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    Marxist Perspective On Population

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    Jordy13
    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels disagreed with Thomas Malthus's theory that population growth would inevitably outpace food production, leading to poverty. They argued that technological advances could increase food supply as quickly as the population. They also believed poverty under capitalism was caused not by overpopulation, but by capitalists taking value from workers' labor through things like replacing workers with machines. Marx saw population growth as undermining capitalism by creating an "industrial reserve army" of unemployed workers, fueling revolution. China later had to abandon Marxist ideas and implement its one-child policy due to overpopulation problems Marx had denied could exist.

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    Marxist Perspective On Population

    Uploaded by

    Jordy13
    409 views14 pages
    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels disagreed with Thomas Malthus's theory that population growth would inevitably outpace food production, leading to poverty. They argued that technological advances could increase food supply as quickly as the population. They also believed poverty under capitalism was caused not by overpopulation, but by capitalists taking value from workers' labor through things like replacing workers with machines. Marx saw population growth as undermining capitalism by creating an "industrial reserve army" of unemployed workers, fueling revolution. China later had to abandon Marxist ideas and implement its one-child policy due to overpopulation problems Marx had denied could exist.

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    Marxist Perspective on Population

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    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels disagreed with Thomas Malthus's theory that population growth would inevitably outpace food production, leading to poverty. They argued that technological advances could increase food supply as quickly as the population. They also believed poverty under capitalism was caused not by overpopulation, but by capitalists taking value from workers' labor through things like replacing workers with machines. Marx saw population growth as undermining capitalism by creating an "industrial reserve army" of unemployed workers, fueling revolution. China later had to abandon Marxist ideas and implement its one-child policy due to overpopulation problems Marx had denied could exist.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    409 views14 pages

    Marxist Perspective On Population

    Uploaded by

    Jordy13
    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels disagreed with Thomas Malthus's theory that population growth would inevitably outpace food production, leading to poverty. They argued that technological advances could increase food supply as quickly as the population. They also believed poverty under capitalism was caused not by overpopulation, but by capitalists taking value from workers' labor through things like replacing workers with machines. Marx saw population growth as undermining capitalism by creating an "industrial reserve army" of unemployed workers, fueling revolution. China later had to abandon Marxist ideas and implement its one-child policy due to overpopulation problems Marx had denied could exist.

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    of 14

    Advocates-Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

    Historical Background
    Both teenagers in Germany when Malthus died in England in 1834.
    They went to England-Malthus already ideas were

    political influencial in Germany. German states and Austria experiencing a rapid growth in the number of poor people. Policy in placed legislation against marriages unless applicant could guarantee that his family would not be on welfare.

    continue
    People started to have children out of wedlock and

    welfare rolls grew Marxist perspective on population arose in reaction to Malthus.

    Consequences of Population Growth


    Marx and Engels disagree with Malthus that resources

    could not grow as rapidly as population.

    They argued that there is no reason to suspect that

    science and technology could not increase the availability of food and other goods as quickly as population grows.

    Engels
    He argued that whatever pop. Pressure existed in society was really pressure against the means of employment rather than against the means of subsistence (Meek, 1971)
    They rejected the view that poverty can be blamed on the poor They claimed that poverty is a result of a poorly organized society-eg. capitalist society.

    Consequences continue
    Marx and Engels argued that a normal consequence of

    population growth should be a significant increase in production. Engels believed that a well-ordered society, if there were more people, there ought to be more wealth, not more poverty,(1953). They did not believe that poverty was the end result of pop. growth.

    Conseq.
    Engels (England) more people = meant more wealth for the capitalists rather than for the workers.
    Why? The capitalists profit from the workers wages. Marx explained that this occur by stripping the workers of their tools and charging the workers for being able to come to the factory to work.

    Conseq.
    Marx argued that capitalism worked by using the

    labour of the working classes to earn profits to buy machines that wld. replace the labourers-lead to unemployment and poverty. The poor were not poor because they overran the food supply-capitalists had taken part of their wages, taken their jobs and replaced with machines.

    Conseq.
    Malthus consequences of population growth were the

    consequences of a capitalist society. Overpopulation in a capitalist society is a result of the capitalists desire for an industrial reserve army.
    Labour reserves keep wages low though competition

    for jobs.

    Marx believed that the growing pop= seeds of

    destruction for capitalism unemploymentdisaffection and revolution.

    Marxs personal life


    Marx like Malthus practiced what he preached.
    He married young, fathered 8 children and lives on

    intimate terms with poverty for much of his life.


    Primarily concerned with England in 19th C

    Critique of Marx
    Marxian thought on pop. Attribute to Lenin.
    Marx offer no guidelines for the transition period. Marx implied that the socialist law of pop. Shld be the

    anti-thesis of capitalist law. Soviet socialism was unable to alleviate one of the worst evils that Marx attributed to capitalism.

    Chinas reaction to population growth


    Higher death rates among people in the working class than those in the higher classes,(Brackett, 1967).
    In china emperical reality of having to deal with the worlds largest national population has led to a radical departure from Marxian idealogy. 1953-chinese govt relaxed regulations cocerning contraception and abortion One child policy

    Critique of Marx continue


    Marx denied pop problems China had to rejected its Marxist-Leninist roots and

    embrace a very coercive govt programs. This was launched to reduce fertility through restraints on marriage, contraception and abortion. Marxism is being revised in light of new scientific evidence on how people behave.

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