World Population Essay Research Paper The Present

World Population Essay, Research Paper

The Present and Future The growth of the world s population is a problem that many people see as

being addressed at some point in the future. While we live in a country that is reaping the

benefits of a superpower, most of the United States is disconnected from the problems of

population growth. In this paper, I intend to address three major issues. How long will we

be able to support our planets food needs. How can we deal with population growth in

the present day. And How come certain areas tend to have larger population growth than

other areas. But first in this paper, I will see how the theories of sociologists and

demographers fit into the Earth s population problem. THEORIES MARX 1818-1883

Karl Marx viewed a capitalist society as an economic system that was bound to fail. In

Marx s opinion this eminent failure was based in the design of the system. According to

Marx, In the capitalist economy there are two major groups; the bourgeoisie and the

proletariat. The bourgeoisie are those who own the means of production, have the power.

The proletariat are those that work for the bourgeoisie and are at their mercy. At the

economy develops, the gap between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat grows wider and

eventually all the capital is controlled by a small percentage of the population and the

proletariat is forced into poverty. To someone with little or no sociological background,

the above paragraph has nothing to do with population as a social problem. But if you fit

population into Marx s description of the capitalist system, it is more relevant than at first

glance. The best way to make this point clear is to provide two hypothetical situations.

Family X is a middle class family that is doing well financially and they tend to have more

children than if they are not making so much money. But as the bourgeoisie gains more

and more control, families like X have their income driven down and ultimately have fewer

children. Families must have enough money, food, etc. to survive. If they don t have these

goods and they can t control their wages, they must control they must control an aspect of

their lives that would allow them to survive, whether or not to have children. Family Z is

an extremely wealthy family that more or less monopolizes an aspect of their economy. As

the economy progresses, family Z is able to drive down the wages of their workers thereby

increasing their profit. Since a family like Z is only a small percent of the population, there

is no worry whether or not they have many children. So in our society, according to Marx,

we have nothing to worry about. As long as we continue with our economic trend,

population will fix itself. Now if you look at Marx s theory on the whole, it makes a lot of

sense. MALTHUS 1766-1834 Malthus was a sociologist that was the author of

Population: the first essay. This essay is about the perfection of mankind. Malthus

describes the different stages that man has gone through and he provides theory to control

population. Malthus was sure that we can control population if we are able to use moral

restraint. If we can fight against our natural urges to have children, it will keep population

growth in check. One of the reasons that we have to control our natural urges is that there

will not be enough food to support our population. Maltus feels this way because

population grows at a geometric rate, while food can only be grown at an arithmetic rate.

So we are in effect sealing our own fate by having children. Malthus says that by thinking

about all of the hardships that our children will have to face, we will be motivated not to

have them. So while Marz s theory more or less happens on it s own, if we are to listen to

Malthus some work is to needed by us. WELD Weld is a contemporary Canadian

sociologist that deals with population problems from an aspect that can be more easily

understood by people of our time. In one article Confronting the Population Crisis the

twenty one most commonly used arguments to confound the issue. In this article, Weld is

able to respond to those that don t view population as a social problem. Although I would

like to go into each of Weld s responses, this is not a paper on her, so I will only choose a

few. Her response to argument 2 is probably the most interesting. The argument is

Technology can make it possible to accommodate an indefinitely expanding population.

and Weld s response is a valid one. Weld explains that when Paul Ehrlich wrote The

Population Bomb about thirty years ago, there were about one billion people living at a

level above poverty and that there were about 2.5 billion people living in poverty. But

now, after some great technological advances there are only 1.2 billion people that are

living above poverty and 4.1 billion people living in poverty. Weld opens her response to

the argument with the following sentence that s

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