Nature - autonomous learning

114 de-naturalisationgrowth. Second, these resources are seen as both quantitatively andqualitatively finite: it is in their nature (their essential character) to be nonubiquitous.Third, neo-Malthusianism sees the propensity of people tobreed beyond the natural-resource base as a ‘natural law’ that can only everbe tempered but never fully eliminated. Here nature is seen as creating adynamic balance between population numbers and resource availabilityover time and space. On the basis of these claims about what nature is (orhow it behaves), neo-Malthusianism draws some direct moral and practicallessons. In other words, it connects facts to values and what is to what ought tobe done, as if values and actions can be ‘read off’ from the supposed ‘realitiesof nature’. For instance, Hardin’s tough stance on whether or not to helpthe populous developing world follows logically from his belief that the morepeople there are on the planet the less there is to go around.During neo-Malthusianism’s heyday, there was some evidence to supportthe overpopulation argument. Escalating birth rates in the developing worldwere clearly correlated with a rising (or at least not declining) incidenceof malnutrition, starvation and famine in many countries.This evidence,in tandem with the simple, intuitively appealing logic of the overpopulationargument, made neo-Malthusianism a real intellectual force in manyacademic disciplines, in several political parties (for instance, Indiangovernments sponsored male sterilisation programmes in the 1970s) andin the wider society. In this context, David Harvey’s anti-Malthusian readingof the population–resources relationship was strikingly unorthodox.Inspired by the ideas of the radical nineteenth-century economist KarlMarx, Harvey argued that neo-Malthusianism was an ideology. Accordingto Marx, the ruling ideas of any era are the ideas of the ruling classes. ForHarvey, the reason that neo-Malthusianism became so influential in theearly 1970s was not because it was objectively true but, rather, because itserved the interests of Western elites to claim that it was objectively true. Letme explain.Harvey acknowledged that within its own terms of reference neo-Malthusianism made sense. It comprised both abstract ‘logical truths’ (e.g.if resources are assumed to be finite and if population is assumed togrow geometrically then it follows that eventually overpopulation will result)and ‘empirical truths’ (e.g. facts about population growth rates, malnutritionand mortality in various countries). If the latter seem to correspondto the former – as they did to many in the early 1970s – then it’s no surprisethat neo-Malthusianism appears to be a plausible explanation of the