Re: Optimal Population?

On Wed, 31 May 2000, Jason Moore wrote:

>       Forest clearance in the Brazilian rainforest, and elsewhere, by
> displaced peasant producers today IS a response to overpopulation, but
> clearly an overpopulation produced by the deepening of capitalist
> agrarian relations in zones of established settlement. This is whole
> thrust of the modern history of town-country division of labor.
> Capitalist transformation of the countryside produces a surplus
> population which then finds its way to the cities and to new zones of
> settlement, near or far according to conditions. 
>       This is not a particularly new phenomenon. The history of world
> capitalist expansion is of course replete with instances of forest
> clearance -- 17th and 18th century New England, 15th century Madeira,
> 17th century Ireland, etc. -- few of which seem to be linked to be
> linked to "overpopulation." 

Jason-

What you say is true as far as it goes, but fails to note that
environmental devastation has accompanied human settlement long before the
rise of capitalist social relations. 

Have you heard of "The Cedars of Lebanon"?  They no longer exist, of
course, but apparently were quite extensive and magnificent before they
were all chopped down by the expanding agrarian population over 2000 years
ago.

Of course population growth must be considered in the context of social
relations, but to reduce the problem to one of capitalism is to miss
deeper underlying factors (addressed by Boserup, Carneiro and others).

On this point, AGF's recent work is relevant!

RH