By Shahab Sabahi
Energy and Environment - Policy analysis research group
The 18th century Britain was experiencing a transition in its society. The feudal system had been slowly giving ways to a new social order. This shift and its consequences forced a large percentage of the British population, such as tenant farmers, to leave their lands. Straight away wool had become a valuable product. Landowners sniffed the profits to be made, declared many of the common lands to be private property, dispossessed the tenants, and began shepherding sheep which was less labor-intensive in comparison with that time farming. So the vast majority of the dispossessed farmers were out of work. and by the 1790s, poverty was out of control.
It was coincident with the French Revolution which had inspired a new group of Utopian writers and philosophers in Britain. They argued that the overwhelming poverty in Britain was due to the riches and their control over social and political institutions. They believed that economic power guided political power, and if the economic power were removed, then the masses would be able to restructure society in a new form, based on logic and reason, which would lead to a better life for all. No one would go hungry, as resources would be allocated according to need, not according to wealth. This course of reason would lead to the elimination of government, law, and private property and a true democratic society would prevail. Humanity would be set on a course of uninterrupted improvement, and eventual perfection. (Jascha Swisher).
In a response to the Utopians Thomas Robert Malthus in his essay “On the Principle of Population”, based on the facts of the poverty, argued the Utopian ideas could never work: there could never be enough food to support such an idealistic society. Human misery and suffering were practically inevitable. To support his hypothesis, he simply pointed out that man would continue to eat, and to reproduce.
In our modern time, Malthus’s theory has not taken seriously as there was little sign of impinging Malthusian population pressures. But it was wrongly interpreted by sociologists, (albeit based on the facts of that day) as they saw population had increased far beyond what Malthus predicted possible, and starvation, in the JUST First World countries at least, is not a significant problem. They wrongly believed that ONLY advancements in agricultural technology had made possible plenty food production, which been able to keep up with the expanding population without overt Malthusian checks.
But it is time to rethink what Malthus’ message tries to deliver. It was not only the technology advancement which improved our life over the late 20s century. We have exploited a large portion of the environment capacity. The environment capacity has already hit its exhausting level. Inevitably the technology advancement has assisted us to efficiently exploit LARGER amount of resources, and obviously fed a large number of population.
Now our civilized modern social system is expanded and nicely fit its external system, means our environment. It reminds me “theory of dissipative structure”.
It implies that disruptive fluctuations would likely increase in intensity until the GLOBAL SYSTEM either reversed to a much simpler model, closer to thermodynamic equilibrium or evolves through a chaotic path into a more stable configuration. Both will be accompanied with the huge amount energy release.
Please check on population growth in South Asia.
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