Progressives, Malthus and Catch-22

The resurgent and indefatigable Progressives raise an interesting historical question. Essentially this group decries the randomness of social and political development. They have no belief in some social guiding hand that so captures the quasi-religious Marxist or the more practical Capitalist; their nitch in the ubiquitous power grab is the belief that intelligent and well-meaning adults can guide social change for the betterment of all--at least avoiding the obvious pitfalls of randomness. They have focused on the need for international diplomacy to smooth national edges thus the U.N.; they recognize the danger of the use of recreational neurotoxins thus Prohibition. Their great bugaboo has been Malthus and his catch-22.

Malthus argued that improved living conditions was an impossibility. As food production improved arithmetically, populations would increase geometrically and outstrip any production advantage. Ditto scientific and housing advances. So as conditions of the population improved, the pesky population, more comfortable, would reproduce more and recreate the problem. At some point the population runs out of food and space. Improved conditions were essentially self-defeating.

This led to an unfortunate but logical period where the Progressives began to see the advantage of controlling population size and, inevitably, population quality. They flirted with eugenics for quite a while and their interest has always been cautionary. But some surprising things have occurred. Population size with technical advances has decreased, not increased, in the technological cultures. The third world continues to grow but the technical world has developed exactly opposite of Malthus' prediction.

This leads to the potential "Camp of the Saints" nightmare, possibly, but it does make Progressives less heinous philosophically. Unfortunately, it also gives the lie to the notion of social planning. Malthus' big picture, top down vision certainly was logical at the time, it just was wrong. That it was wrong in no way should reassure Progressives; theirs is a big picture, top down vision too. Catch-22.