Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnPaleo-Malthusianismrn”Parson,” wrote the Tory radical WilliamrnCobbett in an open letter to ThomasrnMalthus in 1819, “1 have, during my life,rndetested many men; but never any onernso much as you.” Cobbett’s hatred ofrnMalthus, the founder of modern populationrnscience, is comparable to the dislikernthat most conservatives feel toward himrntoday, though they probably would notrncare for Cobbett, an unsparing critic ofrnthe ravenous industrial capitalism of thernearly 19th centur’, any more than for thernauthor of the Essay on the Principle ofrnPopulation, first published exactly 200rnyears ago in 1798.rnIt is not surprising that most conservativesrnhave not exactly waxed exuberantrnabout the anniversary. They regardrnMalthus as the father of “populationrnplanning” and of the idea that toornmany people can be a bad thing, andrnin addition, growtho-maniacs like thernlate Julian Simon hold the harelippedrndemographer and English clergyman responsiblernfor the even more wicked idearnthat infinite and unrestricted economicrngrowth is not necessarily a good thing.rnThus, Malthus takes it on the lip fromrnboth wings of the “conservative movement,”rnfrom the religious right and thernanti-abortion, anti-birth control factionrnas well as from the libertarians, who likernto insist that there is no environmental orrnpopulation problem that cannot bernsolved satisfactorily by building a fewrnmore strip malls.rnAs usual, both sides of the “conservativernmovement” are wrong, not least becausernthey have completely lost contactrnwith the conservative intellectual traditionrnand are not able to recognize itrnwhen it slaps them in the face. It is nornsmall irony that a few years ago demographerrnMichael Teitelbaum pointed outrnthat Karl Marx and his heirs hatedrnMalthus at least as much as modern conser’rnatives do and that “right-wing thinkingrnin the United States was moving dramaticallyrntoward the old-line Marxistrntradition.”rnNew right and libertarian think tanks,rnsuch as the Heritage Foundation and thernCato Institute, began to argue that rapidrnpopulation growth was, at worst, a neutralrnfactor in economic development—rnand indeed might be a positive forcernso long as the “correct” economicrnsystem were in place. These argumentsrnwere energetically promoted in “backgrounders”rnaimed at a receptive ReaganrnWhite House.rnThe convergence of contemporaryrnconservatism and communism on the issuernof Malthusian ideas is simply partrnof the convergence of right and left thatrnhas been fairly obvious for a couple ofrndecades now, a convergence representedrnby such major minds as those of JackrnKemp and Newt Gingrich. You needrnnot worry that you missed the gala sponsoredrnby Heritage and Cato celebratingrnthe 200th anniversary of Malthus’s essay.rnThere was no such gala, and even ifrnthere had been, those who did observernthe anniversary would not have beenrnwelcome.rnThe anniversar)’ was in fact celebratedrnin a special issue of the Social Contract, arnquarterly journal devoted mainly to immigrationrnand the demographic, environmental,rnand cultural problems itrncauses, and also in a short book by JohnrnF. Rohe, A Bicentennial MalthusianrnEssay: Conservation, Population, and thernIndifference to Limits, published byrnRhodes & Easton in Traverse City,rnMichigan. Neither the Social Contractrnnor Mr. Rohe, a lawyer, mechanical engineer,rnand environmental activist, isrnconservative, at least not part of thern”movement,” but through their sympathyrnfor Malthus, they have independentlyrnrediscovered some of the fundamentalrnconcepts of the conservative traditionrnthat the conservative movement has longrnsince dispatched to the toxic wasterndump.rnThe most famous principle articulatedrnby Malthus was that while populationrnincreases geometrically, the food supplyrnon which population depends increasesrnonly arithmetically. The implication isrnobvious enough: Sooner or later, therernwill be far more people than there is foodrnto sustain them, and the result will bernmass starvation. Malthus, as Mr. Rohernand other Malthusians today acknowledge,rndid not anticipate such goodies asrnthe “Green Revolution,” by which it isrnpossible to make unproductive landrnyield food and to crank out, throughrnchemicals and artificial breeding, farrnmore crops than could be produced inrnearly 19th-century England. Nor did hernanticipate that the cultivation of vast newrnterritories in North America, LatinrnAmerica, and Asia would increase thernsupply of food far beyond what could bernproduced in his day. These omissions offerrnimmense comfort to the anti-Malthusians,rnwho never cease to whoop aboutrnhow Malthus did not know what he wasrntalking about and how, if he had onlyrnlived to see modern Hong Kong, herncould not possibly have voiced any objectionrnto such a Utopia.rnBut the point is larger than Malthus’srnspecific predictions. Malthus’s essentialrnpoint was that there are limits to what humanrnbeings can do and be, and that if wernexceed those limits, we will have a problem.rnI will spare the reader the statisticsrnon global food production, energy use,rnand population growth offered by neo-rnMalthusians, but whether those figuresrnand the ominous extrapolations fromrnthem are correct or not, the larger pointrnis surely true. Indeed, conservatives inrnparticular ought to know that it is true becausernconservatism revolves around it.rn”Conservatism,” wrote the conservativernhistorian Sir Lewis Namier, “is primarilyrnbased on a proper recognition ofrnhuman limitations, and cannot be arguedrnin a spirit of self-glorifying logic.”rnWhether it can be argued or not, thernrecognition of limits has been a distinguishingrncharacteristic of conservativernthought from the time of Burke and dernMaistre down to that of Russell Kirk andrnM.E. Bradford, and the denial of limitsrnhas been a characteristic of the left sincernit first crept from the womb in the Renaissance.rnThe very recognition of “humanrnnature” implies limits, since itrnmeans that hrunan beings are one thingrnand not another, that there are somernthings human beings cannot do or bernand some kinds of society that humanrnbeings cannot create or sustain. Andrnwhile conservatives have always insistedrnthat human nature exists and does notrnchange, it is the left—mainly, in this century,rnin the work of Franz Boas, RuthrnBenedict, and John Dewey—that insistsrn32/CHRONICLESrnrnrn