Escapology, or how to escape Malthusian traps

Book section : Book chapter

This chapter discusses ways of escaping Malthusian traps, showing how a framework taking the classical problem of overpopulation as its heuristic starting point can provide a key to contemporary problems and ways of dealing with them. Based on a concise model of the overpopulation trap, I discuss a variety of escape routes starting with the solutions and non-solutions suggested by Mal-thus (moral restraint, vice, and misery); followed by strategies of shifting the problem to subal-terns and/or outsiders; and culminating in cornucopian solutions like exponential industrial growth and technical progress. Subsequently, I move to the neo-Malthusian challenges of the contempo-rary era, from climate change to energy scarcity. After a brief outline of the traps threatening the foundations of contemporary industrial civilization, I survey conceivable ways of dealing with them. In doing so, I revisit the escape routes discussed previously and ponder which of them, if any, may be available, eventually in a modified form, to deal with looming scenarios of neo-Malthusian crisis.

Authors: Friedrichs, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Host title: Scarcity in the Modern World: History, Politics, Society and Sustainability
• Publication date: 2019-02-21
• ISBN: 9781350040915
• Keywords: SBTMR
• Subtype: Book chapter