Marx, population and freedom
First online: 22 September 2020
Julian
Roche
University of Edinburgh
s1724025@ed.ac.uk
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
DOI: 10.3197/jps.2020.5.1.31
Licensing: This article is Open Access (CC BY 4.0).
How to Cite:
Roche, J. 2016. 'Marx, population and freedom'. The Journal of Population and Sustainability 5(1): 31–46.
https://doi.org/10.3197/jps.2020.5.1.31
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Marxists
have long moved beyond a perception of Marx as a Promethean ecological vandal.
Yet those disputing his environmental credentials are generally united in
deploring the unhappy history of population control. They implicitly accept the
idea of currently forecast future population levels as consistent with a
Marxist view of human emancipation. This assumption should be challenged, on
the basis of what resources a truly unalienated future may require in order to
achieve real freedom for each future individual.
Keywords:
Marxism; environmental impact; population control; freedom.
Marxism and the environment
The time when a consensus
existed that Marx was largely blind to ecological problems now seems long ago.
As an all-too brief summary of events since, invidious in its choice of authors
amidst a plethora of work, eco-socialist critics such as André Gorz (1994), Ted
Benton (1989, 2001), James O’Connor (1988, 1998), Joel Kovel (2002) and Daniel
Tanuro (2003), many in the journal Capitalism, Socialism,
Nature, as
well as eco-feminists such as Merchant (1992, 2005, 2012) and Ariel Salleh
(1997, 2012) broadly agreed that Marx’s undeniable emphasis on human labour
implicitly denigrated the importance of the biosphere. In response, whilst
largely agreeing in terms of objectives, contesting terms and even
collaborating (Kovel & Löwy, 2001), Marxists concerned with the environment
– notably Paul Burkett (1999, 2014) John Bellamy Foster (2000, 2009,
2011, 2014), and Michael Löwy (2017) constructed new theories of Marxist ecology,
aiming to render the Marxist theory of surplus value more compatible with
environmental concerns. And more recently, a comprehensive assessment of Marx’s
‘ecological turn’ in later life leads at least to questioning whether Marx
himself, at least, recognised the close relationship between human and
planetary welfare, even if many of those subsequently acting in his name did
not (Saito, 2016, 2017).
There is however a paradox at
the centre of all these efforts to integrate Marxism and environmental
politics. Whilst there is great concern over what kind of planet people should
enjoy, there is a relative neglect of how many people there might need to be in
order for a specifically Marxist ecological politics to succeed. Answering this
question raises the question of the relationship between population, ecology
and human freedom, which Marxism has generally eschewed.
Marxist theory of population
The reason Marxists have been
suspicious of population control lies in the ‘archaeology’ of Marxism. Marx and
Engels themselves were highly critical of Thomas Malthus’s early account of
scarcity and population (Jones, 2020, p.101). Whilst population is a critical
determinant of the ability of underdeveloped societies to affect their external
environment, Marx suggested that ‘this reproduction of labour-power forms, in
fact, an essential part of the reproduction of capital itself. Accumulation of
capital therefore entails an increase of the proletariat’. (Marx, 2015 [1867],
p.435); Perelman, 1987, p.30). That being Marx’s own view, the predominant
Marxist view of population control has always therefore been that it is at
worst rebarbative, at best unnecessary, and largely irrelevant in a wider
economic and political context, as population levels will be determined
historically, first by capitalist, and subsequently by socialist social
relations. The practically universal assumption has been made that Marxism need
not, indeed should not, address questions of population, whether in relation to
the achievement of socialism or their possible role in ending alienation and
creating universal freedom. These questions had been ‘solved’ by Marx.
Marxists have therefore argued
from the fact that technology has always risen to the challenge of production
for a growing population, leaving only a very real question of distribution.
There is evidence that this overall approach is reasonable, if not always
accurate. Generally, as wealth increases, fertility rates naturally fall as
families invest more resources in fewer children. There is an empirically
observable tendency that even in the absence of socialism, as people,
especially women, gain education and income, fertility rates decline (Williams,
2010, n.p.), albeit unevenly. If so, we need not worry: economic growth and
rising prosperity, even under capitalism, will solve the problem of
overpopulation by itself. As one Marxist author, following the
well-trodden path of environmentalists such as George Monbiot (2007) and Naomi
Klein (2014) who argue that capitalism and the health of the planet are
incompatible, summarised the Marxist response: population is not the problem,
capitalism is, so ‘Higher population growth rates are a product of hunger, not
its cause’ (Williams, 2010, n.p.). Marxists are not alone: the entire field of
social reproduction theory too has placed the conflict between capitalism and
reproductive freedom at its centre (Bhattacharya, 2020). This then leaves the
problem of hunger as fundamentally one of distribution; the Food and
Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has stated plainly (FAO, 2005),
and repeatedly (Martin-Shields & Stojetz 2018; FAO, 2019), that global
conflict is the main cause of global hunger, and that the world has plenty of
food if only it could be rationally distributed. Unfortunately, capitalism
prevents that very effectively, not only through conflict but also by ensuring
that international grain markets are directed at animal feed rather than food
consumption (Cohen, 2017, p.38).
Marxists have therefore largely
worried that concentrating on population confuses symptoms with causes, as well
as failing to distinguish between absolute levels and rates of change, while
simultaneously validating apologists for the system—and in some cases actively
updating and perpetuating Malthusian anti-poor, nationalist, and racist
arguments. Although there have been exceptions, the majority of Marxists have
followed Bernstein on the Right and Luxembourg on the Left (Petersen, 1988,
p.87) in being stridently opposed to population control, ably summarised in the
argument that: ‘The majority of the world’s people don’t destroy forests, don’t
wipe out endangered species, don’t pollute rivers and oceans, and emit
essentially no greenhouse gases’ (Butler & Angus, 2011, n.p.). The point
has also been made that: ‘Capitalism’s drive for growth isn’t a drive for more
customers – it is a drive for more profit’ (Angus & Butler, 2013,n.p.).
It is noticeable that such
criticism of population control often focuses on the contested liberal terrain
of ‘human rights’ (Angus & Butler, 2013). The problem here is that the
rights of the current generation may come at the expense of successive
generations to follow – including those who will eventually inherit the Earth
when capitalism has finally been ended. At the time the one-child policy
was first introduced, the Chinese Government appeared to be groping uncertainly
for this kind of concept. No doubt they made mistakes, ably and
enthusiastically seized upon by opponents of population control (Mosher, 2008).
And it may be readily conceded that policy directed at achieving a specific
level of population must inevitably strike a balance between investment in the
future of humanity and individual liberty in the short-term, at least so long
as that liberty is conceived in terms of liberal ‘rights’ to personal
procreation and not unshakeably connected to hope in the future. Similar
trade-offs of course exist in the restriction of personal freedoms throughout
the realm of government.
Unfortunately, also, however
justified his arguments against Malthus, Marx did not ‘solve’ the question of
population forever. Nor, although it is perhaps ironic for Marxists to argue
it, is it necessarily the case that capitalism will necessarily come to the
rescue of women everywhere and enable fertility rates to decline. Although Angus & Butler
(2011) suggest that the argument that rising incomes are strongly correlated
with declining population growth is irrefutable, and it is certainly generally
the case, recent evidence from Nigeria, where population growth rates have
remained steady for decades, is surely sufficient to disprove this as a
universal hypothesis. Just as
importantly, whilst global population growth rates have undoubtedly declined,
that is of scant use to the underprivileged of Bangladesh, for example, where
although the rate of growth of population is declining, the country still adds
over 1.5m of predominantly very poor people annually. As a result, the question
of at what level global population will peak, even that it actually will, is
not yet settled. More importantly, it is definitely not clear what kind of
population density will be the case when it does: all we can be certain of is
that it will certainly be greater than that which prevails in advanced Western
democracies such as Australia and the United States, even Europe.
Yet there seems to be no
alternative for Marxists but to join their political adversaries in hoping that
all will turn out well. It would seem that Marxists should welcome a growing
global population, but unless socialism can be achieved in the process, only if
they remain poor, surely an entirely unwelcome paradox. Either way, by
relegating questions of population to an increasingly distant communist future,
Marxists appear to have marginalised themselves politically on this issue as on
many others. Something has gone wrong here.
Three components of human freedom
What has been neglected
throughout the development of the relationship between Marxism and population
are the psychological, geographical and temporal dimensions.
In relation to the
psychological dimension, the trail leads back to the debates over the role of
the individual within Marxism and the debate between Marxist humanism and
structural Marxism almost half a century ago. For Marx, alienation and
capitalism were inseparable. Yet tragically, ‘free conscious activity
constitutes the species-character [Gattungswesen] of man’ (Marx, 2009 [1844], p.81]).
Overcoming capitalism entails a future in which human beings can and do
participate in human society through free, cooperative activity, through which
individual human beings can realise their freedom. For Marx, freedom means ‘the
conscious shaping by humans of the social conditions of their existence and so
the elimination of the impersonal power of alienated, reified social forces’
(Walicki, 1988, p.13). As a result, for Marxism, individual freedom cannot and
certainly should not ever be defined in the liberal sense; it must remain
‘social, collective and positive’ (Brenkert, 2013, p.88). To be free,
individuals must become ends-in-themselves, and not subject to such constraints
in their actions that their time is used up in unwelcome, repetitive labour
within a capitalist economy, even if an improvement over primitive conditions
prior to the control of Nature (Marx, 2010 [1894], p.593]). The world Ayn Rand
envisaged cannot deliver human freedom for all. Certainly, working conditions
in many parts of the world are far better than the 19th Century
capitalism that Marx saw first-hand, although by no means everywhere.
Nevertheless, Marx’s original criticism, that labour under capitalism
denies human self-realisation, remains a forceful, relevant and valid one for
the majority of human labour (Sayers, 1998, p.39), even in the 21st Century, and even in developed countries.
Subsequent theorists took up
the argument and placed the individual at the centre of the Marxist project. A
first example: the leading Marxist humanist Adam Schaff recognised that
socialist societies are not free from alienation, but one of the chief causes
was that neglect of the problem of the human individual had in the 20th Century
to the theoretical impoverishment of Marxism and its practical distortion
(Schaff, 1967, p.143). In his view, personality is and always will be: ‘the
defining factor of a real individual, peculiar to the individual’ (Schaff, 1970
[1965], p.94). Schaff’s view that elimination of private property is an
essential step towards the flourishing of individual personality points both to
his fidelity to the Marxist tradition, but also to his implicit recognition of
the sheer complexity of the multiple prerequisites for freedom in a Marxist
sense, many of which will inevitably be severely circumscribed by the
diminishing allocation of natural resources to individuals that a growing
population inevitably entails.
A second example: Erich Fromm,
who if not entitled to the appellation of Marxist himself was certainly closely
associated with the Marxist tradition (Wilde, 2000, p.55), took the view that
separation from nature is the basic human trauma, creating a sense of emptiness
that is often addressed negatively, through the pursuit of power, wealth or
fame, or through engagement in relations of dominance and subordination, but
which can also be addressed positively, through the pursuit of human solidarity
and through love and care for others. Love and solidarity are basic human needs
that are consistently frustrated by capitalism. This created the need for a
decentralised socialist society based on cooperation and self-management.
Fromm’s position hardly changed over two decades: in his later work he again
complained that whilst ‘industrial society has contempt for nature’ (Fromm,
1976, p.17), a new form of humanity is possible, as ‘Having and being as two
different forms of human existence are at the centre of Marx’s ideas’ (Fromm,
1976, p.156).
Third example: in developing a
theory of the human personality within Marxism, Lucien Sève, although himself
opposed to Marxist humanism, argued for the formal characterisation of
the problem caused by the absence of learning and development activity within
the capitalist workforce of as a falling rate of progress in individual
development over time, expressed in ‘the general tendency of personalities to
stagnation and ossification as the years pass’ (Sève, 1978 [1974], p.360). Sève
later advanced the example of successful retirement in Western society, surely
beyond doubt a resource-intensive activity from which few as yet can benefit,
as potential liberation from this downward spiral (Sève, 2008, p.417). It must
be conceded that Sève’s view did not go without challenge within the Marxist
tradition. Louis Althusser went so far as to argue for the rejection of the
conscious subject as an ‘absolutely ideological conceptual device’ (Althusser,
1971, p.157) From this theoretical debate, the paradox within Marxism therefore
stands ready to emerge. Collectivist regimes may be more willing to use the
tools historically associated with population targets, but their reasons, such
as Mao’s pragmatic concern with managing city size through migration (Lampton,
1974, p.687) are largely tactical, and by no means necessarily directed at the
freedom of actual, living individuals. Whereas, Marxist humanists may have a
much stronger strategic focus on the potentially negative implications of
population growth for individual freedom, they are much more cautious in
respect of the potential use of political tools to curb it and the balance
between present and future individual freedom.
The second dimension is
geographical, urban geography in particular. For a Marxist, true freedom cannot
be found in endless multiplication of private spaces. Hence when Engels
considered housing problems in the big cities of his day, he visualised that
expropriation can end overcrowding (Engels, 1872). This rendered him open to
the criticism that ’the problems of the city are displaced by the problems of
revolution’ (Merrifield, 2002, p.47). Today’s Marxists are committed to a
struggle against capitalist social relations, as well as economic ones: the
contemporary city, as Marxists have persistently argued, has become a metaphor
for the hopelessness of radical struggle and the location of huge inequalities.
Poverty, overcrowding and resultant poor health and low life expectancy in
major global cities have become unwelcome but recurrent reminders of the
failure of capitalism to provide living conditions for the majority, lived
environments in which individuals recognise that their freedom is permanent
jeopardy (Jaffe et al., 2020, p.1015). The conclusion Marxists should draw is
that individual freedom becomes progressively harder as population density
passes a point that places psychological pressure on the individual. One
example of this is the choice of location in Western cities: collectively,
well-designed high-rise apartments with emphatic collective spaces are kinder
on the environment and more conducive to interpersonal communication. Urban
planners with Marxist leanings should however remember that many seek the
suburbs because the prospect of apartment living fills them with dread. The
result is urban sprawl, dreadful for the environment (Dietz & Rosa, 1997)
and scarcely satisfying as a mode of living. It is no accident that the cities
and countries that consistently win prizes for liveability are those with lower
population densities, or that one of the almost inevitable corollaries of
personal wealth is the accumulation of living space, often in multiple
locations. No Marxist can want this to continue indefinitely.
But in developing responses, it
is no use for Marxists to pretend that in making the world anew, they can
ignore the reality of urban geography. High-density living and urban sprawl are
physical, geographical facts as well socio-economic ones (Gonzalez, 2005,
p.344). Yet Marxists of every stripe have always seemed largely determined to
ignore the fact that the elimination of capitalism will not automatically
remove geographical and natural constraints, nor instantly make the urban
environment anew. Even when a Marxist recognises that human overpopulation ‘is
the single most important factor contributing to human destruction of the
environment’ (Andrews, 2013, n.p.), the focus is on environmental damage,
although his analysis of the consequences of allowing all land to be shared
comes very close to the point. That is, socio-economic change is of no use if
the end-result is crippled by too many people – and there may already be too
many people for individuals to be properly free, in a Marxist sense.
Caution and balance
notwithstanding, the third dimension of the Marxist view of human freedom
remains hope for the future. The freedom that is to be fought for now is that
of generations to come. There is good reason to avoid potentially sterile
Marxist exegesis. But if Marx’s own words are to be cited, arguably the text
that should be at the forefront of any debate over population and Marxism is in
fact this well-known assertion:
‘in communist society, where
nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in
any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes
it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the
morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after
dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman,
herdsman or critic’ (Marx & Engels, 1970 [1846], p.53).
Traditionally, this paragraph
has been considered solely as a metaphor for the end of the division of labour.
But at least arguably it implies that the end of capitalism is simply no use if
after its welcome demise, people are prevented from exercising those new-found
freedoms from the division of labour by the size of human population. Problems
posed by population for the exercise of human freedom as properly understood
are no doubt endemic to capitalist society, but they will undoubtedly also
persist after its demise. Marxists should certainly not ignore them.
Three neglected dimensions of
genuine, unalienated freedom – and all of them with potential implications for
the population policy Marxists should advocate.
What should Marxists do?
The fundamental confusion for
Marxists over population policy has been between the technical and the
economic. At the root of the problem is an understandable, but nevertheless
unforgiveable, confusion between two different causes with the same result.
Marxists are right to lay the blame for the appalling conditions under which
many people still live on capitalism. But Engels was equally right when he
speculated that at some future point, the number of people might become so great
that limits will have to be set to their increase. Engels suggested ‘population
control from the center’ (Hollander, 2011, p.149):
‘The abstract possibility that
mankind will increase numerically to such an extent that its propagation will
have to be kept within bounds does, of course, exist. But should communist
society ever find itself compelled to regulate the production of humans in the
same way as it has already regulated the production of things, then it, and it
alone, will be able to effect this without difficulty. In such a society it
would not, or so it seems to me, be particularly difficult to obtain
deliberately a result which has already come about naturally and haphazardly in
France and Lower Austria. At all events, it’s for those future people to decide
whether, when and how it’s to be done and what means they wish to use. I don’t
consider myself qualified to supply them with suggestions and advice about
this. Indeed, they will, presumably, be every bit as clever as we are’ (Engels,
2010 [1881], pp.57-58]).
When Engels mused over
population control, as with agricultural production, he was convinced that the
issue would only ever be likely to confront humanity under communism, when
society as a whole would solve the complex problem of making rational decisions
in the interests of all existing and future people equally. In reality, it now
seems exceptionally likely – indeed, throughout the world it has already been
the case – that population policy will continue to be shaped under capitalist
economic conditions. There is nothing unusual in that – the same applies to a
multitude of issues of global concern, including gender relations and
environmental controls more broadly. In no case are Marxists excused from
taking a policy position on the ground that the founders of Marxism expected
such issues to be resolved within the context of a socialist or even communist
society. The time for endless apologies over the excesses of States propounding
Marxist-Leninist ideologies is now firmly over as well.
Revisionism has never carried
positive connotations within Marxism. Yet accommodation with the capitalist
State is constantly necessary, whether to fight for workers’ rights, campaign
against injustice, or to protect the environment. Attitudes to population policy
should be no exception. Much as revision to Marx need not always involve any
kind of hypothetical exegesis, it does seem entirely unreasonable to leave
Marx’s debate with Malthus as the last word of Marxists in regard to
population. This is especially so given that Marx himself throughout his work
recognised the need to accept scientific advance as a cornerstone of economic
and political change. At the very least the question should be left open.
The difficulty lies therefore
not in accepting the principle of population policy within the context of a
capitalist State. However many difficulties there have been historically, this
may be not only desirable but entirely necessary for improved environmental
outcomes essential to the eventual achievement of space and freedom for future
generations of humanity, something on which Marxists may agree with many
others. Rather, it is a complex question of political decision-making. It
may be that global population of seven to ten billion is eventually perceived
as inconsistent with human freedom and personal development, and population
policy aimed at reducing this total in the long term is eventually adopted.
This may occur whilst societies continue to be capitalist, in which case
Marxists and others on the Left will have an important role to play in
determining the practical way in which it is implemented. Under such
circumstances, continued opposition would simply perpetuate the perception of
Marxism as an outlying, outdated political tradition. Rather, the essential
task of Marxists will be to criticise the privatisation of reproductive rights,
for example to exercise scepticism towards any entirely market-driven
solutions, such as the all-too plausible route of competitive auctions (Tobin,
1970, p. 271) or the lesser evil of equally allocated but tradeable
reproduction rights (Lianos, 2018, p.93). Marxists should argue instead for
socially determined population targets and the protection of the vulnerable, as
the Left argues against private health and education. Victory in such a
potential conflict may itself even play an important role in the wider
political struggle against capitalism itself.
Conclusion: the revival of the human project
The conclusion to be drawn is
surely this: Marxism – and socialism more widely – has always claimed to have
at its centre, the theory and practice of human emancipation. Putting humanity
at the centre of a political and environmental project will achieve much more
than relegating it to the periphery, but only if by humanity we understand what
Marx meant by it at the level of the individual. There is a need to shift away
from silence over how capitalism can sustain ever larger global population,
whilst at the same time criticising the consequence of environmental
depredation that capitalism has continued to bring in its wake. Marxists would
be better to look to the intersection of psychology, geography and hope to help
shape their response to the challenge of global population growth and the
population density it implies. The combination of a Marxist theory of human
freedom, and practical politics based on realistic appreciation of how such
freedom can best be promoted in the future, could well turn out after all to be
the best prospect for the survival of the planet and the flourishing of
humanity as a whole.
If
so, in arguing for human freedom, Marxists cannot shirk the responsibility for
advocacy of population policy, should it prove necessary – which will
eventually be a technical question at the intersection of psychology, geography
and forecasting, not a speculative matter for philosophy or a question of
political slogans. This may yet turn out to be Marx’s greatest legacy: to
create real freedom, it may not only be necessary to surpass capitalism, but
also to ensure that those future people who will benefit from its abolition are
able to do so without crippling resource constraints, so that they can indeed
hunt in the morning and fish in the afternoon, and not be forced to just
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