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7 Malthus and the Margins: Rethinking the Paradigm of Limited Resources
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Published:June 2023
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Abstract
This chapter explores a revealing account of agrarian production in postcolonial settings—the later location of Malthusian margins—which emerged from the work of Danish economist Ester Boserup. Her first book, The Conditions of Agricultural Growth: The Economics of Agrarian Change Under Population Pressure (1965), demonstrated how Malthus's assumptions were backward in their logic. Increased population did not follow a rise in agricultural productivity; on the contrary, an increase in numbers of people usually led to greater rural productivity. Seizing the Malthusian bias by the throat, Boserup pointed to the inflexible models often imposed on divergent settings. The chapter then draws on the central insight of Boserup—the value of intensification understood in terms of local practices—to reopen a consideration of European agricultural history. Measures of agricultural output reveal that the relationship between food and population was moving in a direction opposed to a dire outcome in the early nineteenth century. Ultimately, the diversity of components contributing to the food supply stands out as the most significant factor involved in the success of sustainable food production.
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