Stephen GbolagadeHave you ever heard about Malthusian theory? I bet you haven’t, unless you studied it in school or heard about it somewhere. But I believe you’ve heard about Corona Virus, AKA, Covid-19. In this blog post, I’m going to tell you about Malthusian theory and how it is linked to Corona Virus. And finally, we’ll briefly discussed about the lessons learned.
But before talking about how these two terms, “Malthusian theory” and “Corona Virus” correlates, let talk about Malthusian theory first.
What is Malthusian Theory?
Malthusian Theory, otherwise known as “Malthusian theory of Population” is a theory published in the year 1798 by an English Cleric named “Thomas Robert Malthus” as an essay on the Principle of Population.
This theory is basically referred to as “Theory of Exponential Growth and Arithmetic Food Supply Growth”.
Notice that this theory is based on “Population” and “Food Supply”, let see why this great cleric published this theory and we’ll see how exactly it correlates with Corona Virus (COVID-19).
Explanation of Malthusian theory
Thomas Robert Malthus noticed something about human race, and that is ‘Increment in population’ and ‘Decrement in food supply’. Meaning that, as times goes on, there will be very shortage of food to eat. And this will lead to great famine which will kill millions of people, if the population is not controlled.
I remember during my secondary school days, there is something we learned in biology about ‘competition’ when it comes to ‘Feeding’.
Let me use fish as a good example.
If you throw a bait, let say an earthworm into a river (or sea), each of the fishes in the water (in the area) will struggle in other to be the first fish that’ll eat the earthworm… Fishes competes against themselves before they can have something to eat.
Although there are herbivorous fishes that feeds on plant. But still, they’ll need to compete before they can be satisfied. Why? Because there’s shortage of food.
Fishes eats and survives on what they see in their environment.
But how does this correlates with human being?
If you notice that our population is crazily increasing while food supply is decreasing, this creates competition among us.
For instance, prices of foodstuffs keep increasing and only those who can afford buying it will eat, while those who can’t afford to buy it, will have to starve.
In Africa, our population is increasing rapidly. For instance, in Nigeria, we have more than 204 million people here. In Lagos State, Nigeria, there are over 22 million people living there and that’s more than population of a country. For example, Netherlands (a country also known as Holland) population in Europe is not up to 20 million.
In China, the population according to World Bank and United States Census Bureau report more than One Billion people living in China as at 2018. In 2020, I’m sure it will be more than 1.5 billion people.
China is a country in Asia and the people living there are more than population of the whole Africa as a whole continent.
India population is competing with China as India has more than 1.3 billion people living there.
What am I trying to tell you?
As this population is rapidly increasing, more people are getting poorer and finds it difficult to eat good food because they can’t afford it and there’s no enough food to feed people.
Nigeria is the World Capital of Poverty because major part of the population can’t afford $1 per day.
And let me tell you that Nigeria is better than most African countries but we are the representative to describe how poverty is affecting AFRICA.
In India, they’re so poor that they beg for $5 jobs. And if you read their story, you’ll notice India is previously world capital of poverty until Nigeria took over.
This is the reason why there is something called Malthusian theory of population.
Let talk about they two key points in the theory;
- Population
- Food Supply
- POPULATION
According to Thomas Malthusian theory, populations grows in Geometric progression or G.P in mathematics.
G.P is a sequence of numbers where each and corresponding terms are gotten by multiplying the previous one with a constant number known as common ratio.
For example, in the following term: 2, 6, 18, 54…… the next term will be what?
To get the next term, you need to find the common ratio, which is 3.
2 * 3 = 6 and 6 * 3 = 18 and so on. So, to get the next term after 54 will be 54 x 3, which is equal to 162.
That’s how population increases across the world.
For example, as at the time Nigeria got her independent in 1960, our population was 45,138,458.
After 10 years, that is in 1970, our population increased to 55,982,144. In another 10 years, 1980 the population was 73,423,633 and in 2000, the population was 122,283,850….
In 2010, the population increased to 158,503,197 and in 2020, the population is 206,139,589.
Do you noticed how it increased from 45 million+ to 206 million+ within 60 years!
And between 2010 to 2020, the population has increased with over 47 million people (within 10 years). And we’re expecting over 50 million to be added by 2030.
You see how the population grow faster and how it follows the Geometric Sequence?
Now let me talk about the food supply.
- FOOD SUPPLY
According to Malthusian theory of population, food supply or production increases in Arithmetic Progression or A.P.
A.P is a sequence of numbers where each and corresponding ratio is gotten by differences between the terms.
For example, in the series of 2,5… can you guess the next number?
Remember in G.P, we would say 2 x 3 = 6 and the next number would be 6 x 3, which is 18. But we don’t calculate an Arithmetic Progression like that.
To get the next number in the series; 2, 5 …, we will need to find the common difference which is 3.
You don’t multiply but you add to get the next number.
Which will be 2 + 3 = 5, to get next number, you say 6+3 = 9 and so on.
Let bring back the population and food supply in comparison;
If the population increases as 2, 6, 18, 54 etc., the food production will increase as 2, 5, 8, 11, 14 etc.
Notice that by the time we reach 5th term, population will be 162 will food will be 14.
Meaning that 162 people will have to share or compete on food meant for 14 people!
That’s bad right?
Don’t worry, you’ll soon see how Malthusian theory correlate with Corona Virus.
Thomas Malthus didn’t only postulate and published theory about population and food supply but he wrote about possible (and may be “only”) solution to avoid famine or shortage of food.
Malthusian theory stated that, there’s need to control the population to avoid many people dying from shortage of food. He then stated that this phenomenon can be controlled in form of “Natural or Positive Checks” and “Preventive Checks”.
And these “checks” or control will lead to something called Malthusian Catastrophe which will control the population to normal or sustainable level.
But let talk about these two checks;
Two Ways of Controlling the Population – According to Malthusian Theory of Population
- Natural or Positive Checks
Malthusian theory of population stated that natural forces is capable of correcting the imbalance between population growth and food production.
And these natural forces can be in form of natural disasters such as hurricane, earthquake, flooding, fire outbreak, War etc. when these things happened, they will reduce the population growth.
Remember that the preventions will leads to Malthusian Catastrophe…
Okay, let talk about Preventive Checks
- Preventive Checks
Malthusian theory of population suggested that preventive measures can also be adopted in other to control and contain the population growth with respect to food supply.
He said that prevention measures like celibacy (to avoid marriage and having sex), family planning, and late marriage.
Now, how does Malthusian Theory Correlates with Corona Virus?
Although Malthusian theory of population was criticized because there’s rapid advancement in technology, which has makes food processing master and easier.
But according to research, more people are getting poorer.
According to World Bank, those who are living in extreme poverty can’t afford $1.90 per day.
In 2016, about 734 million or 10% of world population are extremely poor – that’s they can’t afford a dollar per day. And in extensive research, the country with the amount of people living in extreme poverty is Nigeria with over 86 million in 2015 who can’t afford $1 and by 2020, I’m sure the amount would have increased to 100 million people (I will update this later when the latest number is published by the United Nations).
Those who go below $1.90 per day are also poor and those who are below $10 are poor.
Now, let see this stat by the World Bank as at 2015;
The rate of people who are extremely poor are 734 million people (1 in every 10 people). Half of these people living in extreme poverty lives in China and India.
And to control this population according to Malthusian theory, something needs to be done.
Government has mandated family planning in countries like CHINA and INDIA in order to reduce the population. But yet, China and India are still the first two most populated countries in the world with half of the poorest people living in the world.
Poverty rate will decrease economic growth.
That’s why it is suspected that “Corona Virus” is a man-made weapon used to control the world population. And if you notice, Corona Virus originated from China, the world most populated country with high amounts of people living in extreme poverty.
Meaning that, some powerful people are behind this pandemic. I can’t say if they’re helping the world by reducing the population because lot of lives has been lost in the process.
But all the way, Malthusian Theory is proved to be true with this pandemic, COVID-19. Because this pandemic is not from God, it is man-made!
If they want to use this pandemic to control the world population, then we should expect this to hit India and Africa just like it happened in China.
Currently, over 1 million people have been killed by this virus, with most in China, Italy, Spain and the United States.
Lesson learned from Malthusian Theory of Population in Correlation to Corona Virus?
- Many people believed that Corona Virus is from God, as a way of punishing the wicked ones. But this is NOT true. Corona Virus is man-made weapon
- They say there’s currently no vaccine for corona virus. If this virus is man-made, then there is vaccine but they’re not ready to release it.
- Corona Virus will not end the world, it is just a weapon to control the world.
- They may want to end this pandemic but it’s out of control
- This pandemic will control the population to an extend but the population will spike up again
Rounding Off: Malthusian Theory of Population and Corona Virus
This is an opinion written on basis of Malthusian theory.
To learn more about this theory, you can google search about it and you’ll learn a lot. Also, all statistics are taken from Wikipedia according to direct reports from the United Nations/World Bank.
I don’t mention the name of anybody behind this corona virus pandemic and I do not know who are they. The government of all countries affected are trying to deal with this virus except where it is turned to COVID-419.
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Stephen Olgade
Stephen Gbolagade
