Malthusian explanations for poverty and demographic theory were resurrected by neoMalthusians after World War 11. In his 1968 book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich, whose work is among the most influential in reviving Malthusian theory, described how he came to discover the significance of the population problem. It dawned on him, he said, "one stinking hot night in Delhi."
As we crawled through the city [in a taxi], we entered a crowded slum area. The temperature was well over 100 degrees and the air was a haze of dust and smoke. The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, people arguing and screaming. People thrust their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people. As we moved slowly through the mob, hand horn squawking, the dust, noise, heat, and cooking fires gave the scene a hellish aspect. Would we ever get to our hotel? All three of us were, frankly, frightened... since that night I've known the feel of overpopulation. (Ehrlich 1968:15)
As Indian sociologist Mahmood Mamdani (1972) pointed out, had Ehrlich been in Times Square in New York or Picadilly Circus in London he would have been in the midst of an even larger population, but those situations would not likely have led Ehrlich to fear overpopulation. Ehrlich was disturbed not by the number of people but by their poverty and the physical threat posed by a poor and potentially unruly populace.
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Whether a place is perceived as "overpopulated" or not often depends on its degree of opulence; while these crowded streets of Seoul, South Korea are packed, few would see a "population problem." The poverty represented by this beggar's line in Varanasi, India, would more likely create concerns about "overpopulation." |