At the height of an international lockdown during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, images of wildlife peacefully walking through deserted city streets proliferated on social media. Monkeys were seen brawling in the streets of Thailand, while boars descended into the streets of Barcelona. These images elicited a plethora of responses, though many agreed on one thing: the staggering number of humans occupying the planet were the root cause of why scenes such as these were incredibly rare. They specifically argued that if not for overpopulation, the relationship between nature and humanity would be much more harmonious. Subsequently, memes with the slogan “Humans are the virus, Covid is the cure” began circulating. While such arguments may seem innocuous, the idea of overpopulation being a root cause of environmental and economic issues is a dangerous one. Its permeability highlights this: it has successfully seeped into our language, discourse, and approach to solutions despite it being rooted in white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, and fascism. Its proponents have crafted an incredible marketing scheme to sell overpopulation as the cause of our woes and to many it makes sense: more people means less resources for environmental and economic prosperity- right? However, overpopulation is not the danger its proponents make it out to be nor does it get to the real root cause of our issues. It is simply a tool to inflict further violence on Black and Brown people on a national and international scale and fuel dangerous ideologies such as ecofascism.
What Is Overpopulation?
In 1789, Thomas Malthus, a cleric and economist, wrote a treatise titled Essay on the Principle of Population which argued: “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race…” Malthus’s vision of collapse was premised on the central argument that population growth would inevitably outstrip the human race’s ability to produce food thus generating the conditions for mass famine and societal breakdown. According to Malthus’s worldview, humans were the equivalent of animals who mindlessly reproduce; based on this assumption, he ascertained that human population growth is geometric (2, 4, 8, 12, etc) while food reserved grow at an arithmetic rate (2, 3, 4, 5, etc). Of course, when operating off of this supposition it is easy to portend misery and chaos. However, Betsy Hartmann, the author of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: the Global Politics of Population Control, points out that Malthus got two crucial points wrong: population growth is not an eternal process, but has been shown to slow and stabilize as a result of higher standards of living. Furthermore, Malthus’s contention that food growth would be outstripped by population did not consider advances in human production (14). The Industrial Revolution, which was in its beginning stages at the time of this treatise’s publication, would produce the technology to sustain the needs of the growing population and more. Additionally, it has been successfully demonstrated that not only is population growth not a hindrance to society, but it has actually helped produce more innovation- the more people there are, the more minds there are to discover solutions.
Despite the fact that Malthus’s treatise has long been debunked, overpopulation never really disappeared and truly re-entered the public consciousness in the 1960s with the works of Garrett Hardin and Paul Ehrlich. Garrett Hardin’s essay “Tragedy of the Commons” is often cited as a foundational argument for protecting natural resources. The essay posits the following: when having access to common land (or resources), we worry that our neighbor’s cattle will graze the best grass, so we must send our cows out first to consume it. The logic is that since everyone is supposedly competitive, what inevitably happens is environmental degradation. However, there are a few foundational problems with Hardin’s premise. The first is Hardin’s view that humans are naturally selfish and competitive- Hardin’s projections as an individual should not provide the basis for over-arching assumptions about all of humanity. Furthermore, this notion has been contested: commons, a historical phenomenon that ceased to exist with the development of modern-day capitalism and its aggressive privatization of land, were early pastures that were well-regulated by local institutions. They were not the competitive, anarchical grazing sites that Hardin suggests. While it is this scenario that is the most well-known part of this notorious essay, it is crucial to examine its other aspects to truly understand the danger Hardin presents. “The Tragedy of the Commons,” has a subheading titled “The Freedom to Breed is Intolerable;” a few paragraphs later he argues: “if we love the truth we must openly deny the validity of the UDHR.” These examples further flesh out the nature of Hardin’s ideas: he is openly advocating for human rights violations to prevent reproduction thus mitigating the ‘issue’ of overpopulation. However, it was not white people that should have been prevented from reproducing. Hardin was a known white nationalist who believed that only racially homogeneous societies could survive; in fact, Hardin even lobbied Congress against sending food to poor nations as he believed their populations were threatening Earth’s “carrying capacity.”
Paul Ehrlich’s book Population Bomb also echoed Malthusian hysteria. Ehrlich based the novel off of his experiences in a crowded city in India and argued that humans were reproducing far beyond their means. The book advocated for incentives, or blatant coercion if that failed, to control the population. Of course, in a similar vein to Hardin, such tactics would only be employed in countries in the Global South- thus the main targets for their fascistic methods were Black and brown people. White supremacy, classism, and misogyny have all been instrinically linked to overpopulation since its conception. It provided a foundation for Social Darwinism which advocates for the restriction of particular family’s sizes through any possible method. For example, in 1601 the English Poor Law was implemented by Queen Elizabeth I in order to provide food for the poor; following the publication of Malthus’s treatise, this was severely diminished by the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834. The passing of such an amendment was justified using the Malthusian logic that helping the poor only encourages them to reproduce thus exacerbating their poverty. The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s was also seen as a viable way to reduce the “surplus population” in Ireland, who was an English colony at the time. In the United States, eugenic fears of overpopulation of certain groups resulted in the Supreme Court legalizing sterilization for “undesirable” citizens in 1927. As a result, approximately 70,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized.
Overpopulation has been used to justify fascism, thus the use of forced sterilizations, and its various strains, including eco-fascism. Eco-fascism essentially places the blame of environmental breakdown on overpopulation and immigration and advocates for the extermination of poor people of color and migrants. According to eco-fascists, issues pertaining to the environment are the result of poor people of color reproducing and over-consuming beyond their means; they often focus on the individual consumption of cheap, disposable products. The environmental harm produced by industries such as fossil fuels are never blamed. While eco-fascism may take the appearance of a fringe movement, people of color and migrants have already been subjected to obscene acts of violence. The man who killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas in 2019 included eco-fascist sentiments in his manifesto which explains why he specifically targeted an area populated by Mexican immigrants. The mass shooter responsible for the massacre at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand was also apparently inclined towards eco-fascism.
Is Overpopulation an Issue?
The short answer is: no. While large populations may place some strain on local resources, it is not a harbinger of apocalypse that Malthusians present it as. It should also be clarified that while the world’s population has increased greatly, that does not mean the Earth is “overpopulated.” In fact, as I hope to demonstrate, population growth is not a hindrance to the environment or economic development. Issues of environmental collapse and/or poverty are a result of colonialism and the international capitalist market rather than individuals in the Global South.
Firstly, we must establish why it is that the Global South has had such a population boom over the last century. Malthusians would have us believe that Black and Brown people in the Global South are similar to weeds and have a higher natural proclivity towards reproducing- not only is that racist, it is untrue. What is true, however, is that they live under a different set of circumstances than those in Global North. As Hartmann points out, having larger families is for the purpose of survival and security. Children are able to bring in more income or take care of younger family members while their parents work (Hartmann 6). Additionally, children are often the ones to take care of their parents in their old age as many countries in the Global South do not have the same security in retirement age as those in the Global North who may have access to government funded programs (Hartmann 7). Parents may also have a lot of children to ensure that they will have a son who will survive into adulthood as high infant mortality rates continue to persist in certain countries (Hartmann 8). While this highlights the continuing existence of patriarchal values, it also demonstrates structural issues pertaining to infant and maternal care.
Historically, famines have been attributed to overpopulation. However, as Hartmann states: “Tremendous advances in agricultural productivity mean that today the world produces enough grain alone to provide every man, woman, and child on earth with 3,200 calories a day…” (16). Considering this statistic, it should be obvious that population growth does not necessarily stress natural resources- there is enough for all. Famine is not typically a natural occurrence, but a breakdown in institutions that oversee food production and distribution (Hartmann 17). Africa has long been the famine poster-child for overpopulation zealots. Though there has most certainly been food crises on the continent, it has more to do with the implementation of neoliberal policies than it does with population growth. Hartmann explains that the pivot to becoming economically dependent on exporting cash crops has displaced subsistence farmers, who are often women, to areas that yield less food (18). Population control would not only be draconian, it would completely ignore the root causes of famine which are institutional rather than individual.
Malthusians also blame environmental issues on population growth in the Global South. Sir David Attenborough, known for the series Planet Earth which is meant to raise awareness for endangered species, is the head of a coporation known as Population Matters. Their website states: “It took humanity 200,000 years to reach one billion and only 200 years to reach seven billion. We are still adding an extra 80 million each year and are headed towards 10 billion by mid-century.” Ultimately, the argument being made here is that the rate of population must be slowed down in order to save the planet. However, this fear mongering statement provides numbers with no context. With a rate of 80 million people per year, that means the population is slowing down- the population growth in 1970 was 2.1 percent per annum and now it is 1.2 percent. Despite this decrease in population growth, the climate crisis continues to become more severe. Why? It has less to do with reproduction and more to do with a capitalist economic structure that requires the extraction of natural resources, including fossil fuels, and mass consumption. Since 1988, 70 percent of greenhouse gas emissions have been produced by just 100 mulatinational corporations. If 750 million people in China, India, and Africa’s poorer population stopped producing carbon, while companies like ExxonMobile, BP, and Toyota continued to operate normally, reduction of carbon emissions would be miniscule. To provide more perspective, the total emissions of the poorest half of the population of China, which is around 600 million people, only account for one-third of the emissions for the richest 10 percent in the United States, which is around 30 million people. In India, who alongside China was a target of Malthusian rhetoric regarding population control, someone in the richest 10 percent uses, on average, just one quarter of the carbon of someone in the poorest half of the population in the United States. Despite the fact that the Global South has experienced most of the population growth in the 20th century, they are not the ones responsible for the present ecological crisis.
Another major reason as to why population growth is seen as a problem is that it exacerbates poverty. This is another baseless argument. For example, in 1960, South Korea and Taiwan were poor countries with fastly growing populations- both experienced population surges over 50 percent, yet their income and standard of living increased exponentially. As Hartmann points out, “...the impressive economic performance of middle-income countries in the 1960s and 1970s occurred alongside rapid population growth” (30). Poverty is not a product of large populations, but is a symptom of larger economic and political forces. The myth of overpopulation is easy to debunk, yet it is still incredibly dangerous as it still influences the language we use to talk about people in the Global South and the harmful policies that are pushed by international institutions and implemented by political elites. Malthusian agendas seek to subject marginalized people, both at home and abroad, to violence. Moving forward, it is important to remain cognizant of the ways Malthusianism influences environmental policy and ultimately inhibit our chances of creating a better society.
References
Hartmann, Betsy. Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Haymarket Books, 2016.