Population control and global inequality

1
Population control and global inequality

• Attila Melegh

2
Aim of the seminar

• Self-positioning of the reform-internationalisms
  within, and in relation to, global inequality
  and global power relations.

3
The space system of global inequalities

• Global colonial-capitalism since the 18th century
  and its cycles.
• Global economic hierarchy.
• Global imaginary civilisation, coloniality

4
Malthus and the liberal humanitarian utopia

• Definition of population control.
• How hierarchies are set up?
• Positive and negative checks.
• Biopolitical balances.
• Measuring societies.

5
Malthus and global inequalities

• Subordination of agrarian capitalism.
• Colonialism.
• If we do not then consider this apathy of the
  Americans as a natural defect in their bodily
  frame, but merely as a general coldness, and an
  infrequency of the calls of the sexual appetite,
  we shall not be inclined to give much weight to
  it as affecting the number of children to a
  marriage but shall be disposed to look for the
  cause of this unfruitfulness in the condition and
  customs of the women in a savage state.

6
Development of the internalization of
Malthusianism

• Internal development of the thought.
• History of the global system.
• Internal positioning and interplay. This latter
  is crucial and not researched.

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Colonial epoch

• No international movement, but still exported.
• British empire practiced inside and outside.
• Colonial intervention and non-intervention.
• Extreme biopolitical racism and liberalism.

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National population movements. The era

• Scientific progress.
• Demographic changes.
• Uprooted populations.

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National reform movements internal development

• Neo-Malthusianism and the alliance with
  feminists, anti-immigration campaigners.
• The rise of national and inter-national
  organizations and co-operation.
• Global position in the system of inequalities.

10
National reform movements varying reactions

• The spread of neo-Malthusianism and
  discrepancies. The need to become populuos.
• France and Italy.The combination of quality and
  quantity.

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National reform movements varying reactions

• Germany Differentiation according to classes and
  races..
• Latin-America anti-local and anti-immigrant
  (Argentina).
• Latin-America and Eastern Europe pro-local,
  anti-alien. (Mexico, Hungary).

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The rise of the international reform movement

• Shift in hegemony, decolonization, the rise of
  communism.
• Overpopulation globally Demographic transition
  and modernization theory.

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The rise of the international reform movement

• Colonial systems, formal and otherwise, in which
  the mother country endeavors to retain the colony
  primarily as a source of raw materials and as a
  market for manufactured goods stimulate
  population growth without reducing the
  potentialities for future population growth. The
  influence of the United States should be exerted
  against the reestablishment of such systems where
  they have broken down and toward their alteration
  where they exist. The upheavals of the war, and
  the strong stand already taken on freedom of
  access to raw materials and markets offer an
  opportunity in that direction. (Seeley G. Mudd
  Manuscript Library, Princeton Box no. FW.1).

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The rise of the international reform movement

• Improvement in this situation is slow to develop,
  because it has so happened that the advanced
  nations have tended to transfer to dependent
  peoples that part of their culture, which reduces
  mortality, but they have not disseminated the
  complementary cultural developments, which tend
  to bring about a rational control of fertility.
• The dissemination of birth-control information,
  while of undoubted use in reducing population
  growth, would not meet the needs of these
  colonial populations. Therefore, the only lasting
  solution is one, which would bring about a
  reduction of growth potential.
• Continuing, Mr. Notestein pointed out that in all
  probability a reduction of growth potential can
  only be brought about by education, urbanization,
  and a gradual increase in the standard of living
  (Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton Box
  no. FW.1).

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The full development of this movement

• The shift of anti-communism.
• The need to intervene.
• USA leading and international league.
• Maintaining the combination in new circumstances.
• International organizations International
  Planned Parenthood Federation.
• Internal blows.

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Varying reactions

• Cruelly, you Western demographers intend to
  adjust the population to the economy, while we
  Communists want to adjust the economy to the
  population (Name is not given cited by Petersen,
  1988, 93).
• India population emergency plans.
• China the victory of science.
• Control of quality in Eastern Europe the rise of
  a new Nazism.
• Latin America suspicion and radicalism

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Varying reactions

• Wealth of the continent is not yet utilized.
• There is a low population density.
• The aim is to reduce social pressure in this way
  and through massive social changes.
• The US wants to reduce foreign aid with this.
• The concern in the US for population control
  (wanted fertility) is lower.
• The US wants to reduce demand for resources.

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Loosing the grip

• Reintegrating development and population.
• Not anymore a reform idea.
• New ways of protecting piriveleged lives.