We know that the world population has already surpassed 7 billion people. It's a lot of people! Why is this population growing so fast? Will we have resources available to feed and meet the basic needs of so many inhabitants?
To answer these questions, different answers were formulated. We give them the name ofdemographic theories.
This concern about the relationship between the supply of natural resources and the number of people in the world is not recent. In fact, it was in the 19th century that population theories began to be developed. Let's now know each one of them:
Malthusianism
The first to do this was Thomas Robert Malthus. For him, the increase in food production would be smaller than the growth in the number of inhabitants in the world. Therefore, soon there would be no more food for people. Humanity would thus be doomed to experience problems such as malnutrition, hunger, diseases, epidemics, among other factors.
Thomas Malthus, 19th century English economist
To solve this problem, Malthus advocated "moral control", in which people should abandon sexual practices to reduce the number of births and control the total growth of population. In addition, he defended the idea that the poor population was largely responsible for the excess of people in the world, it being necessary for each person to have only as many children as possible. to create.
The theories developed by Malthus and defended by many people are calledmalthusian theoryormalthusianism.
The problem with this theory is that, in the nineteenth century, Malthus did not imagine that technologies in agricultural and industrial production would become so advanced. This evolution allowed the production of food to be much greater than the number of inhabitants in the world, thus proving that he was wrong.
Neomalthusianism
Even so, many people still believe that problems related to hunger and malnutrition in the world are caused by lack of food and overcrowding. But, unlike Malthus, these theorists argue that to control population growth it is necessary to adopt contraceptive methods, that is, those that prevent new people from being born.
The people who defend these ideas are called neo-Malthusians (the word “neo” means “new”).
These methods are still widely adopted by countries and international organizations, such as distribution condoms, the sale of contraceptive drugs without the need for a medical prescription, among others actions.
reformist theory
There are those theorists who are totally against the ideas defended by Thomas Malthus and the Neomalthusians, they are the reformers or Marxists. These theorists built their ideas from what the German economist and sociologist said. Karl Marx.
Karl Marx, German thinker who said that the problem is social inequality
In this theory, it is stated that the problem of hunger and poverty in the world is not the lack of food for the population, nor is it the fault of overcrowding. These problems, in fact, would be caused by the poor distribution of income and access to consumer goods. In other words, for reformers, the issue is economic inequality, not lack of resources.
To promote the end of hunger and misery or to prevent them from occurring, according to this theory, it is enough to distribute income in a more democratic way, through social reforms that improve the living conditions of populations more poor. Thus, if these people have better living conditions, better education, health and other things, they will be better able to leave poverty behind. Furthermore, it is necessary to prevent the rich from earning more and the poor from getting less and less.
By Rodolfo Alves Pena
Graduated in Geography