Juhn Murney picked up on this story as well; Malthus Redux
He says;" Pianka's point has been lost. There are too many people on the planet;". True and the majority of them are poor.
Thus the record number of famines we are having thanks to Global Warming and due to capitalist production for export.
Lack of development opportunities based on sustainable farming and small scale industrial growth is the problem. Whether the issue is population growth, which is always based on labour needs for the family farm, or mass migration (aka illegal immigration) the real solution is to have regional development that creates real industries and self sufficiency.
Europes concern with growing illegal migration from Africa, due to impovershment or America's concern with illegal migrants from not only Mexico but now also Central America, is based on this simple fact. These countries have no sustainable development. If they did then their would be no migration. Development is the only solution to illegal immigration.
Ironically such development needs to be based on womens liberation. Where it has been successful it has focused on women in the community. When this is done, education plus regional based development funded by micro-loans, women begin to reduce the number of children they have and begin to modify the social conditions under which they live, challenging the remnants of fuedal patriarchical cultures that have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.
Where local sustainable development has been aimed at women we see positive results. Lower birth rates, higher education rates, less migration. Technological solutions for resource developments such as localized rational irrigation based on a harmonious merger of technology and local engineering/environmental development are preferable to the capitalist industrial model.
Not all development has to be based on large scale corporate manufacturing. In fact in Africa in several areas now suffering famines, the most successful village market businesses have remained the collective farms and tertiary production of maize. Large scale corporate models have collapsed due to being inefficient in the global marketplace. While the village collective model, run by women, has succeeded.
Ideals of Fair Trade, the idea of promoting organic farming and collective production of products for export, rather than the hacienda production favoured by large scale Multinational Corporations like United Fruit and Dole, help communities achieve sustainable development, which then allows them to leave the culture of poverty which is what creates unsustainable population growth.
Also See:
IWD Economic Freedom for Women
Water War
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Pianka, Malthus, Population, sustainable, development, economy, Africa, povery, migration
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