by Elizabeth L. Krause
briefing | published July 2006 | summary | PDF
Supposedly scientific demographic reports and alarms about low birthrates, ageing and immigration in Italy, and the catastrophic societal consequences that are predicted to flow from them, enable racism by stimulating a climate of fear and anxiety toward immigrants. They reinforce xenophobic notions in which racism is "coded as culture" rather than on supposedly objective somatic or visual differences.
by Richard Minns with Sarah Sexton
briefing | published May 2006 | summary | full document | PDF
This briefing outlines the different ways in which countries have financed both social security for older people and economic production. It describes the rise of the private model of pensions and the influence of pension funds on capital flows around the world. It then summarises and critiques the main justifications given for expanding private pension schemes, and analyses the motivations of the groups that perpetuate this model.
by Nicholas Hildyard
presentation | published June 2005 | summary | full document | PDF
"Scarcity" -- not enough food or water or land and so on -- does not explain what it says it explains. Hunger, for example, is rarely the result of no food at all, but of not enough food in a certain place for certain people because those with more power deny them access to it. This may be conceded, but the claim that there will not be enough food in future because of future population growth still seems plausible. Future resources crises, however, will caused by the same imbalances of power as they are today.
by Sarah Sexton and Nicholas Hildyard
presentation | published May 2005 | summary | full document | PDF
By analysing who is considered 2too many" as Malthus's theory of population has been put to different uses, the presentation shows that population theory is in practice a political strategy employed to obscure relationships of power between different groups in societies. These relationships are critical to the use of "resources" as they determine how people are managed and in whose interests.
by Larry Lohmann
article | published December 2005 | summary | full document | PDF
This book chapter explores the connections between the dark, often racist, scare stories of Malthusianism over the past 200 years, and the reliance of the stories on a particular economic model about how society must be analysed and organised.
by Anne Hendrixson
briefing | published December 2004 | summary | full document | PDF
'Youth-bulge' theory refers to the large proportion of the world's population under 27 years old who are supposedly prone to violence. Images of angry young men of colour as potential terrorists and veiled young women as victims of repressive regimes support the theory. The implied threat of explosive violence and explosive fertility provides a rationale for US military intervention and population control initiatives in other countries and justifies government surveillance of Muslims and Arabs within US borders.
by Sumati Nair and Preeti Kirbat with Sarah Sexton
briefing | published June 2004 | summary | full document | PDF
This briefing evaluates the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development. It assesses several processes that affect women's reproductive and sexual rights and health: the decline and collapse in health services; neo-liberal economic policies and religious fundamentalisms; and development policies underpinned by neo-Malthusianism.
by Larry Lohmann
briefing | published March 2003 | summary | full document | PDF
Disputes about human population increase are less about numbers than about rights, as is suggested by an analysis of the historical context in which Malthus wrote his first story about overpopulation.
by Mike Davis
briefing | published December 2002 | summary | full document | PDF
A revised understanding of nineteenth cenutry famines illuminates many current challenges of 'development' and questions the wisdom of development policies still pursued today.
by Eric B. Ross
briefing | published July 2000 | summary | full document | PDF
The goal of Thomas Malthus, the 19th century originator of a theory about population, was to absolve the state and wealthier segments of society from responsibility for poverty. The briefing explores the theory’s subsequent uses in eugenic, anti-immigration, environmental, Cold War and Green Revolution interests. It explores how population thinking is used today in discussions of globalisation, violent conflict, immigration and the environment.
by Sarah Sexton
review | published June 2000 | summary | full document
A review The Malthus Factor: Poverty, Politics and Population in Capitalist Development by Eric B. Ross, published by Zed Books, London in 1998
by Sarah Sexton, Nicholas Hildyard and Larry Lohmann
briefing | published October 1998 | summary | full document
The biotechnology industry claims that genetic engineering in agriculture is necessary to feed a growing world population. Yet, far from preventing world starvation, genetic engineering threatens to exacerbate the social and ecological causes of hunger by forcing farmers to pay for their right to fertile seeds, threatening crop yields, undermining biodiversity and reducing the access of poorer people to food.
by Nicholas Hildyard
article | published November 1996 | summary | full document
by Judith Richter with Sarah Sexton
article | published April 1996 | summary | full document
by Nicholas Hildyard, Sarah Sexton and Larry Lohmann
article | published 1993 | summary | full document