Does over-population work in favor of Collectivism?

[musashi]

It seems communistic revolutions are occurring in Burma, Bolivia (Juan Evo Morales Ayma seems like a good guy, who thinks he’s doing good deeds), Venezuela, Nicaragua. Further it seems that socialism is broadly taking root from Mexico and Canada, throughout Europe. As I reflect upon the concept of Collectivism it was born along with the industrial revolution. Mechanization allowed for the expansion of population.

In the intervening time, many advances have allowed for the expansion of population. I’ve heard many inspirational people state that we don’t have too many people in our world, we lack enough creative approaches to sustain our populations. I have difficultly accepting this perspective.

To me it seems like there are way too many people on this planet. And further it seems like in places where excessive population and scarcity collide collectivist governments erupt. Does population have a connection to governmental structure?

As global population expands, is Collectivism an expected outcome?

[Petter Sandstad]

No, but it has been thought since Malthus that it was a problem. For instance the theory that production of food is a steady increase, while population increase is exponential. Give me a few days and I'll look through and get Say's answer to these theories.

[Ciaras]

Reserving this spot for a post-work comment

[musashi]

Thanks for the Malthus citation Petter. I was able to do a little reading about him, and I am very impressed. His dissenters attacked the accuracy of his predictions, but the underlying relationships appear to be proven by the test of time. The Malthus citation also led me to The Club of Rome
and their three books:
Limits to Growth
Beyond The Limits a 20 year follow up.
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

The three Limits books would be a great read for me, and may give voice to the over population and resource competition I was referring to. It seems to me that Collectivism would be most likely to occur in a mob situation, where you have many desperate people. That situation is ripe for a small group to rise to power over the masses. I wonder if the case could be made for a favored governmental model based upon the continuum of population vs. resources? Something like…

System of Government Population
Individual and tribal Remote and Isolated
Kingdoms Cities
Republics States with resources to grow
Collective Dictatorships States with excess population, and strained resources
Genocide, Anarchy States with depleted resources
(sorry for the arrows this engine doesn't support tables)

[Borysoff]

I think population increase is not the cause. It just increases competition between individuals for resources, but on other hand makes the market wider. It's all about education of people. And the ONLY thing that i see absolute in education is that person should be teached to always think HIMSELF.
Increase in population just means more people, who don't think, and go vote for "shiny" politicians, who basically promise that their electorate will get something, doing nothing.
But again, this is an issue of current governments/political systems.
I strongly believe, that people should pass some kind of IQ/adequacy test before taking part in voting.

[Petter Sandstad]

Let me quote a bit from Jean-Babtiste Say, who lived at the same time as Malthus.

In his 3rd letter to Malthus he writes:

As to those which may grow upon the territory of a nation, they are confined within boundaries, which the improvement of agrivulture, and increase of capitals engaged therein may certainly extend, but which will always be sure to exist. Arthur Young thinks that France does not produce more than half the alimentary produce which she is capable of producing. Suppose he is right in this; suppose even that with a more perfect agricultural system, France were to obtain double her present quantity of rural produce, without employing more agricultural labourers, she would then possess 45 millions of inhabitants at liberty to devote themselves to other occupations. Her manufactures would find better markets in the country than at present, because the country would be more productive, and the surplus would be sold, among the manufacturing population itself. People would not be worse fed that at present, but they would in general be better provided with articles of manufacture; with better dwellings, more furniture, finer clothing, and with objects of utility, instruction, and entertainment, which are now served for a very small number of people. The rest of the population is still rude and barbarous.

And I further quote from his Catechism:

Do not wars, epidemics, and in general those plagues which cut off great numbers of men, enable those which are left to enjoy a greater quantity of those commodities of which they are in want?

These scourges, in destroying men, destroy at the same time the means of production; and we do not see that, in countries thinly populated, the wants of the inhabitants are more easily satisfied. It is the abundance of productions, ad not the scarcity of consumers, which procures a plentiful supply of whatever our necessities require; and the most populous countries are in general the best supplied.

[Raaz Satik]

Ahh but Jean-Babtiste Say forgets about the wonderful European Union. If you double your farm production, the EU wouldn't let you sell the extra produce, because you would displace a higher cost producer who would lose money... potentially hurting that countries economy... and we can't have that! (Sarcasm!)

[musashi]

Jean-Babtiste Say was correct, and yet also wrong. His points about the Malthus forecasting are valid. It appears Thomas Malthus (over 150 years ago) did not account for many artifacts that do have a significant impact on both resources and population. However Malthus’ general thesis - population grows arithmetically and consumption of resources grows geometrically – is surprisingly valid.

We can’t just limit the discussion to food. Our modern societies need so much more. That is what impressed me about The Club of Rome’s work - they focus on five agglomerated factors: world population, industrialization, pollution, food production and resource depletion.

And as a Chemist/Material Scientist I was very impressed that they extended the resource factor to include metals, as well as energy and food production. To a degree global metal production is confronted by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. At the beginning of the industrial revolution metals could be found in relatively concentrated ores in various parts of the world. Today many metal ores are hundreds of times less concentrated, and even these sources are becoming depleted. Civilization has this nasty habit of exploiting concentrated resources and diluting the resources down to an unusable levels. There is a gold mine near my city (San Diego, Ca) that re-opened to extract the trace gold in the tailings pile of a mine that closed 100 years ago, in essence they are molecularly mining a dumpsite. Would you call that scraping the bottom of the barrel? It would not surprise me if a shortage of metals ends up triggering the over-shoot catastrophe. My bet is Chromium will be our Achilles Heel.

Isn’t interesting that Ayn Rand used a similar event 50 years ago (a shortage of Copper) to fracture her mythic world in Atlas Shrugged.