century (assuming your
figures are correct), that affluence and technology are also very important
factors. I never said they weren't. You just can't separate people from their
affluence and technology and we seem to agree on that.
> >
> >> Second, there is no direct relationship between population growth and world
> >> hunger, or between population growth and famine.  This has been established
> >> in the work of Amartya Sen and in the various critiques of the agribusiness
> >> system.
> >
> >It would be helpful if you provided a summary of the work you refer to and a
> >source. In any event, hunger is a local event so it does not surprise me that
> >one might have difficulty finding a relationship between "world hunger" and
> >population growth. However, World Watch Institute notes that "Grainland per
> >person has been shrinking since mid-century, but the drop projected for the
> >next 50 years means the world will have less grainland per person than India
> >has today. Future population growth is likely to reduce this key number in
> >many societies to the point where they will no longer be able to feed
> >themselves" (World Watch Paper #@ 143 "Beyond Malthus") While it is true that
> >localized famine in populations can be linked to political conflict disrupting
> >food distribution, or selling food for export, it is also true that these
> >conflicts would not be able to create such disruptions where high numbers of
> >people had not created a dependence on complex food production technologies,
> >and where culture and economic systems did not allow food export. But given
> >these realities, the population growth in these regions is associated with
> >famine. One might also want to consider what would occur in the absence of
> >conflict or food export. Ultimately the population must stabilize within
> >carrying capacity or famine will result. Additionally, the current example of
> >famine in North Korea appears to be a case where a local population has
> >exceeded the lowpoints in food productivity caused by cyclical environmental
> >events, in this case drought.
> 
> RESPONSE: I don't think I need to provide a source for Amartya Sen since he
> has just received the Nobel Prize in economics and the whole world is
> talking about his ideas.  Look these up for yourself--on the internet, in
> the newspapers, bookstores and the libraries.  It is an essential part of
> your education if you are to discuss these issues at all since Sen is the
> world's leading economist in this area.  Be that as it may, your argument on
> famine and population is incredibly convoluted. You say that a host of
> "cultural factors" inclduing dependence on complex food technologies
> (obviously associted with the agribuiness system) and export of food (also
> associated with agribusiness) set the stage for famine.  And then you add
> that population growth in these regions is also a contributing element.
> Logically, all this amounts to is saying that population is a factor within
> a larger historical-economic-cultural context.  I would agree and so would
> everyone else. 

I was responding to your statement that "there is no direct relationship ...
between population growth and famine." I was trying to establish that there is
a direct relationship between population growth and famine and you now seem to
admit as much so maybe this is just semantics. For example, in the I=PAT
equation, Impact is directly related to Population. You could construct an
equation that shows the relationship of various factors to extreme food
shortage, Famine, and Population would be on the other side of the equal sign
and directly related to Famine. For example, probability of F= P times some
coefficient C, C standing for Culture including social, political and economic
institutions as well as degree of technological development. 

> Yet, take away the export of food and the dependence on
> complex food technologies (i.e. the breakdown of subsistence food systems
> and the creation of dependence on a market mediated by filthy lucre and
> controlled from abroad) and there is no famine.  It is worth nothing as Sen
> has shown in his studies that there is no correlation between famine and
> actual food shortages (since the famine often occurs in years where food
> production is higher), nor is there any correlation between famine and
> population growth or density.

I could find nothing in the internet literature to support your statements
about "correlation." According to the Nobel Prize background material (
http://www.nobel.se/announcement-98/ecoback98.pdf page 20) Sen recognized that
a food shortage can trigger a famine. (As Hardin noted, a shortage of food is
a longage of people. People prefer not to acknowledge a longage of people.)

The background material said: 
"Sen challenges the common view that a drastic decline in the supply of food
is necessarily the most significant explanation for famine. But he does not
claim to be the first to perceive that numerous other factors can cause famine
in large groups of a population; nor does he maintain that a shortage of food
cannot trigger famine. According to Sen, the conception which prevailed when
the book was published, known as FAD (food availability decline), cannot
explain phenomena observed during many famines, such as: (i) famine has
occurred in years when the supply of food per capita was not lower than during
previous years without famine; (ii) food prices increased considerably in some
years, although the supply of food was not lower as compared to previous
years; (iii) in all cases of famine, large groups have not suffered
starvation; and (iv) in some case, food has been exported from famine-stricken areas."

So Sen purports to show that a famine can occur in the absence of a longage of
people. I don't doubt that it can.  The background material also reported that
some critics had criticsms concerning the adequacy of Sen's data:

"A few critics have questioned the empirical foundations for Sen's results
regarding the causes of famine. Indeed, data on food supply in a developing
country stricken by famine are notorious for causing measurement problems. But
such criticism nevertheless seems misdirected. In particular, Sen's insights
into the causes of famine are highly valuable, regardless of whether some of
the empirical results might be unreliable."

So some can be forgiven for bad data.  Here's what some his Hindu Compatriots
had to say:
"It is an established truism that Nobel awards are politically biased and
instruments to retain the West's hegemony over developing countries." and "The
Panchajanya editorial on Sen was somewhat churlish about another Nobel
recipient, Mother Teresa. Thanks to the Mother, it says, India found a place
on the world map as a country ridden with filth, disease and deaths, a country
which could survive only on international charity."

A good example of famine being directly related to population growth and
technological "improvement" was given by Kenneth Boulding appearing in the
"Image" in 1956:

"The experience of Ireland is an extremely interesting case in point. In the
late seventeenth century, the population of Ireland was about two million
people living in misery. Then came the seventeenth century equivalent of
[foreign aid], the introduction of the potato, a technological revolution of
first importance enabling the Irish to raise much more food per acre than they
had ever done before. The result of this benevolent technological improvement
was an increase in population from two million to eight million by 1845. The
result of the technological improvement, therefore, was to quadruple the
amount of human misery on the unfortunate island. The failure of the potato
crop in 1845 led to disastrous consequences. Two million Irish died of
starvation; another two million emigrated; and the remaining four million
learned a sharp lesson which has still not been forgotten." 
> >
> >There is no just and equitable global distribution system and there will
> >likely never be one.  It is probable that the only way egalitarian societies
> >will be achieved is to lower population levels down toward the level where
> >those societies were able to flourish in the past, and those are very low, but
> >ecologically sustainable levels.
> 
> RESPONSE: What we know for certain is that more egalitarian societies that
> emphasize socioeconomic distribution, women's rights (including control over
> their own bodies), education, public health services, etc. are able to
> stablize populations at lower levels of economic development while improving
> the conditions of the poor.  By saying that there is no such thing as an
> absolutely just or equitable distribution system you are simply talking in
> terms of absolutes, making your argument absolutely irrelevant.

Lets put it this way, the only examples I know of in the anthropological
literature of egalitarian societies that have existed for a sigificant period
of time were/are subsistence technology societies with low populations. The
egalitarian relationships were likely an appropriate response to environmental
conditions. They disappeared with increasing technological complexity,
pastoralism and the growth of intensive agriculture. If we were to mimic those
conditions in the proper way we might once again live in egalitarian
societies. I have nothing against the egalitarian ideal as long as attempts to
create it are functional for humans and the rest of the biosphere. I don't
think it can happen until and unless we reduce human populations dramatically
but humanely.

Christopher Christie
Mailing from Desolation Row
"...the utterly dismal theorem. This is the proposition that if the only check
on the growth of population is starvation and misery, then any technological
improvement will have the ultimate effect of increasing the sum of human
misery, as it permits a larger population to live in precisely the same state
of misery and starvation as before the change." - Kenneth Boulding 1956