In broad terms, Malthus' ideas can be regarded as expressing a pessimistic view in which population growth is geometric unlike food production which is arithmetic. Under these circumstances, population growth is "checked" by the law of diminishing returns in which, even with higher levels of technology, only a small increase in yield is achieved. These marginal returns ultimately serve as a check to population growth.
The implication of this theory would seem to be that, populations that exceed the resources available will collapse back to a level below carrying capacity. In a modern sense, we might recognise such population growth as unsustainable with potentially catastrophic outcomes.
There are a number of criticisms leveled at Malthus' theory including its over-simplification, the effects of un-equal division of wealth, globalisation and the movement of people from areas where population puts pressure on the resources available.
Boserup, in comparison, may be regarded as presenting an optomistic and technocentric view of the relationship between population growth and food production. In effect, she suggested that pressure on food resources would lead to innovation in agriculture to produce more food... essentially summed up by the phrase, "necessity is the mother of invention".
Consider:
- Which of these theories do you think is most valid and why?
- Could both have applicability? How?
- Both theories imply that communities are "closed"... i.e. not open to the movement of people, or goods, in and out of the community. Why is such an assumption problematic in the real world?
No comments:
Post a Comment