Between Humanity and Human Beings

Abstract

Some two centuries ago, in 1798, Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society. . . . Here he formulated the law of disproportion between population growth and the available resources of food. Population grows in geometric progression (2, 4, 8, 16 . . . ), whereas the increase in the supply of food is merely arithmetical (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 . . . ). Malthus predicted a demographic explosion, which did take place in the twentieth century, especially in the Third World, causing food shortages and even starvation, as well as the worsening of social tensions. It is well known that the intensity of this crisis lessened by the end of the twentieth century because technological successes accelerated the development of agriculture and because effective means of birth control and family planning were introduced. However, two hundred years after Malthus, a new disproportion — no longer demographic but at least as explosive — has become conspicuous. The disproportion presently is between the collective producer of information and its consumer; in other words, between humanity and human beings.