As I sit here and read over these pages a particular thought jumps into my head. I laugh a little bit, but its the type of laugh that follows a confused tone of voice, wondering, "How and the hell does anybody make an unanimous decision in about, well ... anything?!" As discussed earlier in the chapter, Malthus's theory in simplest form argues that the rate of population is increasing faster than the supply of food, eventually leading to scarcity of food and poverty. Of course you have the critics claiming that the problem is THE access to food. So we begin to find solutions and other ideas through new innovations. Some ideas, maybe not so well thought out as others. But hey, like I said earlier - there is never one solution or theory, there is never a unanimous decision.
We turn to Julian Simon, a man who disagreed with the Malthusian tradition and believed almost the exact opposite. Simon controversially claimed that the solution to scarcity is actually to INCREASE the population. Yup. He did not think population growth was leading to scarcity he thought it would lead us right on out .
I might have to jump on a critics bandwagon here. Simon seems to have neglected social inequality. Although in the video he talks about the standard of living in countries have increased - the number of people in poverty, facing hunger, and who are malnourished in those countries have not declined much in the last 50 years. It is true that through medical and technological advancements people are living longer, but life expectancy is still very much "uneven" around the world. I agree with Bell ... We can do better.
But did we? Below we see a picture with Julian Simon as one of his opponents Paul Ehrich (a prominent figure in the Malthusian tradition) hands him a check that I might add is "a nice chuck of change!" Ehrlich predicted that starvation would occur within the next 10 years. Simon bet that the price of any five metals Erhlich chooses from would fall during the next ten years as opposed to rising in the face of scarcity. Ten years later, the price of those five metals (chrome, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten) actually dropped. He explains in the video that we are becoming "more available" to natural resources, which he later explains that there is more of them. He also adds in the fact that we have to pay less for these natural resources .... wait, what? Hello? What about gas?! One of the main reasons countries are at war. One of the biggest debate questions presented at elections? How is this more available? Did he consider this?
So he was right about some things. But again I must agree when Bell states, "Simon's argument that more people means more brainpower to work out problems is also rather dubious." We must gather that with more brainpower and innovative comes consequences such as "the substitution of HCFCs a greenhouse gad, for ozone depleting" arise(111), if we were to increase the population to stop scarcity. If more brainpower was the answer then the Roman Empire would still be standing (I chuckled at this line, kudos to Bell).
But as I told you earlier .. there is never one compromise, ever. Welcome, to the Boserup Effect. Bell says that as Malthus held the belief that population reduces food available and there are ways to fix that. Bell also draws on Simons idea of population growth and its innovations (how more people make more brainpower), but this time explains the Boserup Effect ... saying that the up rise of population can increase food production by giving people an incentive to switch to more intensive farming methods. (113) That this food production might grant us access to the food we "don't have". After all points of views were taken in, I still feel as if we are stuck on the same problem. It is the increase in population that is the problem and what pros and cons derive from there, BUT, the problem being that as many people there are now, or how many people there will or will not be the access to food is still are primary concern. New farming methods might help, but in Stuffed and Starved we see the reality of those ideas come to life. What can we do? How can we make it easier to access the food needed to treat young people and their growing bodies, so that when they do grow up they can prevail and succeed in every way possible.
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