Plausible for a novel by Dan Brown. In the real World only the government is strong enough to destroy a large percentage of the population as in North Korea, The Soviet Union, China and a myriad of African countries all run by Stalinists and Maoist trash.
As for a first World capitalist economic system, Our poor wield an immense amount of political power and not only eat well, are offered 24 hour a day entertainment on the scale the kings of old would not recognize. The 1 or 2% at the top could ill afford an upset general population. Besides the wealthy generally became that way by providing goods and services to the greater population that freely chose to give them their money in exchange for said goods and services.
All these Malthusian proclamations are total BS. We could easily house every man, woman and child in the entire World with each having their own 1/4 acre lot and four bedroom home and still wouldn’t ‘fill up’ Texas.
As for food resources, we have become so good at agriculture that a fraction of a percent of the population can feed the World. The only cause of famine today is war and Leftist governments. The American Chicken farmer can incubate, raise, slaughter, dress, package and deliver a chicken anywhere in World cheaper than can be raised locally.
If their is global warming the increase in available farmlands in the Northern Hemisphere would allow for a population on a level that is many times larger than we have today. An order of ten would have to be reached before the food resources of a warmer Earth where even marginally taxed.
It is time to put an end to the idiocy that is the falsehood of over population. Certainly cities like Buffalo, Cleveland, Newark, Detroit, Pittsburgh and many others could easily provide for two to three times their present populations considering they have all lost 50% of their inhabitants.
There's a problem with that argument. That would be that the reason these cities in some areas have become unliveable cesspools is that people do not behave very well when they are idle, and the result is unliveable chaos. The problem is not caring for people, but keeping them from idle dysfunction so they don't self-destruct.
That's where the too many people argument happens. We're past the era of manufacturing, there's an over supply of labor, so what do you do with the masses? Look at the world....in places where there is overpopulation, the tendency is to wars, disease, crime and social breakdown.
That can't be addressed by just feeding, clothing, and housing people with nothing to work for and no reason to work.