I get the impression you lean toward (at least a form of) being a believer in Malthus; is that true?
Ooo, an actual question buried in a mountain of excuses. Fun! ;-)
And now, to the question. I don't believe in Malthus. I regard what he wrote as plausible based on the evidence and his argument. There's a difference from that and "belief in."
As I wrote in the article you haven't finished, I provide an alternate way of thinking about his argument and observations, one written by a Chinese bureaucrat five years before Malthus originally published his essay. Hung's logic is more to the point, I feel.
For evidence, look at several pre-industrial civilizations that experienced Malthusian corrections in the past (like Rapa Nui-also called Easter Island), sometimes in the quite recent past (Rwanda comes to mind).
Oh, and I'm not sure about those econ lectures. As the OP points out, economists defer to the wishes and desires of the richest among us, not necessarily to the evidence and the conclusions that should be obvious. I'm going to do a couple of these reports on George, for example, before pointing out the antipathy against him that led to an almost complete re-writing of economics, one that buried his conclusions as deep as possible, suited the very rich . . . and that we have today.
Ooo, an actual question buried in a mountain of excuses. Fun! ;-)
And now, to the question. I don't believe in Malthus. I regard what he wrote as plausible based on the evidence and his argument. There's a difference from that and "belief in."
As I wrote in the article you haven't finished, I provide an alternate way of thinking about his argument and observations, one written by a Chinese bureaucrat five years before Malthus originally published his essay. Hung's logic is more to the point, I feel.
For evidence, look at several pre-industrial civilizations that experienced Malthusian corrections in the past (like Rapa Nui-also called Easter Island), sometimes in the quite recent past (Rwanda comes to mind).
Oh, and I'm not sure about those econ lectures. As the OP points out, economists defer to the wishes and desires of the richest among us, not necessarily to the evidence and the conclusions that should be obvious. I'm going to do a couple of these reports on George, for example, before pointing out the antipathy against him that led to an almost complete re-writing of economics, one that buried his conclusions as deep as possible, suited the very rich . . . and that we have today.
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