joedirt wrote:
Malthus wasn't wrong, he was just early. As far as there having been no instances of Malthus being right, you are mistaken. There are many regional examples where he was correct (again see Easter Island and the Mayan Empire or even modern day Bangladesh). I recently returned from Belize. The Mayan city of Tikal at one time had 500,000 inhabitants (more than the current population of the entire country of Belize). Most of their declines have been linked to the effects of deforestation as they continued to cut down trees to support their growing populations they became increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and heat.
Ok, I'll spot you that. On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. So all of the nutjobs throughout history who predicted the world would end on a certain day weren't wrong, they were just early.
Just because a civilization dies off doesn't mean Malthus was right. Today, we have much better explanations than "the population outstripped resources." In fact, Easter Island is a great example of that point:
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mystery-easter-island-population-collapse-solved-by-looking-diets-ancient-rapa-nui-1630009Even if you want to go that route, the easy counter is these civilizations, for any number of reasons, could/would not trade with other nations. Easter Islanders were isolated and did not trade with Polynesia. On a global scale, this problem goes away.
As for the Mayans, the Malthusian explanation isn't necessarily historically accurate. Other historians peg drought as the explanation for their downfall.
Malthus was very wrong and most professionals do not take him seriously.