OVERPOPULATION

   In 1798 the UK economist Thomas R. Malthus (1766-1834) published his Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, arguing that a UTOPIAN situation of peace and plenty would be impossible to achieve because the tendency of populations, in the absence of the checks of war, famine and plague, to increase exponentially would result in society's continually outgrowing its resources. In the second edition (1803), replying to criticism, he introduced another hypothetical check: voluntary restriction of population by the exercise of "moral restraint". But Malthus had little faith in the effectiveness of moral restraint, and most modern sf writers agree with him.Although the amended Malthusian argument was (and is) logically unassailable, it was ignored oreven attacked by most speculative writers even after it had become known that world population was indeed increasing exponentially. Richard Whiteing (1840-1928) brought the entire population of the world to theIsle of Wight to prove that anxiety about overpopulation was, as his title stated, All Moonshine (1907). It was not until the 1960s that awareness of the population problem resurfaced, probably as a consequence of an already-widespread DYSTOPIAN pessimism (OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM), which it then helped to maintain and amplify. The major nonfiction books involved in the popularization of the issue were The Population Bomb (1968) by Paul Ehrlich and The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome's Projecton the Predicament of Mankind (1972) by D.H. Meadows et al.Although MARVEL SCIENCE STORIES published in its Nov 1951 issue a "symposium" on thesubject of whether the world's population should be strategically limited, the question was at that time unexplored in sf. C.M. KORNBLUTH's "The Marching Morons" (1951), depicting a future in which the intelligentsiahave prudently exercised birth control while the lumpenproletariat have multiplied unrestrainedly, is a black comedy on the theme of eugenics rather than of overpopulation. In Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's equally black comedy, "The Big Trip up Yonder" (1954), overpopulation is the result oftechnologies of longevity rather than ordinary increase. Overpopulated milieux became gradually more evident in 1950s sf. Isaac ASIMOV, one of the first sf writers to become anxious about the matter, displayed one such in The Caves of Steel (1954). Frederik POHL produced the first of many ironic fantasies of corrective mass homicide in "The Census Takers" (1956); Robert SILVERBERG's Master of Life and Death (1957) takes thenotion of institutionalized population control more seriously; and Kornbluth's "Shark Ship" (1958) is a melodramatic horror story ofoverpopulation and resultant POLLUTION. An effectively understated treatment of the theme is J.G. BALLARD's "Billenium" (1961), which presents a simple picture of the slow shrinkage of personal space. A curiously ambivalent approach is adopted in Lester DEL REY's The Eleventh Commandment (1962), which begins as a polemic against overfertility butconcludes with a SOCIAL-DARWINIST volte-face. The most powerful attempt to confront the issue squarely and in some detail was Harry HARRISON's MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! (1966), a novel whose thrust was entirely lost when itwas filmed as SOYLENT GREEN (1973). A major novel from India, The Wind Obeys Lama Toru (1967) by LEE TUNG, quickly followed.There are threeaspects to the population problem: the exhaustion of resources; the destruction of the environment by pollution; and the social problems of living in crowded conditions. The first two aspects form the basis of most extrapolations of the problem, including A Torrent of Faces (1968) by James BLISH and Norman L. KNIGHT and The Sheep Look Up (1972) by JohnBRUNNER, and such black comedies as "The People Trap" (1968) by Robert SHECKLEY and "The Big Space Fuck" (1972) by Vonnegut. The third aspect comes into sharper focus in STAND ON ZANZIBAR (1968) by Brunner, The World Inside (1972) by Silverberg, 334 (1972) by Thomas M. DISCH and My Petitionfor More Space (1974) by John HERSEY. Because sf writers had not considered the problem until it was imminent, the quest for hypothetical solutions was difficult, and many stories hysterically allege that it is already too late to act effectively. Such traditional sf myths as the escape into space lack plausibility in the context of a problem so immediate, as demonstrated by such stories as Blish's "We All Die Naked" (1969). Confidence in moral restraint, even aided by birth control (whichMalthus forbore to propose), was so low that sf stories exploring possible solutions almost always concern themselves with the setting up of Draconian prohibitions or with various forms of overt and covert culling.Stories of grotesque mass homicide include, in addition to those cited above, D.G. COMPTON's The Quality of Mercy (1965), William F. NOLAN's and George Clayton JOHNSON's Logan's Run (1967), Leonard C. LEWIN's Triage(1972), Piers ANTHONY's Triple Detente (1974), Chelsea Quinn YARBRO's Time of the Fourth Horseman (1976) and Snoo WILSON's Spaceache (1984). Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House" (1968) mockingly envisages afuture in which reproduction is discouraged by the use of bromides, but most speculations in this vein are more gruesomely inclined. Suggested solutions not involving mass murder are rare, and not usually to be taken seriously; a notable example is that featured in Philip Jose FARMER's Dayworld (1985) and its sequels, in which every person is conscious onlyone day a week, spending the remaining six in suspended animation, thus effectively packing seven people into one person's space. A rare application of Malthusian thinking to an ALIEN situation is employed in THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE (1974) by Larry NIVEN and Jerry E. POURNELLE, inwhich a species for whom birth control is impossible has negative checks built in at the biological level.Although the real-world situation grows worse each passing day, the fashionability of overpopulation stories in sf has waned dramatically since 1980, partly in accordance with a general tendency to skip over the most frightening problems of the NEAR FUTURE and partly because of the absorption of the population problem into a more general sense of impending ecocatastrophe (ECOLOGY). Perhaps, though, the problem does not really deserve to be considered urgent. As Malthus pointed out, the situation is self-correcting; when there are more people than the world can accommodate, the surplus will inevitably die - one way, or another.An interesting but now quaintly dated anthology accurately reflecting the mood at the height of the panic is Voyages: Scenarios for a Ship Called Earth (anth 1971) ed Bob Sauer, published by BALLANTINE BOOKSfor the Zero Population Growth movement.

   BS

   See also: POLITICS; PREDICTION; SOCIOLOGY.