Excerpts from:

Food, Land, Population and the U. S. Economy

by

David Pimentel

Cornell University

Mario Giampietro

Istituto Nazionale della Nutrizione, Rome

1994

The Issue of Scale

The study of demographic growth and economic development is polarized by two contrasting schools:(i) the neo-Malthusians, who view population growth as a negative factor in economic development; "A development policy without a population program is like mopping the floor with the water turned on" (P. Bukman, quoted in WDF, 1989, p.1); and (ii) the cornucopians, who consider population growth a positive factor in economic development; "The ultimate resource is people-- skilled, spirited, and hopeful people-- who will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit and so, inevitably, for the benefit of us all" (Simon, 1981, p. 348).

The polarization is related to the different importance given to the two factors, natural and technological capital, that determine the external pressure on society. Neo-Malthusians, in general ecologists, consider only the limitedness of natural capital, whereas Cornucopians, in general economists, focus on the ability to improve human-made, technological capital. At the very root of the disagreement is the issue of scale. When population size is not put into relation with the environment in which society is operating, it is impossible to assess whether an increase in population size is a positive or negative event. For example, in the United States between 1800 and 1900, the doubling of the population definitely improved technological capital and the ability to make better use of the abundant natural resources available, resulting in a better standard of living. On the other hand, a doubling of China's current population will undoubtedly result in a major ecological disaster and most probably in a collapse of its socioeconomic structure. Already less than 0.08 hectare of arable land is available per capita in China to produce food.

Some economists (e.g., Simon, 1981) challenge the idea that an increase in the size of economic systems can ever induce a negative effect on their performance. They argue that improvements in internal organization will always lead to a larger technological capital and overcome potential difficulties generated by the tightening of natural capital available per capita. Ecologists, on the other hand, point out that even apparently 'free' resources, such as clean water and air, become scarce when human numbers expand relative to environmental processes.

. . . .

Economics describes the accessibility of resources in terms of labor hours required to buy them, but does not consider their biophysical cost in terms of energy. In economic terms the cost of resources in developed societies, such as the United States, is low because these systems employ techniques of environmental exploitation that use huge amounts of exosomatic energy subsidies. Thus, the low economic cost is based on a high productivity of labor in society that in turn is based on a high biophysical cost for that society. High labor productivity implies a large throughput of energy and other resources, which means a large environmental impact. The more the economic costs are decreased by economic growth through economies of scale and more technological inputs, the larger is the flow of natural resources consumed by the economic system as a whole.

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