The Marxist Lens: Is Overpopulation a Myth?

This videos tackles the Malthusian population problem which has somehow survived centuries of scrutiny and remains central to mainstream perspectives on the environment and sustainability.

Texts and Citations:
Malthusianism
An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus
The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich

Global food production

Population trends

Leftist critique of Malthusianism
The Population Myth, Murray Bookchin
Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis, Chris Williams

[Invisfire]

It’s like Prager U but my ears don’t bleed. Great editing and formatting. I’m gonna show this to my father, he’s “classic lib” but he always goes on about overpopulation.

[abbanjo]

I find that in conversation with liberals and technocrats that they will often concede that population isn't the driving force but uneven distribution through the class system is. However they counter by making the tangential argument that population growth is the problem because class stratification is a natural component of society especially ones that can create a surplus. So while they reveal that liberal ideology is not based in freedom or liberty, but on the violent accumulation of goods at any cost by the rich, the conversation often ends there.

[isaiahkelly]

Well, Malthusus himself came from a wealthy family background. How ironic it is to speak of the needy when you yourself were protected, fed, sheltered, educated, and secure resources.

[johnterbot]

However, our current means of agricultural production and distribution, even if done so no person goes hungry (etc). Relies on fossil fuels and agrochemicals. A question I still have is if sustainable agriculture using green energy and fewer chemicals is able to supply 8 billion people while still combating climate change and ecosystem destruction. I hope it can, but I'm honestly not sure.

[kristymounsey]

I worry that overpopulation theory leads to eugenics.

[rodrigodeamoriza]

Easy to digest and extremely informative. Very well done!

[abguitar]

Simple and elegant. Well done Comrade.

[omniusmaximusgluteuslxix]

Practically platonicly perfect for conciseness comrade, keep kicking ass!

[brendannyman]

I remember learning this from my Canadian professor on environmental science. We have enough land with animals to feed up to 12 billion people, if we went all vegan it could exponentially grow to 14 billion plus (animals take a shit ton of resources and water to grow, im not a vegan at all but if it meant saving the planet, hell yeah)

[masayojohnson]

Thanks for citing sources. Good work. Keep it up!

[stegsjenga]

Nice pithy and comprehensible video, I'll keep an eye on the rest of your work.

[lucadhagat]

One of the most underrated videos on leftube. This video can easily be used as a means to show that food scarcity is a result of capitalism to those who aren't leftists or don't have an intimate understanding of theory.

[socialistquickfix]

great video, neomalthusianism is experiencing a serious resurgence among reactionary elements and will all too easily act as an ideological prop for exclusionary eugenics and extermination policies in the future - I'll share this with family and friends, cheers x

[amphibian]

Hey I recently started a blog where I write about some of these topics. Your videos are a great help 💜

[footstoolx]

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the karl

[hat_maker]

fantastic video! i am a relatively new marxist and found it very helpful

[pocketsquared]

It's a pleasant thought to imagine that the carrying capacity is an elastic, or even arbitrary boundary. But such arguments are wishful thinking. Relief, aid, technological advance, _change in social-material conditions, _ or whatever else you want to call it; these are all labels given to any temporary, artificial increase of the carrying capacity.

The plans and predictions of rose-colored models like these remain fiercely defended, but they are nevertheless unnatural ecological extensions, and their long-term sustainability remains impossible. The Earth is finite, and our consumption is not fixed in balance. Don't bet on as-of-yet undiscovered innovation.

Be careful dismissing Malthus. His arguments remain powerfully accurate within the biological sphere, and it is as foolish as it is arrogant for us to believe that these rules do not apply to us. There is no technological escape velocity that can permanently liberate us from our nature. Whether removing wasteful Capitalist greed from the equation will eliminate resource problems or not is incidental; if the population keeps going up, the _real_ carrying capacity will, at some point, be breached.

Of course, we DO have policy problems. But not all optimization problems can be blamed on procedural errors; some reduce to having good old mathematical limits. We're living on a ball, not a cloud.

[mpy]

Great video! Thank you for your work!

[erikeparsels]

It's clear that we currently produce enough calories to feed everybody, and even a somewhat higher population, but that level of food production is already way overshooting the ecologically workable level by a long way.

[belindaelisa]

"Arahat Athersata and the Plejaren repeatedly advise us in particular about our out-of-control overpopulation problem and, as of 1975, recommended a strict, humane plan of world-wide birth control (which we arrogantly and self-destructively ignored, and continue to ignore. Countries like Australia even promote the growth of our population for economic reasons even as our water and other resources are increasingly reduced and contaminated!). Arahat Athersata says, that one of the most important tasks of the realm of material life of the Earthly humanity is to pay attention to the fact that the population must be very severely restricted and the number of human beings must not exceed 500 million. (According to the Plejaren we had 7.5 billion at the end of 2004, which is one billion more that was acknowledged at the same time by the USAmerican Census Bureau!)

According to the Creational laws and directives the correct formula for maintaining the human species is not one of simply increasing, as is wrongly proclaimed by Earthly religions, but is based in the adherence to the natural laws so that there is order, meaning that population growth is overseen and supervised. Through the irrationality and false religious teaching of the Earth human the mass of humanity is driven into boundlessness, whereby problems, which are containable and can be restricted for a small humanity, spread and become uncontrollable to an unspeakable extent. With the breaking and abuse of the law of maintenance of the species humanity has been driven to a mass of overpopulation in only a few hundred years, and with that all problems, need and degeneration climb (and because of this millions are forced to die a degenerate death.) (Please refer to the FIGU overpopulation pamphlets for more on this.)

To follow Creational laws and directives also means the correct raising of children, in which, by adulthood, they are entirely equipped for self-reliance and independence from their parents. Other laws concern respect for all life forms, not killing in degeneration, (which includes not committing suicide), learning from mistakes rather than condemning them, taking responsibility for one's own thoughts, words and deeds, not judging falsely but instead making judgments according to logic, respecting one's spiritual and physical needs, the requirement for leadership in each family, community and population, etc., the obligation of a leader to guide, teach and protect the people, the implementation of correctional measures for wrong behavior instead of torture or the death penalty, which entirely go against the Creational laws and directives, and so on."