At the simplest level, Malthus predicted that the population would outpace food production by the mid 19th century. So, on that level, he’s objectively wrong.
The main problems are the assumption that food production grows linearly and that population grows geometrically. For food production, scientific advances have kept food production growing far faster than linear. With future advances in technology, I could believe a 10x increase in food production in my lifetime. No one is predicting a population of 70 billion any time soon.
Also, the population isn’t growing geometrically. For the trivial answer, the growth has been more exponential. However, there have again been scientific advancements that Malthus simply couldn’t have forseen. Effective birth control keeps the population count lower. The switch from agrarian to urban culture has eliminated most of the advantages of producing large families and heavily rewarded producing smaller ones. In terms of hard facts, the world population growth rate has been declining since 1963. The UN’s medium projection of population growth predicts a population downturn by 2050.
At the basest level, he was right that the population can’t grow indefinitely. However, most claims that are more specific than that haven’t panned out.
So he was wrong because he had a too narrow view of the problem. I live in China, overpopulation means something here but even then any plane trip over any part of the world will show you, if washe weather allows, that humanity is not the cancer some describe.there is still plenty of room.
The main problems are the assumption that food production grows linearly and that population grows geometrically. For food production, scientific advances have kept food production growing far faster than linear. With future advances in technology, I could believe a 10x increase in food production in my lifetime. No one is predicting a population of 70 billion any time soon.
Also, the population isn’t growing geometrically. For the trivial answer, the growth has been more exponential. However, there have again been scientific advancements that Malthus simply couldn’t have forseen. Effective birth control keeps the population count lower. The switch from agrarian to urban culture has eliminated most of the advantages of producing large families and heavily rewarded producing smaller ones. In terms of hard facts, the world population growth rate has been declining since 1963. The UN’s medium projection of population growth predicts a population downturn by 2050.
At the basest level, he was right that the population can’t grow indefinitely. However, most claims that are more specific than that haven’t panned out.