First, consider a communist system in a malthusian world. Since all private property and modern technology has been banned for harming the environment and displeasing Al Gore, economic development crashes down to a third world level and population grows exponentially. This will drive the average standard of living down to subsistence no matter how many arithmetic increments in agricultural production take place. Because everyone is equal, everyone lives at subsistence.
In contrast, the exploitation under feudalism reduces population growth. The serfs remain at subsistence, while the lords are above subsistence. The average, as opposed to total, standard of living remains higher under feudalism than under communism.
It is thus clear that if we accept the first two tenets of leftism (malthusianism and useless degrees), feudalism follows.
how would banning modern technology cause population levels to grow?
It would either do that or take them down to subsistence, same result either way.
gyrofry posted:http://monthlyreview.org/1998/12/01/malthus-essay-on-population-at-age-200
Its good to at least see Monthly Review not be trots and reject malthus and the reactionary conclusions that would necessarily follow.
What I would love to see is a Monthly Review article responding to Marx's opinion on immigration. It would probably go something like "marx is usually right but obama is the cum god and takes precedence".
e: The reason why I remember the Monty Review is that I was going to cite them for a trot paper I was writing a few months ago. I had one of my sudden drastic worldview changes in the middle of that and stopped working on the paper.
Edited by Lucille ()
on the other hand, african wealth is often owned by western capitalists, or at least shipped out of africa into tax havens for african dictators to retire to later. i don't see how you can reconcile this with your implication that population isn't exogenous.
All I said was that Africa has a larger middle class than Europe. I never contested that this was due to massive poverty and 9 children per woman.
However my opinions have changed since I made those type of arguments. I now agree with you and think it's more important to guarantee a small number of people a high standard of living than guaranteeing a large number of people a mediocre standard of living.
Edited by Lucille ()
Lucille posted:Well, we can do that now. I don't think that argument is my primary axiom though. My primary axiom is that "humans are unequal and leftists have irrational sympathy for lazy, disinterested people who don't even have class consciousness."
Maybe theyre only lazy and disinterested because Capitalist society doesnt serve as a great enough motivator for anyone other than sociopaths and glory hounds? Its a little like complaining that prison inmates arent interested in the historic 2008 election of President Barack Obama