Re: population: real problem, or capitalist plot?

Kata sahibul hikayat: fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Wisdom would be to stay out of this. So it is foolishness indeed to
pipe up in what is apparently a theological debate, or has been made
into such.

I am reminded of the old question: "how many angels can one fit on a
pinhead". Well, if they are angels, I guess the answer would be one
more and still one more -- which was what gave rise to the
infinitesimal and ultimately to calculus.

But what to do if angels turn out to have mass and volume?

The land surface of this pinhead called earth is around 15 billion
hectares. So, if we say that all of those 15 billion ha were
habitable by angelic humans, which unfortunately have mass and
volume, each having an equal piece of turf, then we now have around
2.5 ha each; and that's got to be shared with lions and tigers and
bears, not to mention birds and bees, ants and termites, bacteria and
viruses and, of course, trees. And since we should not have too much
industrialism, we'll need to have our fields of non-monocultured corn
and rice and millet, and our cows and pigs, goats and sheep and
chickens; and that doesn't take into account the different needs of
hunter-gatherers, shifting cultivators, etc. BTW, what would be the
optimal population of rabbits in Australia -- will someone ask the
rabbits why their numbers should be regulated? If rabbits could
speak, they would likely say, "a bas l'anthropocentrisme, le dernier
racisme."!

But never mind, who's to tell what's the real carrying capacity for
humans; what more the carrying capacity for humans + lions and tigers
and bears + trees +...

Binarise everything and all we'll have are true believers and
apostates. True believers can go away satisfied that they have done
their duty. Apostates can go away muttering "damned true believers".
In all probability, that was what made the old man say, "Je ne suis
pas une marxiste".

That said, RN, of course capitalism, or perhaps better, property
regimes, the market, greed, plunder and dispossession, has plenty to
do with tropical deforestation. PCT or no PCT, mucho people actually
don't have enough C; and let's not flatten the earth with formulas
that assume the C of EuroAmerica.

But at least as far as Indonesia, or better Kalimantan, is concerned,
the deforestation is not primarily the work of peasants, nor a
consequence of population pressure. It's to do with timber extraction
and plantation development and, sometimes, the anger of the
dispossessed. Also, in some instances, fires rage out of control
because started by transmigrants without the local knowledge of
shifting cultivation and how to set a fire; but it's also because of
the thinning out of the forest, making it into a tinderbox -- you
know, a single spark starting a prairie fire, but not quite as
intended. Still, the main cause is starting fires to clear felled
logged-over forest destined for plantations because it is the
cheapest way, and damn the externalities; the cheapest cheapest way
-- allowing the creatures to eat their way through the stuff -- is of
course too expensive for the capitalist way.

Still, the major local method of cultivation, namely shifting
cultivation, would hardly be able to tolerate the population
densities of China without the onset of massive deforestation, soil
degradation and ultimately hunger -- unless there was a shift in
cultivation regime. Shifting cultivation in these terrains is great
stuff; well done, one gets fantastic output per hectare, not captured
when we talk of yields of rice, without soil degradation, and with
rapid forest succession. But one needs something like 12 hectares per
family for it to be truly sustainable, with a rotation cycle of 12
years, using 1 hectare per year; reduce the rotation period by too
much, say down to 5 years, and we start getting a succession of
grassland.

No, I'm not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs; just a reminder of
some old homilies, forgotten in the rush to the barricades.

At the same time, population patterns for the next quarter century
are pretty much more or less set, barring wars, epidemics, and
draconian anti-natalist policies. Yet, the evidence of the recent
period shows that the demographic transition can occur very rapidly,
within a generation, without draconian anti-natalist policies, and in
the absence of hugely patriarchal social structures -- all it takes,
it would appear, is development, i.e. provision of adequate primary
health care to sharply bring down infant and child mortality,
schooling for girls, an increase in the levels of material livelihood
and opportunities. Kerala would be a good example, but it might be
noted that Kerala also depends heavily on remittances from
out-migrants. Malaysia might actually be a better example, where
fertility has declined greatly in the course of one generation,
although there is some indication that religious resurgence has
tipped up the fertility rates again, and there remain significant
pockets where fertility remains high, with women bearing their first
child around the age of 15/16 and extending all the way to 40+,
resulting in average family sizes of well over 6.

But Malaysia does have the luxury of being a relatively sparsely
populated land -- almost three times the size of the British Isles,
with less than one-half its population. But even India -- the bete
noire of all population bombers -- has seen a major decline in
fertility rates, with estimated population growth rate down to 1.9%
and total fertility rate of 3.2 children born per woman (IMR 60/1000).

Still, I would be curious what some in this non-discussion would have
recommended for a place like China, where a 2% rate of increase would
have meant an additional 20+ million a year -- roughly one New York
State a year -- to house, feed and clothe?

Their draconian policy led to awful consequences, namely female
infanticide, because of the deep patriarchal character of Chinese
culture. But it did bring down the population growth rate to 0.8% or
thereabouts which, incidentally, is lower than that of the US. And if
they can keep the total fertility rate to around the current
estimated figure of 1.7 children _born_ (IMR around 30+/1000) per
woman, then population numbers should actually start dropping.

So while there are obviously limits to the numbers of humans the
earth can hold, the real issue is not, or no longer, population per
se. It is the 'order of things', for equally obviously we can't all
have the EuroAmerican C and not end up wiping out other beings and,
ultimately, ourselves.

Whatever, back to figuring out the optimal number of angels on a
pinhead, and wondering how the devil we are to build common
understandings in a democratic fashion for the new world socialist
order if everyone insists they have the truth and the whole truth,
apostates and true believers be damned. It sure is a spiral --
downwards.

KJ Khoo