The Forum > Article Comments > Remembrance Day - the battle for the future > Comments
Remembrance Day - the battle for the future : Comments
By John Passant, published 11/11/2008The war glorifiers have won the battle for the soul of Remembrance Day.
- Pages:
-
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- Page 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
-
- All
You might like to have a look at LeBlanc's "Constant Battles". The Malthusian views you quoted from my last post are a summary of his position, not mine, although I agree with him, so far as pre-State societies are concerned. He doesn't think this means no hope for the future. After all, we can control our fertility more easily, don't benefit economically from large families, and don't need them for defence or support in old age. Unfortunately, many of the world's people are still in the trap. Rwanda provides a good example of a Malthusian collapse. See this article by James Gasana, Rwanda's former agriculture minister:
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=1780
Gasana's original article in Worldwatch Magazine (Sept. 2002) has a table showing the correlation between calories per person and massacres in the different districts in his country - pretty direct evidence of resource shortages leading to conflict. The truth may well be misanthropic, reactionary, and double plus ungood.
Your utopian socialist ideas completely ignore the role of natural capital and the need to look after it, although there is no doubt that bad management from bad political systems can increase human misery.