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When I was a child, the world’s population was a little over two billion people. Hundreds of millions were dying from starvation or suffering and dying from horribly advanced diseases (or both). In China. In India. In Africa. In Russia. In Southeast Asia. In the Middle East. I know this because my two uncles, who had served in CBI, told me about it when they came back from The War (and there were other sources, like the newsreels, and some of what I know is retrospective). Despite the carnage, there were more people walking around after The War than before. At the time, the theory was that the World was heavily overpopulated, and that it was obvious there had to be a large-scale dying off of the human population before starvation and disease would be brought under control. I didn’t wonder about any of this at the time, if I paid any attention to it at all (which was seldom). I was a kid, what did I know.

Now, some sixty plus years later, the world’s population is three times what it was then, and I would venture to say that the number of people dying from starvation and horrible diseases is substantially less today than it was then, not just as a percentage, but in pure numbers alone. And, this despite the basket case that is Africa, which is worse now than it was then.

Clearly, something has gone wrong with the Malthusian theory. By any standard gauge, the theory is a flop. As further testimony to this fact, I must report that I have yet to meet an enthusiastic Malthusian (or any of the modern variations) who is prepared to show us the way by being the first to plunge into a premature oblivion.