Written at the request of Juan Rodes for a report to the Foundation of the Banco Bilbao Vizcaya
Disentrapment - a step towards preventing Earth boiling like Venus
Maurice King, Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Leeds.
If anyone mentions entrapment "....the suggestion is put forward immediately that he is a Malthusian, the worst sin among contemporary demographers and development economists" Partha Dasgupta {145} Such then is the antipathy to Malthus - and the failure to confront reality.
Preamble. For years now I have been worried by what happens to communities which exceed the carrying capacities of their ecosystems, and become demographically trapped. I have met the powerful taboo which prevents demography, development economics, and the UN agencies, especially UNDP, from even thinking about this - publicly - and conclude that, by failing to do so, they have all to be considered intellectually corrupt. The result of this corruption is that there is now an unreal and awesome calm in international population matters, despite the increasing awareness of population-driven violence and anarchy in many countries. {78} Where it not for the fact that some colleagues think exactly as I do, I would doubt my rationality. Alas, it has to be concluded that these disciplines and agencies are now permeated by a corruption so gross as to be mind-boggling. Conversely, the enormous relief and release of creative energy, that would result from casting off the taboo, and looking at the real world straight in the face, would be an immense opportunity...
Although I shall be mostly concerned with Africa, I will start globally. As you will see, I am much concerned with 'Demons'. These are shorthand for the reasons why demographic entrapment is so taboo - the Hardinian taboo. My aim is to discuss anything relevant, and in doing so to start to exorcise those Demons!
Introduction. The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has suggested that, if global warming gets out of hand - as it well may do - the release of progressively more methane from the frozen Arctic permafrost, and from coastal sediments, could escalate global warming catastrophically, in a positive feedback loop, even to the point at which, in his words "... Earth will boil like Venus..." {106} The prevention of this ultimate catastrophe thus requires that everything possible be done to mitigate fossil fuel consumption, and the production of carbon dioxide, particularly since the forecasts for global-warming have recently been revised upwards, and methane is such an efficient greenhouse gas. {134}
Expert opinion. "...The likelihood of many of these changes in earth systems is not well-known, but is probably very low, however, their likelihood is expected to increase with the rate, magnitude, and duration of climate change...". {134}"It is precisely because the responsible scientific community cannot rule out such catastrophic outcomes at a high level of confidence, that climate mitigation policies are seriously proposed." {135}
There are many reasons for reducing global warming - and many difficulties in achieving it. Intense debate and argument are required to encourage a change in behaviour globally. Among the many arguments that need to be heard, one of the most powerful could be that : if the demographically trapped communities of the South need to reduce their fertility, if necessary to 1-child families, to avoid the starvation and violence that result from entrapment, the North will be expected to modify its lifestyles, and reduce its resource consumption, particularly of fossil fuels, so as to mitigate its contribution to global warming. This argument, or rather the failure to face it, is Demon 3 in the 'hagiography' of Demons below.
There are those who dissent from this argument, which is based on the premise of equity - in this case the need to share scarce resources - including carbon-dioxide sinks. It is however frequently advanced by those from the South. Whatever one may think privately, it is difficult to argue against equity publicly - particularly when those from the South are present! The consequences of reduced resource consumption for the materialist, consumerist, market economy would be profound. This argument is therefore profoundly hostile to 'the market', and to the way in which it is advertisement-driven to produce ever more luxurious and unsustainable lifestyles.
Since each person in the United States is responsible for producing 20 metric tonnes of carbon-dioxide annually, compared with Europe's 10 tonnes, and the sustainable level of 2 tonnes, the United States is particularly vulnerable to the argument of Demon 3.
It would therefore make political sense for the United States to do all it could to keep entrapment taboo, and in consequence to keep demography corrupt. After working on entrapment for seven years, during which time a rag-bag of incoherent observations turned up, it suddenly became apparent that the only explanation for them was that the United States is doing exactly this. Since it dominates demography globally it is well able to set the 'political correctness' which keeps entrapment taboo. The detailed evidence for this is in another paper called The corruption of demography as an instrument of US policy. Since much of this is unpublishable, it is presently only available on this website. It will not be further described further here, except say that active steps by the US to keep entrapment taboo deserve to be classified as a Demon - Demon 21. It is probably the major Demon, because, if entrapment was being discussed by demographers, particularly in the United States, the taboo on it would already have largely lifted, and the other Demons would now be severely embattled. Demons 3 and 21 are probably therefore the critical factors in keeping entrapment taboo - my guess is that they are the major Demons.
So what exactly is 'demographic entrapment, and what is it is 'disentrapment'?
Demographic entrapment
I had been working for a year on the problem of communities exceeding the carrying capacities of their ecosystems, without knowing that the technical term for this is 'demographic entrapment'. It is said to have been first used by Harvey Leibenstein in the 1950s . {5} There is no official definition of demographic entrapment. However, Jack Caldwell, in my question above, appeared to know exactly what I meant. Also, it is usually understood by laymen. The definition I use is this:
A peasant community is said to be demographically trapped if it exceeds the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem, and it's ability to migrate, and the ability of its economy to generate sufficient exports with which to purchase food and other essentials. The end results of entrapment are stunting, starvation, and violence.
A community is also trapped, if because its population is increasing, it is expected to be in this unhappy situation before long.
Disentrapment is getting out of the demographic trap. This could in theory be achieved by increasing carrying capacity, by increasing migration, by increasing economic development, or by reducing fertility - either alone, or in combination with one another. Unfortunately, there are great difficulties with all of them, and particularly in achieving them fast enough to compensate for the rapid population growth that results from mothers in trapped communities typically having six children.
Demographic entrapment is an extreme form of what Homer-Dixon calls environmental scarcity.{140} Since this is much more vague, and less threatening, it is not taboo. All that he says about the relation of environmental scarcity to violence, also applies to entrapment.
Avoiding the diagnosis of entrapment
If indeed entrapment does not exist, it is remarkable that there should be such a tight taboo on it, especially when it is said to be so pervasive. How then do demographers, development economists and the UN agencies contrive to avoid it? They do so like this:
(1) They fail to consider the combined effects of population increase, a circumscribed ecosystem, carrying capacity limitations, migration restrictions, and inadequate economic links with the rest of the world. If any one of these is neglected, it can be assumed to be the solution to the problem of supporting that population. The variables that are commonly neglected are usually either carrying capacity, or economic development. Or it can be assumed that technological development, such as the development of new plant varieties, will solve any carrying capacity problems, should these arise - the highly questionable 'science will fix it' argument.
(2) They argue that economic development is going to take place sufficiently fast, when there is no realistic hope of this happening fast enough - see below the so-called Iron age taboo. There is a race between population and economic development. In much of Africa economic development is increasingly losing that race.
(3) They argue that reducing child mortality, or increasing female education, will bring down fertility, so there is no need to worry. So they would - if there was time, or enough unused land to support the expected population increase meanwhile. It is now too late for these fertility slowing factors to be effective by themselves in trapped communities. Much more radical measures have got be taken to reduce fertility.
(4) They argue that because grain yields in Malawi, for example, have not yet reached those in the United States, such huge increases in yields should now be possible, that entrapment will be no problem. They forget that crop yields are constrained by local soil quality and rainfall, and that what is possible under some circumstances, is quite impossible in others.
(5) They argue that 'carrying capacity has no relevance for man' and point to the high population densities of Hong Kong, Singapore or the Netherlands. This again assumes that economic development is going to take place fast enough to accommodate high levels of fertility, and to allow disentrapment to take place when there is no reasonable hope of this happening. Again, see below - 'the so-called Iron Age Taboo'.
(6) They fail to choose a community living in a circumscribed area, or argue that its boundaries are too vague to be meaningful. Although it is theoretically possible to choose almost any circumscribed area, the most convenient one is a country, since data are often best at country level. Although boundaries, particularly in Africa, are sometimes said to be so porous as to make the consideration of any circumscribed area meaningless, there are in reality real constraints on migrating out of a trapped area. Although the boundaries of a trapped community are conveniently depicted as being sharp, they are best thought of as being 'gradients', entrapment conditions being worse on one side of the gradient, than on the other. The result is that entrapment is geographically complex, and the choice of a circumscribed area somewhat arbitrary. For example, should one consider the entrapment of Rwanda alone see below, {73} or of Rwanda and Burundi together, or the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa, or 'Middle Africa', or perhaps Africa as a whole, or conceivably the entire world? Ideally, entrapment should be examined at all relevant levels. The relative simplicity of Malawi, which has the reputation of being the entrapment 'basket case', makes it an ideal example to start with - see below.
(7) They argue that entrapment is merely another name for poverty. Poverty and entrapment are not synonymous, although they share several common features. To be poor is not necessarily to be trapped. To live in a trapped community is not necessarily to be trapped oneself, since if one is from the elite, one can buy what food there is, or emigrate. To be poor, and for one's community to be trapped (with gardens too small to feed one's family, no imported food, and nowhere to go) makes one's poverty worse. Entrapment is thus an addition to the complex of factors that constitute poverty. For a community to be poor does not imply that the unrelieved outcome is stunting, starvation and violence, whereas for a community to be trapped it does. The definition of entrapment given here uses the food component of poverty - stunting and starvation. (David Nabarro's argument)
(8) They argue that entrapment cannot exist because it is racist - Demon 23 (Sir Richard Jolly's argument). Besides being a non sequitur, this argument is open to the reply that not to diagnose entrapment is even more racist, in that it allows trapped 'races' to proceed to starvation and violence with their entrapment undiagnosed, and thus deprived of the help that might relieve it - especially adequate family planning services .
(9) They argue that carrying capacity calculations apply to man only, and make no allowance for other species. Although this is an important argument, it does not invalidate the concept of human entrapment. Although mindful of the needs of other species, only carrying capacity for man is considered here, the only other species mentioned being his food crops and those he uses as fuel. See also the Boserupian argument.
(10) They argue that entrapment is merely a matter of multiple interlocking downward spirals of increasing population causing increasing poverty, causing more population increase, and ever smaller land-holdings, etc. Downward spirals there certainly are. Entrapment is merely these downward spirals in a tightly constrained community that is exceeding the carrying capacity of its ecosystem, and is without adequate economic or migratory links with the rest of the world. It is these downward spirals that end in starvation and violence. (Charles Elliott's argument)
FAO has drawn a diagram of the downward spiral into the 'poverty trap'. As population densities increase, nutrients are removed from the soil, soil fertility falls, and so do crop yields. The demographic trap is essentially the same, with the addition of a tightly constrained population within a limited area, with inadequate migration, and inadequate exports. The linkages in these spirals are complex, and only some of them are shown here.
(11) They argue that, because carrying capacity has to be welfare referenced, entrapment is meaningless. This is no great problem since all that is necessary is to choose an appropriate level of welfare, and to calculate entrapment in terms of it. For example, Malawi is largely a subsistence economy, so bare subsistence is chosen. Since about 90% of the food energy of Malawians is provided by maize, calculations can be in terms of maize requirements alone. Maize is a relatively new crop in Africa, having replaced the much less productive traditional millets. The increased carrying capacity that maize has provided is now reaching its limit. (Basia Zaba's argument)
(12) They argue about the problems of the word 'entrapment' itself, as if removing the word would remove the phenomenon - 'casuistical linguistic expungement'.(Tim Dyson's argument see) That they cannot find 'demographic entrapment' in most dictionaries is hardly surprising, since it is taboo. The term 'demographic trap', is however in the Dictionary of Epidemiology. {109} They argue that demographic entrapment would require a personal 'entrapper', and deny that the process of population growth exceeding carrying capacity can produce entrapment. (Carl Taylor's argument) They also point out that entrapment has unhappy connotations, and would prefer one which didn't have them. Unfortunately, any word to describe the phenomenon would not be a happy one.
(13) They argue that entrapment is merely 'Malthus in modern dress'. {132} (Basia Zaba's argument) To a large extent they are correct, but if so why don't they lift the taboo and reinstate him? The diagnosis of entrapment is an attempt to diagnose the pre-Malthusian condition - before starvation and violence supervene - and hopefully to prevent them. Demography has been increasingly anti-Malthusian, ever since the 1930s when several senior demographers are said to have lost their professional reputations by espousing Malthus. It is high time that he was reinstated in Africa. Fear of Malthus is listed as Demon 25 below.
To argue that entrapment is nothing new, and is merely Malthusian, and yet not to try to diagnose, discuss, and treat the pre-Malthusian condition (demographic entrapment) amounts to the same thing as applying the Hardinian taboo to demographic entrapment, merely with the words changed. See Malthus and Malthusian and Zaba's agreement
Demographic entrapment has the tight definition given here in terms of carrying capacity, migration, and the condition of the economy. The pre-Malthusian condition has no such tight definition. Doing something about it - disentrapment - would therefore be 'de-pre-Malthusianisation' - hardly elegant!
(14) They argue that HIV/AIDS is going to reduce population growth sufficiently to correct entrapment. This appears to be most unlikely. For example, for 35 African countries AIDS is expected to reduce population growth by only 15 per cent. For the 9 countries with an HIV prevalence of 14 per cent or more, it will reduce population growth by only 30 per cent. The prevalence of AIDS does not parallel the need for disentrapment. In Mali, for example, which is suspected of being severely trapped, AIDS is only expected to make a 4 per cent difference to its population in 2050. {136} An important effect of AIDS is to make the discussion of entrapment yet more difficult. See
(15) They argue that communities which fail to modernise, will merely revert to their primeval condition, so that entrapment is no great problem. (Carl Taylor's argument) Unfortunately, the population increase that will have taken place during the failed attempt at modernisation, will have been so great that communities will have exceeded the carrying capacity of their primeval cut-and-burn agriculture. There will also have been much ecological deterioration meanwhile. In addition, these communities will also have lost the social skills and patterns of living that are necessary for a return to their traditional lifestyles.
(16) They argue that: "Entrapment is not demographers' work". (John Bongaarts' argument) This exemplifies the extreme narrowness of the demography as a discipline, and fails recognise that there are no clear boundaries between any of the social sciences.
(17) They argue that `demographic entrapment', as defined by here is the same as the often discredited `low-level equilibrium trap' This argument has been much used to try to disprove the reality of both Malthusian and neomalthusian processes. {25} It needs a lengthy reply, so see.
Some poor communities are not trapped. To avoid confusion it is worth considering those communities which are not trapped by the definition given here. One of them is the urban slum or shantytown. Although these may be desperately poor with high population growth rates, they are not subsistence communities, they don't live off a local ecosystem, migration is usually easy, and they have abundant economic links, in that their members either work in more affluent areas of the town, or are supported by remittances from them. These communities have their problems, but, unless the country as a whole is trapped, demographic entrapment, as defined here, is not one of them.
The spin-off that disentrapment programs might have on the rest of 'the population problem'. Here we are concerned with communities which are trapped by the definition given above. But this is only part of the problem of increasing human numbers. Even so, a radical approach to entrapment could be expected to have a useful effect on other aspects of 'overpopulation'.
Constraints on carrying capacity - falling soil fertility.
Demographic entrapment is an ecological predicament. It is therefore necessary to consider the neglected and widespread problem of falling soil fertility in Africa. This has already had a profound effect on demographic entrapment, and can be expected to have an even greater one.
One of the major determinants of soil fertility is the amount of organic matter in it. This is in dynamic equilibrium - some is being continually removed as microorganisms oxidize it, while some is added, particularly by the roots of trees. The hot soils of the topics favour oxidation, with the result that one of the main objectives of tropical agriculture is to try to keep as much organic matter in the soil as possible. The sustainable way to farm hot soils is by 'cut-and-burn'. Trees are cut down and burnt. Crops are then planted in the ashes for 2 years, during which time yields fall. At the end of 2 years these gardens are abandoned, and more trees are cut down elsewhere and burnt. After 18 years the trees in the first garden will have regenerated and can be burnt once more. This method of agriculture is sustainable, and can maintain soil fertility indefinitely. Unfortunately, 'cut-and-burn' agriculture has a very low carrying capacity for man - only about 0.03 persons to the hectare. {9} When population densities are greater than this, fallow periods become progressively shorter, so that soil fertility, and crop yields fall. Finally, as population densities rise even further, and there is continuous cultivation with no fallow period whatever, they fall even faster, as in the Figure.
There has also been much depletion off the essential mineral nutrients of the soil - nitrogen and phosphorus, etc. As a result much food production over the past couple of decades has been based on the mining of inherent soil fertility. The application of increasing quantities of fertilizer can compensate in some measure for falling soil fertility - until most of the organic matter has disappeared. See. When this happens many soils are left almost completely infertile. See. {146} {147}
The next figure of cassava yields in Malawi, shows that improved crop varieties can compensate for falling soil fertility - for a time. Unfortunately, the boost is likely to be temporary, after which yields start falling again. Note that yields from the new varieties of cassava never equaled the original yields with traditional varieties, before soil fertility started falling. The argument that 'science will fix it' therefore needs to be taken with great caution - especially in the longer term.
Other harmful processes are at work simultaneously, especially soil erosion. This is continually washing away soil, and depositing it on the beds of lakes and oceans. Loss of organic matter is difficult to reverse, reversing soil erosion is impossible.
These processes would not be so serious, if they were not so widespread. In greater or lesser degree, soil fertility appears to be falling all over Africa. {7}
A story. A Ugandan schoolboy took me to visit his aunt in her village near Mbarara - a very typical part of Uganda. On the way we saw a man pushing a bicycle with a heavy sack on its carrier. I helped him push it up a steep hill. At the top I asked: "What is in the bag?" He replied: "Farmyard manure!" He was transporting it several kilometers to improve the fertility of his banana garden - a purely ritual act.
The Hardinian taboo on demographic entrapment
The Tongan word `taboo' was introduced by Captain Cook in 1777, as meaning something forbidden without explanation, either by custom, or by the edict of a chief, the infraction of which is associated with severe penalties from the rest of society. Whereas the Tongans are said to have expressly said "Taboo!" as the reason for not doing something, the custom now is merely not to do it, while saying nothing. I suggest that, since everything in society is connected to everything else, all powerful taboos have important structural roles in society, in that removing one is likely to be followed by major social change - for better or worse. The Hardinian taboo appears to play a crucial role in the structures of North/South disparity - and needs removing.
The taboo on demographic entrapment is paradoxical, and patchy. Despite the fact that many members of the general public in Europe are aware of demographic entrapment, particularly in Africa, if not always by this name, professional demographers and development economists will always deny it publicly.
Whatever the public may think, one demographer, John Cleland, Professor at the London School of Hygiene, thought that I had invented the term. I did not, but I did need to invent the term 'disentrapment'. The fact that Professor Cleland had never heard of the term, before he heard it from me, demonstrates the quite extraordinary depth of the taboo - among demographers. When I started to work on populations exceeding the carrying capacities of their ecosystems, I had to use my own code word for the phenomenon - 'Eldryd's dilemma'. After a year was I told by an American, Jack Bryant, that the object of my researches is in fact called 'demographic entrapment'.
Such is the nature of the taboo, that not only have eminent professors never heard the term, but development planners, and demographers in trapped countries have not heard of it either - during their training they were never taught about it, so why should they imagine that it exists? For example, in 2001 it was quite new to Arnold Jeke, head of the Population Unit in Zomba, Malawi - the classic case of entrapment.
The taboo on entrapment has a name - the Hardinian Taboo Paul Demeny, editor of the Population and Development Review remarked that : "The Hardinian taboo is already well known in the literature". I looked it up and found that it was not there. There are many references to Garrett Hardin, {56} the Californian ecologist who has long been writing on the inability of us humans to control our population numbers, but none to the 'Hardinian taboo' itself. By declining to publish my paper on demographic entrapment, Paul Demeny had inadvertently named the Hardinian taboo, and applied it to his own discipline in his own journal.{13}
The American demographer, Jason Finkle, has observed that there is a tight 'population policy lockstep'. {36} Academia, the great foundations, and the UN agencies all subscribe to a tightly coherent population policy, which in particular, denies the existence of entrapment and tightly taboos it. By denying this immensely important aspect of reality, they must all be considered intellectually corrupt. The lockstep in population policy is the expression of the Hardinian taboo in demography and development economics.
"... philosophers do not have the resources that enable them to legislate on the criteria that must be satisfied if an area of knowledge is to be deemed ... "scientific".... there is no timeless and universal conception of science or scientific method... we cannot legitimately defend or reject items of knowledge because they do or do not conform to some ready-made criterion of ‘scientificity'... Alan Chalmers {144}
Why is entrapment so taboo? Some reasons are obvious, some less so. I described demographic entrapment to a devout and distinguished lawyer. He immediately replied "There are many Demons". I had previously referred to the many reasons for the Hardinian taboo as its ‘foundations'.
If it is argued that 'Demons' have no place in a scientific paper, I reply that although science is supposed to be completely logical and objective from end to end, and the science of demography supposedly uncorrupted and rational, this is not actually the case. Alas, since demography is gravely corrupted by several taboos, it is necessary to use the appropriate terms for this deeper exploration of what is actually going on. Since such an exploration confronts such subrational and highly emotive entities as 'racism', the 'corruption' of demography, the 'soft power' of the United States, and even the activities of the CIA. These entities, which are indeed diabolical, are therefore best described as Demons.
Besides, ‘Demon' is not only shorter than ‘foundation ‘but ‘Demon' implies an ethical and even a spiritual or diabolical dimension, which some Demons certainly have. Most ‘Demons' are more complex than mere ‘epidemiological factors' or ‘obstacles to the recognition of entrapment'. Maleficent ‘Demons' can also be transformed allegorically into beneficent ‘angels'- see below. Also, if this usage ever becomes current, ‘Demons' will have a shine and a visibility that mere ‘factors' or ‘obstacles' never could. Moreover, it is useful to preserve the insights and concepts of another age. How many Demons there are is unknown - I suggest at least 25. Their numbering here, is arbitrary. Although listed separately, some have much in common. For example, ‘political correctness' (Demon 16), ‘peer pressure' (Demon 17), and ‘institutional conformity' (Demon 18), are not easily distinguished.
It is far from clear how these Demons act. Presumably, they seldom act alone. They are more likely to act together in complex ways. It would be useful to know which Demons act under which circumstances. Finding this out would not be easy, although it might be possible to design psychometric tests that would go some way towards doing so.
Ranking the Demons in order of importance is again somewhat arbitrary. Demons 3 and 21 appear to be particularly important, and have already been discussed. Here are the others.
The other Demons
Demon 1. This is the possibility that the we humans just cannot control our population numbers, as pointed out by Garrett Hardin. {56} It may be that this inability is somehow 'hard wired' into our psyche. If so, it is of a different order from the other Demons, and likely to be much more difficult to exorcise.
Demon 2 The fear of uproar. Few people like intense argument. It is however a necessary prelude to the radical behaviour change that is so urgently necessary North and South - see benign uproar below.
Demon 4 The means of employment that the Northern lifestyle provides, in that to alter it, unless other difficult changes are also implemented, can be expected to increase unemployment. There is no more treasured social goal than continued high employment.
Demon 5 Northern food habits which are integral to the market economy, and to the Northern lifestyle. They also contribute substantially to fossil fuel consumption, by requiring extensive and unnecessary transport - as when seemingly identical brands of beer are transported long distances in opposite directions.
Demon 6 The many problems of 1-child families. These include a preference for boys with resulting female infanticide, the 'the little emperor' phenomenon (spoilt only-children), and the problems of aging communities. It is remarkable that, despite these disadvantages, to have one child only has come to be seen by many sections of the Chinese community as being the only responsible social behaviour. 1-child families were the Chinese response to what it perceived as its 'grain problem' in the 1970s. The alternatives were seen to be starvation and perhaps violence.
Although the term 'demographic entrapment' was not used for the Chinese predicament, the fact that the response to the prospect of severe grain shortage had to be urgent fertility reduction, amounted in effect to a situation of entrapment. Migration on the necessary scale was impossible. China's 1-child family program is estimated to have saved it between 200 and 400 million people, depending on how the calculation is made. It is now also disentrapping itself by its rapid economic development,
which is rendering 1-child families less urgent. This rapid economic development of the later 1990s was not foreseen in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the Chinese economic miracle is impossible in many other countries, particularly in Africa - see the Iron Age Taboo.
Demon 7 Current notions of human rights, especially as these relate to human reproduction. The human rights movement has never debated the necessary incentives and disincentives for fertility control under conditions of entrapment, nor has it balanced the rights of individuals with their obligations to the community. The human rights movement, although it has an outstanding record in other fields, particularly in the abolition of torture, is gravely flawed in matters of human reproduction.
Demon 8 Some aspects of the feminist agenda. This borders on the previous Demon, and is exemplified by the view that a woman should be able to have as many children, as she wants to, regardless of the disadvantages to the rest of her community.
The feminist agenda had a powerful effect in the Cairo population conference in 1994, in diverting priorities from population control and family planning, towards the more nebulous and demographically irrelevant notion of 'reproductive health'. Demographic entrapment is even more taboo. Political correctness has now reached such ridiculous levels, in some circles, that it is now incorrect even to mention the term ' family planning'.
Demon 9 - the Holy See's attitudes to the postcoital family planning methods and particularly to abortion. The postcoital methods have a crucial role to play in disentrapment, in ensuring that no pregnant mother, particularly a teenager, delivers an unwanted baby. Also, any family planning service which also provides abortion services, is likely to be denied funding by those governments where there is a strong Catholic influence, particularly the United States. This has had a powerful effect in slowing fertility decline and in increasing entrapment in intensely Catholic Rwanda, for example.
Demon 10 The Holy See's attitude to most methods of family planning. A full range of family planning methods is essential if fertility is to fall to the levels necessary for disentrapment. The natural methods are valuable, but are far from sufficient by themselves.
Demon 11 The cultural attitudes of the South that favour high fertility. Remarkably, these are not so firmly established, as is sometimes thought. For example, I have been able to open a dialogue on 1-child families in both Uganda and Malawi. I am also told that it can be opened in Kenya.
It seems that public attitudes to family size in some African communities are presently far in advance of those of the demographers and the aid agencies. My original title for the newspaper article was "Will Uganda follow Rwanda?" The Ugandan editor replaced it with his own title which you see. In the ensuing correspondence he argued that the middle classes (by which he meant himself!), should have two or three - but he should surely be forgiven this!
Demon 12 The so-called 'Iron Age Taboo'. An eminent demographer once asked me "Why cannot Malawi become a tiger economy like Malaysia?" The short answer is that it is impossible for any community that to have a sufficiently rapid economic take-off to qualify for the term 'tiger economy', when it was it in the iron age less than a hundred years ago, without the wheel, or writing, or permanent buildings, etc. Economic development is particularly difficult when it has to take place under the conditions of rapid population growth that result from mothers having six children. Rapid economic development is too often assumed to be possible, when it is obviously impossible. A country like Malawi also faces the additional difficulties of having no natural resources, and being far from the sea, etc. The failure to face up to the reality that sufficiently rapid economic development is impossible amounts to a taboo. This is the so-called 'Iron Age Taboo' (in earlier papers on this website it is referred to as 'The Starting Line Taboo' - communities having reached the 'starting line' for rapid economic development much too recently). It needs to be pointed out that no community, including those in Europe, could have staged a rapid economic take-off less than a hundred years out of the iron age, so that there is no discredit in not being able to do so. Had the Romans also been able to conquer Africa, at the same time as they conquered and civilised much of Europe, Africa and Europe would have left the iron age simultaneously, history would have been different, and Africa would now be much more developed.
To those who are worried about this it has to be pointed out that the great contribution of Africa is man himself - we are all Africans! Development economics is hamstrung by this taboo, which explains why it is in the doldrums with almost nothing useful to say - not surprisingly, it has lost its way! It is seldom appreciated that there appear to be no manufactured exports, apart from a few handicrafts, from anywhere in Middle Africa. Africa has - for the present - lost the ' export bus' and cannot compete with China. Even India is having difficulty.
The way forward for development economics is for it to face reality, divest itself of the Hardinian and Iron Age Taboos, and to concern itself with the practicalities of 'disentrapment programs'.
In Homer-Dixon's terms a community only recently out of the Iron Age finds itself with a huge ingenuity gap. {140} It cannot make the necessary social and economic adaptations fast enough to disentrap itself.
Lady M. In Africa, what do they think, about the Iron Age taboo?
Maurice King. I discussed it in Malawi recently. There was no problem whatever. However, it does need to be explained in the context of "We are all Africans".
Demon 13 The high status of the child in Western liberalism. It is fashionable to think that if only we can get things right for the child, all will be well. Hence the focus on infant mortality, child survival, immunization, and the neglect of the ecological circumstances of those children. The world has a UNICEF, but nothing similar for mothers, or men, or the disabled, or the aged, etc. The fact that, in a tightly trapped community, one more child mouth to feed, is less for someone else, is a dilemma which the UN agencies, particularly UNICEF, fail to resolve.{55} Ethically, the way out is for the individual doctor to treat the individual child, and thus to shift the dilemma to the programming level - for example, should new funds be spent on child survival, or on family planning? This makes the dilemma easier to handle. {54} See 'Legitimate double-think'
Demon 14 The metaphysical position of modern man - What are we here for anyway? The comfortable materialism of late capitalist man, brought up to be confident of progress, is particularly disturbed to think that most of a continent is demographically trapped, and what this might mean for his own lifestyle. This Demon is probably more important than might appear at first sight. See this is the age of relativism The present concatenation of Demons is such that confronting them requires that one put 'everything on the table' - one's time, one's reputation, one's money, and indeed one's life. I have had the singular distinction of being warned that my interest in demographic entrapment is prejudicial to my personal safety! {110} In doing so one has to be certain what one is here for - to worship one's God, and, second, to serve one's fellow men - in my case trying to disentrap a continent, and doing one's best to 'prevent Earth boiling like Venus'.
Demon 15 A dread of the future, in that abolishing
the Hardinian taboo and facing up to entrapment, acknowledges the fact that the anarchic population future, now approaching us at nearly a billion a decade, is already upon us. Robert Kaplan wrote an article called The Coming Anarchy {78} in which he describes how crime, overpopulation, tribalism and disease, are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet. Seeing the link between demographic entrapment and all this, three colleagues sent me - quite independently - a copy of his article. We prefer to shut our eyes to anarchic 'over- population', or in the terminology of this article - demographic entrapment.
Demon 16 ' Political correctness'. This is a new term, first widely used in the 1980s. This suggests that it is does in fact describe a new reality - a deadly new conformism, and an ever-greater reluctance to ' stick one's neck out'. Although originally applying to such relatively trivial matters as 'gender', mentioning demographic entrapment is now the last word in political incorrectness in many circles. It is at its worst in UN agencies, particularly at senior levels, where political correctness, and not sticking one's neck out, is critical to keeping one's job - and one's pension.
Demon 17 'Peer pressure', and Demon 18, 'Institutional Conformity'. See. How far these are separable, and how far they can be distinguished from political correctness is arguable. It is difficult to take a deviant position in a strong institution, where the pressure on conformity is so great. It is much easier to step out of line in a weak one. When I first started work on demographic entrapment, I had the good fortune to work in an excellent university, Leeds, but in a weak department. I doubt if it would have been possible to start working on entrapment in an institution as strong as, say the London School of Hygiene, or the Harvard School of Public Health.
Demon 19 Despair. See. When I lectured on entrapment recently, someone asked me: "Are you hopeful?" I replied: "There is always hope - hope of the will rather than that of the intellect.". This particular Demon is likely to be closely linked to Demon 14 - the metaphysical position of modern man - what are we here for anyway? Despair is closely linked to powerlessness. So what can one do? The short answer is anything - make a start somewhere. You will experience great difficulty, and yet greater joy!
Demon 20, self-interest, inertia, and loss of face. These hark back to Demon 14.
Demon 21 - see above -the political interests of the United States in keeping entrapment taboo.
Demon 22. Friendship. There are few more subtle means of coercion than to be written to by a very dear and very eminent old friend, as I was, and for it to be pointed out a that it would, in effect, be better for me 'not to rock the boat old chap' and to remain 'one of us'!
Demon 23 Racism -the fear of being thought racist . This is one of the most powerful Demons - even so it has to be confronted and exorcised (Sir Richard Jolly's argument). If discussing entrapment is 'racist', not discussing it is even more 'racist', because it allows entrapped 'races' to proceed to starvation and population-driven violence, without their dilemmas being discussed, and without the necessary assistance, particularly family planning, which might help them to disentrap themselves. In particular they need the massive family planning services that could help them to reach the family size target referred to here as Guillebaud Stage One, which it is said, should be a prelude to Guillebaud Stage Two
Demon 24 the the rear of excessive immigration This is the fear of be overwhelmed by a flood of immigrants from Asia and Africa. It has been well said of the rise in world population that "..the geopolitical impact of the resultant migratory pressures is hard to imagine..". {142} No wonder that we fear them, and try to put them out of our minds.
Demon 25 is Malthus himself. If anyone mentions entrapment "....the suggestion is put forward immediately that he is a Malthusian, the worst sin among contemporary demographers and development economists" Partha Dasgupta {145} Such then is the antipathy to Malthus - and the failure to confront reality. It so, it could be that Malthus himself is a demon.
This does not limit the list. There is, for example, the sensitivity of some North Americans towards criticizing African fecundity (openly), and generational feelings of guilt because of slavery and discrimination against African Americans.
Could 'Demons' become 'angels of change'?
The effect of the Demons in holding the taboo on demographic entrapment in place, with the consequent progress of huge numbers of people towards starvation and violence, is indeed diabolic.
If demographic entrapment is ever to be recognised, and disentrapment proceeded with, these Demons are going to have to be confronted and hopefully exorcised - with intense resulting argument. This needs a technical term, so it has been named 'benign uproar ', as being preferable to the starvation and violence which result from entrapment, and which also needs a name - malignant uproar.
As the Hardinian taboo on entrapment is lifted, with the resulting intense argument, the effect of the Demons in holding the taboo in place will start to disappear. The argument resulting from their disappearance and the loosening of their control can - in the end - only be beneficial - hence benign uproar. In the process of their disappearance the Demons become beneficent 'angels of change'. As long as they remain unmolested silently locking the taboo in place, they remain Demons.
Does this theory 'hold water? Only time will tell - and the sooner the better! What are the chances of the taboo lifting? See
Listen to what Lady M has to say:
Lady M.. As long as the demons remain hidden in the Hardinian taboo, they can continue to act. But if only the taboo can be lifted and the demons recognised, they will act as powerful agents for change - and hope. As long as they remain unrecognized, and the lockstep continues, Africa will proceed to starvation and slaughter, and Northern lifestyles will continue to destroy your planet. Only vigorous discussion, globally (benign uproar globally), can save you - you are all in it together - North and South. This is why your legion of demons could become your host of angels.
The entrapment of Africa as a whole
There is clear evidence to confirm that most of Africa is demographically trapped. The figure above shows that Africa reached its carrying capacity in about 1970, when its population was about 500 million. Thereafter, it became a net food importer. Assuming that soil fertility does not fall further, which seems probable, Africa's carrying capacity can therefore be assumed to be about 500 million. {32} However, as the figure below shows, its population is expected to reach 2 billion by 2050, {136} and to quadruple to 2.8 billion a hundred years later in 2150. {139}. By then it will have exceeded its carrying capacity five-times - starvation and violence permitting. By that time there may be at least 2 billion people who would need to be fed on imported food indefinitely, if they are not to starve, or to emigrate.
Declining food production per person and increasing levels of malnutrition in children provide further evidence for the entrapment of Africa . Whereas food production per person rose overall in Asia and Latin America, between 1961 and 1983, it fell in Africa. More recently UNICEF reports that malnutrition, as reflected in the percentage of underweight children, has recently been rising in East and West Africa and now reaches nearly 40 per cent. {149}
The prospects for economic development, sufficient for the purchase of that food, are not good, since there appears to be little chance of development which is fast enough to disentrap Africa, in the way that it is now disentrapping China. For example, there are presently almost no manufactured exports from Middle Africa. In effect, Africa has 'lost the export bus' in competition with China. No wonder then that per-capita incomes are now 10 per cent less than they were in 1980, and even further below their level in 1970. {143}
The prospects for adequate migration are not favourable either, since "The geopolitical impact of the resultant migratory pressures is hard to imagine" {142} Although there has been much emigration, and there should be more, it seems unlikely that 2 billion people will be able to emigrate. Most disentrapment will therefore have to take place in Africa - see .
The prospects for a rapid fertility decline are not good. "In contrast to what is now observed in most regions of the world, fertility remains very high in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the onset of fertility decline has started in several sub-Saharan African countries in the 1990s, the magnitude, the pace, and the durability of these declines are yet not well established. In addition, the fertility transition has not started in 14 countries of the region (i.e. in one out of three). Therefore, it is far from granted that over the next 50 years all countries in sub-Saharan Africa will catch up with the low levels of fertility experienced today in the rest of the world. In parallel to this hesitant fertility transition, the gains in mortality reduction obtained during the past decades are currently threatened, and in some cases reversed, in 35 countries in the region (i.e. in two out of three) that are considered as "highly affected" by the HIV/AIDS epidemic (United Nations, 2001). This could also delay, and will probably modify, the smooth completion of the fertility transition in sub- Saharan Africa".{101}
There is a limit to the number of people Rwanda's fragile hills can carry. The Belgian administration had long considered it trapped. As early as 1929 it was considered to have "trop de bouches à nourrir" and to be in need of extensive emigration.{7} In the 1960s Rwanda's carrying capacity was put at 6 million. {119} A study in 1966 found that the agricultural potential of the country, even were it attained, could not feed the population beyond 1981.{121} By the genocide year of 1993 its population had increased five fold since 1900, and had reached 7.6 million.
In the 1980s Rwanda was the most densely populated country in Africa averaging 3-4 people/ha {114}{116} and in some regions 8 or more.{116} An average family of 6-7{117} people had only 0.8 ha.{114}
In 1969 the national protein deficit was found to be 10-20%.{121} In the late seventies it was estimated that, if the 7 million people then projected for 1995 were to be fed, food for 1.5 million would need to be imported by trade or aid. {122} In the event Rwanda has been in receipt of food aid every year since at least 1975.{123} In 1985 a survey in the northern Hutu area {124} found that "in a rapidly increasing share of rural households, self-sufficiency in staple foods will drop very fast within the coming decade". It found a population growth rate of 4.2% per year, and 5.5 persons/ha, which it forecast would reach 12.0 by 2005 - violence and starvation permitting. Despite impressive gains in overall grain production, output per person declined by half between 1955 and the early 1990s.{125}
In 1991 the then agriculture minister said : "We have high population pressure and decreasing agricultural productivity due to soil erosion... we can produce enough food for 5 million people, but we have 7.3 million..." {98} Its present total fertility is 5.77.
Rwanda was therefore high on the list of the trapped {54} before the genocide began. Elegant mathematical models such as those in the Figure above, had been predicting disaster in the middle 1990s,{122} and experienced observers had been expecting it any day. What was surprising is that it came as systematic genocide, rather than as haphazard slaughter.
By 2001 Rwanda's population was back to 7.6 million and is expected to reach 18 million by 2050 - starvation and violence permitting. {136} Rwanda's total fertility is still high because of a perception by the Tutsi that they still need to replace the 800,000 of their fellow tribesmen who were killed in the genocide - which they have already done! {137} Without a courageous disentrapment programme more starvation and violence is inevitable.
The scale of the genocide in Rwanda was the result of entrapment. Two processes where certainly at work - political tension and entrapment. Since it is unlikely that two completely independent processes of such magnitude would have operated simultaneously, they probably had complex links. The critical link between them was the effect that population pressure had in promoting slaughter. It seems most unlikely that the "ordinary" level of slaughter endemic in that region, would have suddenly escalated ten fold in the way it did - if there had been ample land and jobs for everyone, and/or opportunities for migration, or an export oriented economy that provided enough jobs, food and consumer goods. The fact that violence reached its climax at exactly the point at which carrying capacity was expected to be exceeded seems unlikely to have been coincidental.
Malawi has the reputation of being the entrapment 'basket case'. It is a desperately poor subsistence community, with a rapidly rising population pressing seriously on available carrying capacity. The gardens of its peasants get smaller and smaller. Half it's children are stunted by chronic malnutrition, a quarter of them severely so.{2} Its major staple is maize. About 1980 its maize balance became negative, so that it became increasingly dependent on imports thereafter. This however is not the date of its entrapment, since according to the definition above: A community is also trapped, if because its population is increasing, it is expected to be in this unhappy situation [exceeding its carrying capacity] before long. This could have been forecast at least 10 years earlier - say in 1970.
There are no adequate opportunities for migration. Apart from some tea and tobacco, economic opportunities are minimal. Landlocked in the middle of Africa, without significant natural resources, and barely a hundred years out of the Iron Age , Malawi has no chance of becoming a manufacturing economy in the immediate future.
Population. Malawi's 1950 population of 2.9 million had become 11.3 million by 20001. Without the tragedy of AIDS, its population was expected to have tripled to 29 million by 2050 (UN, medium variant), and could have eventually quadrupled - starvation permitting.
With the tragedy of AIDS, which must be combatted with the utmost vigour, the US Bureau of Census estimate that Malawi's population will only increase by 50% to 15 million by 2050. {48} With AIDS and 2-child families, it's population will remain approximately constant.
Arable land per head. In 1997 Malawi had 2.6 million ha of arable land, made up of 1.8 million ha in the small-holder sector growing mostly maize, and 0.85 million ha in the estate sector, growing mostly tobacco. {2} In recent years this duality has become increasingly blurred, with estates being split up and some small-holders also growing tobacco at the expense of food crops. Assuming a population of 10 million, this is presently 0.26 ha per head overall, with 0.18 ha per head in small-holder cultivation. This is broadly consistent with the figure of 0.22 ha of cropland per head in another study ten years later. {138}
In 2050 with HIV/AIDS and a 50% increase in population, these holdings of 0.26 and 0.18 ha in 1987-1988 will have shrunk to 0.17 and 0.12 ha per head respectively. Without HIV/AIDS and with a tripling of the population, they would have shrunk to 0.086 ha and 0.06 ha per head. The latter, at a yield of 1 t/ha would produce only 60 kg of maize, or about a kilo per person per week.
Land-holdings vary widely. One study estimated that 1 ha was the smallest holding that would provide the bare minimum food requirements for the average household of 5 people (200 kg of maize per person at a yield of 1 t/ha), yet more than half all small-holders had a mean holding of 0.55 ha. {2}
Over one quarter of the small-holders cultivated less than 0.5 ha, half of them cultivated less than 1 ha, and three quarters of them cultivated less than 1.5 ha. {2} In the 20 years from 1968 the proportion of small-holders cultivating 2 ha or more had dropped from 71% to 13%. In 1997 the smallest quartile had only 0.076 ha per head. It is not surprising therefore that the smallest small-holders have to depend on casual labour whenever they can, and are so malnourished.
Maize yields and carrying capacity. Malawi's carrying capacity is being gravely impaired by declining soil fertility and soil erosion. Rapid population growth, ever smaller land holdings, falling maize intakes and increasing malnutrition indicate that Malawi has already exceeded its carrying capacity.
Over the last 40 years, and despite increasing use of fertilizer and improved varieties, the average maize yield has only risen from 1 tonne to the hectare to 1.2 tonnes/ha, with great annual variation. Maize consumption is now only 65% of the 250 kg per head per year which are required. Artificial fertilizer alone increases yields temporarily, and eventually leaves the soil almost completely infertile. Fertilizer alone is therefore no long term solution. Intensive agroforestry is needed to arrest further soil fertility decline, and hopefully to increase it.
If Malawi's population were to triple, as it would have done without AIDS, maize yields would have to triple too and follow the red line. With AIDS it will only have to increase by 50% and follow the green line. With AIDS and 2-child families it need only stay approximately constant and follow the blue line.
Experts differ sharply as to what they think agroforestry could do, and what future sustainable yields might be on a national scale.
Stephen Carr {46} formerly of the World Bank and others {32} expect yields in the region of 1 t/ha. Meanwhile, Trent Bundersen of USAID expects 2 tonnes/ha. {1} A yield of 2 t/ha would feed the population of 15 million expected in 2050, with a little to spare to improve nutrition. A yield of 1 t/ha would require immediate 2 child families to prevent nutrition deteriorating further.
For disentrapment programs, see.
