Betting Against the Neo-Malthusians

It is indeed true that Robert Malthus' "Essay on the Principle of Population" was quite influential for a long time. In spite of the grave failure of its projections and predictions, one comes across people who dust it up and use it in policy discussion every decade or so. An article in the LA Times by Niall Fergusson makes the same claim that world population growth is outstripping food supply.

As a neo-Malthusian, Fergusson admits that the earlier warnings and forecasts were wrong but thinks that the recent rise in the price of cereals and his favourite cheese should lead to the strong conclusion that the theory's predictions will catch up with the world sometime soon. Adding global warming to the mix, he thinks that the world is certainly doomed.

This is typical of believers in those grand and neat theories that favour centralized planning and predict the inexorable failures of open economies. To start with, overall world economic growth was at its highest in decades in the same year that the human being number 6 billion was born last year. So for a theory that has almost always failed to reckon with human ingenuity and increasing rates of innovation in food production and productivity in general, I bet with confidence against the theory's predictions. Dusting up Malthus' essay every decade or so will not make it's predictions come true. Food supply is not going to run out any more than people starve because of a reduction in food supply.