Widening demographic divide between rich and poor countries
// August 20th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Immigration, Political Theory
The Population Reference Bureau just released the annual World Population Data Sheet. The report claims that the inequality in population and health profiles between rich and poor countries is widening.
While I find macro and meta-narrative style studies overly generalizing and notwithstanding unforeseen phenomenons, there is some truth to the claim that in the coming future, wealthier nations will experience population growth mostly through immigration while population growth would be centered largely in countries that are poor. The demographers and world-ranking scientists in population studies won’t admit this, but Karl Marx developed a theory that correlates to these findings.
In his debate with Thomas Malthus, Marx argued that for the bourgeoisie, the number of children reproduced depended on the optimal number required to carry on the capital accumulation process, whereas the proletariat would reproduce in large numbers to gain more control over the only means of production that they owned: labor. You can read more on the Marx-Malthus debate here.
Obviously, capital is not the only driving force of history and the bourgeoisie/proletariat dichotomy is not as clear-cut across countries. However, richer countries, on average, tend to be consumer societies especially as production is increasingly deterritorialized and dematerialized, requiring them to reproduce less for survival.
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