A common misconception today is that there are too many people on this planet and that we need to do something about it. The Socialist Party has always insisted that capitalism and not overpopulation is what causes poverty. It is in the parts of Britain which have a low population density which has the lowest living standards in the UK. Thinly populated Canada boasts one of the world's largest economies. Likewise, Singapore which accommodates millions of people within 50 sq. miles is similarly one of the richest economies in the world. Poverty and population are not linked in any way whatsoever. Capitalism, not people, causes poverty.
Nor is ‘overpopulation’ the root cause of climate change. It is not people who are are the problem, but society. Not human beings per se, but the way our social life is organised: capitalism. We should be condemning capitalism, not women and the number of children they bear.
Socialism will very likely improve people's life expectancy, leading to population increases, but rising living standards lead to lower birthrates and longer-term population stability. Once we are living in socialism, the release of human creativity to solve the problem of a finite planet and potential ever-expanding population will provide many strategies that we can't even begin to imagine. New technologies of food production and medicine will be able to do more and more to remove the 'problem' in the first place. The priority is the re-organisation of society and with that in place, any necessity to have a strategy to cope with 'too many people' is actually very distant. There is no real problem in a socialist society that has its resources rationally planned. Nor is it side-stepping the issue by stating the problem exists only for capitalist society and would not occur in socialism.
The standard non-socialist explanation for world hunger is that there are too many people. In other words, that not enough food can be produced to feed the world's present population. This is just not true. Enough food (in terms of calories and proteins) is already being produced which, if evenly divided, could eliminate hunger and starvation tomorrow. In short, the problem is one of distribution or, rather, of maldistribution. World food production can also be increased well above its present level. Under capitalism, production is for sale on a market. Only those who can pay have their needs met, those who can't pay don't have theirs met. If you've got no money, or not enough money, you're not part of the market, and production ignores you.
The total land area of the planet is about 12 billion hectares, but only 1.3 billion hectares can currently be used as arable land. Even with a population of 10 billion, this would mean 0.13 hectares per person or something over a third of an acre. If farmed by means of intensive horticulture a plot this size could feed dozens. The average yield in England is about eight tonnes of wheat per hectare per year, enough to feed a couple of dozen people; so the 0.13 hectare per person available once global population settles down would be plenty to feed three or four. The conclusion of such calculations is inescapable: even without genetically-modified crops, the Earth can produce more than enough to feed likely future populations.
No doubt, it will be argued that food is not a finite resource but in regards to those the excessive consumption of both renewal and non-renewable resources and the release of waste that nature can’t absorb that currently go on are not just accidental but an inevitable result of capitalism’s very nature. Endless “growth” – and the growing consumption of nature- given materials this involves – is built in to capitalism. However, this is not the growth of useful things as such but rather the growth of money-values.
Socialism is about eventually creating what some call a "steady-state economy" or "zero-growth". A situation where human needs are in balance with the resources needed to satisfy them. Such a society would already have decided on the most appropriate way to allocate resources to meet the needs of its members. This having been done, it would only need to go on repeating this continuously from production period to production period. Production would not be ever-increasing but would be stabilised at the level required to satisfy needs. All that would be produced would be products for consumption and the products needed to replace and repair the raw materials and instruments of production used up in producing these consumer goods. The point about such a situation is that there will no longer be any imperative need to develop productivity. In a stable society such as socialism, needs would most likely change relatively slowly. What it means is that we should construct permanent, durable means of production which you don’t constantly innovate. We would use these to produce durable equipment and machinery and durable consumer goods designed to last for a long time, designed for minimum maintenance and made from materials which if necessary can be re-cycled. In this way we would get a minimum loss of materials; once they’ve been extracted and processed they can be used over and over again. It also means that once you’ve achieved satisfactory levels of consumer goods, you don’t insist on producing more and more. Total social production could even be reduced. This will be the opposite of to-day. Society would move into a stable mode, a rhythm of daily production in line with daily needs with no significant growth which would reconcile two great needs, the need to live in material well being whilst looking after the planet.
On scarcity, it's the same. We deny there will be a problem. Well, not the degree that's being claimed by critics.
First, we have to define what scarcity is. Orthodox economics argue it is limited supply - versus- boundless demand. Our wants are essentially “infinite” and the resources to meet them, limited, claim the economists. They claim that without the guidance of prices socialism would sink into inefficiency. According to the argument, scarcity is an unavoidable fact of life. And that's what the text-books describe economics as - the allocation of scarce resources.
However, outside the class-room and in the real world, abundance is not a situation where an infinite amount of every good could be produced. Similarly, scarcity is not the situation which exists in the absence of this impossible total or sheer abundance. Abundance is a situation where productive resources are sufficient to produce enough wealth to satisfy human needs, while scarcity is a situation where productive resources are insufficient for this purpose. Abundance is a relationship between supply and demand, where the former exceeds the latter. Achieving abundance can be understood as the maintenance of an adequate buffer of stock in light of possible future demand. The relative abundance or scarcity of a good would be indicated by how easy or difficult it was to maintain such an adequate buffer stock in the face of a demand trend (upward, static, or downward). It will thus be possible to choose how to combine different factors for production, and whether to use one rather than another, on the basis of their relative abundance/scarcity.
How do we tell when something is becoming scarce? We use the tools and systems that capitalism bequeathed us, which will be suitably modified and adapted and transformed for the new conditions. There are stock or inventory control systems and logistics. The key to good stock management is the stock turnover rate – how rapidly stock is removed from the shelves – and the point at which it may need to be re-ordered. So its a matter of simply monitoring the shelves. The maintenance of surplus stocks would provide a buffer against unforeseen fluctuations in demand. In a particular situation of actual physical shortage we can use substitution and by what's described as the law of the minimum - you economise most on those factors of production that are relatively scarcest.
In essence, overpopulation is not a problem. Poverty is.
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