Anti-Malthusian for a Green Revolution

Thomas Malthus presented a theory of population growth in 1798 that draws attention and advocacy even today. Known as the Malthusian theory, it is based on two premises:

 

1.      Humans tend to produce prolifically, that is, geometrically — 2, 4, 8, 16, 32

2.      The capacity to produce food and fiber expands more slowly, that is, arithmetically — 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Thus the population will eventually exceed the food supply unless population growth is checked by society. If growth continues, surplus populations will be reduced by war, disease, and famine.

Source: Clawson, D., Johnson, D., Haarman, V., Johnson, M. (2007) World Regional Geography. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. (p.33) 

Neo-Malthusians promulgate doom-and-gloom predictions about population growth claiming that even though Malthus left quite a bit out of his theory, the population/production crises has not been averted, simply delayed. What did Malthus leave out, and why does it matter?

Malthus most likely anticipated that the general population would continue to reject birth control on moral grounds. He could not have anticipated the wide availability of convenient methods of controlling conception, as well as the secularization of culture which led to a growing disregard for Roman Catholic reproductive mores in developed nations. The current natural rate of increase in highly urbanized nations with industrialized economies (less than 1.0%) reflects this.

Click here for larger map. 

The United Nations Population Fund and the World Health Organization have partnered to create highly successful campaigns to provide access to family planning and education to large portions of the population, with an emphasis on less-developed nations. The years since the 1994 (and especially the 2004) caucuses have seen marked improvement in family planning policy in almost all countries.

China, which is home to nearly 20% of the world’s population, is slated to have a population of 1.376 billion by 2010. According to the China Population Information and Research Center, the birth rate has continued to drop steadily, from 1.40% to 1.24% from 2000 to 2003. Zhao Bingli, vice minister of the State Family Planning Commission, estimates that in the 30 years since family planning legislation has been introduced, exponential population growth has been averted, and 300 million births have been prevented.

From the Agricultural Revolution that began 10,000 years ago in rural villages that allowed people to start to specialize their occupations instead of simply living hand to mouth and producing all their own food for their family unit, to the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18^th century that allowed large quantities of goods to be produced in factories, rather than by hand, human advancement has a way of catching up with population growth in previously unimagined capacities. We are currently in the midst of an Information Revolution. What could this mean for population? Many are concerned about job migration; tech companies are outsourcing skilled jobs to developing nations. In addition, labor investment is shrinking as jobs are automated. This serves a purpose that societies need for advancement. When people are left with extra time once taken up by consuming tasks, cultural advancements occur which in some cases go on to become full-fledged revolutions.

Revolutions are organic movements, usually spurred by innovative technology development (domestication of plow animals, printing press, steam engine, the internet). There cannot be a call to revolution per say, at least there has not been a historical example of this that I am aware of. But if there could be a call and response for a new revolution, what should it be? I think what we need next is a Green Revolution. What scientific or technological advances would make it possible for us to inhabit the earth without doing so much damage that we cannot remain here?

Malthusian theory is outdated and inapplicable. The revolutions that have taken place since humans have inhabited the earth have kept up with population growth. Population growth is steady to negative in most developed nations. Furthermore, steps are being taken to curb growth in underdeveloped areas. As medical care reaches depressed regions and slows the death rate, birth control and education are also reaching populations and curbing birth rate. Urbanization also contributes to population rate deceleration; rural families view children as an asset to help with farming and ranching, while larger families are a financial burden on city dwellers who tend to give birth to fewer children on average. In 2007 the world’s population crossed the threshold to become more than 50% city dwelling. This trend continues as cities utilize technology to be able to provide food, housing, and social services to a larger and larger population while the birth rate in these urban areas shrinks at a respectable rate.

With a Green Revolution we stand a very strong chance of applying our growing technical knowledge to advances that will allow for moderate population growth with less impact on nature than ever before. We must continue efforts to curb rapid growth in developing nations, but we must also look to the future with an eye towards less impact on our environment.

The Costs of Staying Home

According to author and Ph.D. Linda Hirshman, there has been a 15% increase in stay-at-home mothering in the last ten years. You might think that this statistic refers to low earning, less educated women working in entry-level positions, and you would be wrong. Hirshman ran a study using the couples who posted New York Times wedding announcements in 1996, the high-powered, Ivy League educated couples who have careers primarily in law, medicine, and academia. 85% of the wives were at home either half time or full time. Alternet.com also reports that “Half of the wealthiest, most-privileged, best-educated females in the country stay home with their babies rather than work in the market economy.” Montana.edu reported that 2003’s graduating class at Berkeley Law was 63% female. Women at Harvard Law were 46% of the graduating class in 2003, while Columbia Law graduated nearly 51%. So, women are being increasingly educated for success, and yet women comprise only 16% of law firm partners according to the American Bar Association. Similarly, women make up roughly 50% of undergraduate business majors nationwide, and yet only 16% of top level executives are female (only 10.6 percent of Wall Street’s corporate officers are women, and a mere nine are Fortune 500 CEOs). Where are these mid-career females? Do these headlines shock anyone besides me?

Should mothers work? The debate is hardly a new one. In 1900, only 5.3 million women were employed. Compare that to 18.4 million in 1950, and 63 million in 1997. The 1980s in particular saw droves of non-feminist working mothers entering the workforce, many unprepared by education or experience, compelled largely by divorce to take on the role of breadwinner for their young families. The 1980s brought us the term “latchkey children”, along with a marked rise in district funded after-school programs. Throughout the 80s and 90s, popular culture contrasted the warm, maternal stay at home mom with the cold, modern careerist. Mothers suffered from a collective guilt as the child psychologists advised them to take time off to raise their young children. Dr. James Dobson of radical right wing Christian organization Focus on the Family says of Linda Hirshman and her fellow supporters of working motherhood, “Most of these (radical feminist) writers…had never been married,” Dobson said. “They didn’t like children and deeply resented men.” This seemed to be a running diatribe from the mouths of televangelists and radio preachers. Do working mothers hate men and love their children less that their stay-at-home counterparts? It seems hardly likely. And yet, for those with the luxury of choice, how was a loving mother to choose her path?

The point that is clear to almost all critical observers of culture is that stay-at-home mothers are not sitting on the couch with their feet up watching soap operas and eating bonbons. It’s a hard job that requires a level of patience deserving of notice. Women who choose to stay at home are sacrificing their careers and daily intelligent adult interaction, not to mention the salaries they could have commanded. As Betty Friedan states in The Feminine Mystique, “Vacuuming the living room floor, with or without makeup, is not work that takes enough thought or energy to challenge any woman’s full capacity.” It’s hard work, without question. But it isn’t the kind of intellectually stimulating work that women have won the right to be hired for, in a capacity where they deal with powerful adults every day. It’s meant to be an unselfish choice. But what are the consequences of leaving the workforce for one, five, ten years or even permanently? What valuable minds are we losing in the intellectual community when women ages 20-50 are at home raising children?

“These are the women that would have gone into the jobs that run our world. These were the women who would eventually have become senators, governors. These women would have been in the pipeline to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,” explains Hirshman to CBS News. So who are our senators, governors, lawyers, doctors, professors? In large part, these positions are filled full time by loving parents; fathers. The majority of college men questioned in a sexual politics class at a top university responded that they will expect their female partners to take responsibility for childrearing. Maybe the question we should be asking is why? How is it that fathers can be fully loving parents while also working full time in the workplace? And how is it that gender roles haven’t changed as much as we think they have?

According to Linda Hirshman, “The family — with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks — is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government. This less-flourishing sphere is not the natural or moral responsibility only of women. Therefore, assigning it to women is unjust. Women assigning it to themselves is equally unjust.” But is choice really the point here? As Mark Twain once said, “A man who chooses not to read is just as ignorant as a man who cannot read.”

I think that it is an unquestionable guiding principle of our society that children should be loved and nurtured, and raised with the utmost care. Fathers have shown for centuries that a parent can love a child and care for them while still working outside the home. Should one parent stay home? That is an interesting question that can only be answered by both men and women…and if the answer is yes, then the role should be shared equally if we are ever to have true equality among the sexes along with a diverse, thriving intellectual and professional community.

Gay marriage…not edgy enough for queers?

Today is the three year anniversary for the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts which is, in my opinion, a massive victory for all Americans. I don’t expect everyone to feel that way. In fact, the vast majority of Middle America takes issue with gay marriage, and its legalization. No big surprise there. What I didn’t expect is for gays to have a problem with the legalization of gay marriage. That’s a shocker. This afternoon National Public Radio reported on Day to Day that some gays see marriage as a too-conventional institution that erodes the counter-culture that gay identity was founded on.

What is marriage, anyway? That’s a question that is seldom answered. Marriage predates recorded history, and almost every culture has a form of marriage that exists as a socially or legally recognized bond that sanctions a sexual relationship between two (or more) people. Polygamy, polygyny, and polyandry have been present in many cultures throughout history. Africa leads the continents with the most incidences of modern polygamy, while China only outlawed it in 1953. Many cultures have placed restrictions on who one cannot marry, known as exogamy. For example, in the Brahmin caste in India, it was prohibited to marry someone of the same gotra (a clan assigned to a Hindu at birth) because of the possibility of the same patrilineal line, and in most cultures it is not acceptable to marry one’s first cousin. South Korea prohibits marriage between two persons with the same surname.

Endogamy (marriage within a specific tribe or ethnicity) has been a staple of racist lawmaking for centuries. Nazi Germany is a modern example; Jews were to marry Jews, and non-Jews were to marry non-Jews. Keine Ausnahmen, no exceptions. Apartheid-era South Africa legislated endogamy as well. In most cultures, only fully recognized citizens were allowed to marry legally. Serfs and slaves formed unions, but they were not binding. In the United States we didn’t allow our slaves to marry legally, even within their own race. (Slave owners often tolerated slave weddings, which some of them defiled by raping the bride.) Embarrassingly, we didn’t even allow blacks and whites to marry each other until those laws were repealed between 1940 and the 1960s, ending with Loving v. Virginia in 1967.  

So this is the blighted history of a revered institution. We know that marriage is not, as the traditionalists claim, meant to be formed between one man and one woman. It is much more complicated than that, with polygamy being the frontrunner for the “most traditional form of marriage” prize. We also know that marriage was the province of people who are considered to have the rights of emancipated citizens. (Let us keep this about people who are emancipated; eighteen years of age and older.) I can understand why some gays would say “no, thank you” to such a questionable institution. But supporters of gay marriage have a very valid concern that few gays would argue. Gays are humans with human rights. American gays are citizens with all of the rights that citizens are afforded. So citizens should be allowed to marry who they like. Let’s not be demure and pretend that “traditional marriage” means marriage between a man and a woman, because history simply does not bear this out. Marriage is a union between one or more people of varying sexes. Everyone should get to enter into this contract if they desire it. And if they think it’s too conventional, they certainly don’t have to get married; but the right should be there.  

The argument against gay marriage (by gays) is that it dilutes the edginess of the culture. The refrain is now, “I’m not plain, boring old gay; now I’m queer.” Some gays don’t want to be associated with the mortgage-paying, barbeque-giving, suburbanite nuclear family image. They want to be counter culture, with the underground art movements and passionate protests of an oppressed community. But is this a reason to take marriage rights away from the more “conventional” gay counterparts? Is it worth that kind of step back?