A variety of ethical premisses are in continual conflict with one another, both within our own minds, and between ourselves. Although these premisses cannot be logically countered, they can be given different weightings. It is the purpose of ethical argument to adjust the relative weighting of these premisses to the changing needs of particular societies at particular times (Macintyre 1987).{16}  Hence the interminable nature of such argument, and the extreme importance of any taboo which prevents it. If the dilemmas of entrapment are not discussed, either dispassionately or in heated argument (benign uproar), the weighting given to particular premisses cannot change, and as a global community we cannot solve our population problem.

            We emphasize that there is no ethical neutrality, in that to do nothing is to let the present ethical position, or status quo (the retention of the Hardinian taboo), persist by default, and to allow starvation and slaughter to increase. It is up to the world to decide how conflicting premisses are to be weighed against one another. The major dilemma is whether or not to abolish the Hardinian taboo sufficiently to open the dialogue on entrapment.

            Several ethical premisses bear on the recognition of entrapment:

           (i) Intellectual integrity - the necessary transparency to admit the same arguments publicly as are admitted privately, and to abandon the political expediency of `double-think'. The Lancet has recently wondered "...Who will step forward to provide the strategic and moral leadership that the international community..., now so badly needs?" (Lancet: 1996). {17}  See also. We argue that such moral leadership is impossible with the present double-think, and is the main reason why, as one observer {18} put it "the international public health scene is strangely silent, demographic entrapment being the only whisper". Disentrapment, local and perhaps global, is the public health movement which the lack of integrity inherent in the present double-think is preventing.

               (ii) Equity, or the obligation to share as equally as possible, both between North and South,  and between present and future generations, and between humanity and other creatures (see below). To argue that if other communities are to have 1-child families, we should have them ourselves, is to make severe demands on equity. However, both equity and integrity have such a stature that nothing can be said against them - publicly, however little of either there may be privately. There is also, presumably, at least a little intergenerational equity in the North.

               Just how much equity may or may not be present in the North poses a particular dilemma to a decision-maker in the South: "Should he act on the basis of what ought to happen, which hopefully is a large measure of North/South equity, or on what will probably happen, which hopefully is some increase in equity, but not nearly enough?"

            (iii) Compassion, or the obligation to try to participate in the suffering of others.   {19}

            (iv) Utility. We argue that the advantages of abolishing the taboo greatly outweigh the eventual disadvantages of leaving it in place.

             Several other factors influence the decision as to whether or not to recognize entrapment. They include:

               (i) `Understanding' - just how many people in the world are able to understand the issues involved, especially in the South with its low levels of literacy, and in the North with its multitudinous commercially driven largely content-less media channels dealing increasingly in `soundbites' only? We argue that the essentials of entrapment are sufficiently obvious for it to be widely understood - if it was properly presented. How likely this is to happen, with media, and especially the major journals, controlled as they presently are, is another matter.

               (ii) Rationality - how far are people, in so far as they understand entrapment at all, whether in positions of great influence, or none, prepared to act according to the `accepted' or `scientific' notions of rationality? We argue that if people understood entrapment, they would largely act rationally.

              (iii) Courage, particularly that needed to challenge the `political correctness' of an institution or professional group - the key factor in starting to abolish the taboo.

            In many minds the major ethical dilemma maintaining the taboo appears to be that between restricting a mother's fertility on the one hand, and starvation and slaughter on the other. At its crudest this is: "Aborted fetuses or starving adults?", the choice between "Coercion or starvation?", the particular forms of coercion being critical (see below.) In this dilemma one of the conflicting premisses is a human right - that of a mother to determine her own fertility (see below). The other is `beneficence' or the obligation to seek for `the good' in avoiding harm to others, in this case starvation and slaughter.

            We argue that underpinning these ethical dilemmas is an important metaphysical one - "What are we here for anyway?", {20} accustomed, as we are, to a world of ever increasing material prosperity (for some), expecting it to increase indefinitely, and shrinking from anything that might question it. It may be that there is a deep metaphysical unease, which is more important in upholding the taboo than might appear at first sight. In the temporal realm we argue for the rediscovery of a genuine ethic of global solidarity and interdependence, equity, a sustainable lifestyle, a full onslaught on the ethical presuppositions of late capitalism, and a real change of consciousness in which ecological awareness and peaceful coexistence are but two strands of a spectrum which runs from inter-gender relationships to animal rights, in a gentle mutually dependent world; a world which makes the long-run survival of the whole globe - humanity and all other living things - possible (King and Elliott 1996a).

                 The taboo on entrapment has few firmer foundations than the threat that it poses to the human rights movement, as some of these rights are presently perceived. "All human rights are universal, indivisible, and interdependent and interrelated" (World Conference on Human Rights, 1993), and are held to stem from `the inherent dignity of the human person'.   {21} Since they are a theoretical ideal it is possible to formulate a wide variety of such individual rights without adequately reconciling them with one another, or with the rights of the community, or taking account of the finite nature of the world which we humans inhabit. While accepting the achievements of the human rights movement in such matters as torture, child abuse, etc., we see the creation of a corpus of rights without reconciling the inherent conflicts between them, or the ecological limits upon them, as being dangerous for the welfare of humanity. We also note that only one third of the world's nations were members of the UN in 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human rights was signed, and that they `enshrine the postLockeian radical individualism of the European world' (Hardin 1993). They  are thus far from `universal'.

                As a Chinese colleague recently pointed out, there is one human right that appears to be missing, it is the right of a community to survival. In the late 1970s, when China became aware of its `grain problem', it realized that it was in effect trapped, and so it instituted its 1-child family policy as a means of community survival. Some of the sanctions considered necessary have been criticized as being human rights abuses. Those who accuse China seldom take account of its perceived entrapment. We accept that such human rights abuses may on occasion have occurred in China, but have seen no data on how common they are; we consider that they may have been exaggerated, and we suspect that in the exigencies of a national disentrapment programme it may not be possible to avoid them completely. To criticize China, without considering the evidence for its entrapment, is only to consider one side of a grave dilemma.
 

                The practical reality is to determine how much room, if any, there is for preserving the `inherent dignity of the human person' on the one hand, while avoiding the `inherent indignity' caused by the starvation and slaughter of entrapment on the other. Is it possible to steer a path between the human rights excesses reported from Rwanda, resulting in large measure from no population control, and those reported from China's 1-child family programme resulting from too much? We suggest that there may be not always be a perfect path, and that, particularly under conditions of severe entrapment, all that can be done is to try to minimize the excesses on either side. It may well be that the least undesirable position is fairly close to that of China. Although the rights aspects of reproductive coercion have been debated for many years, the practicalities of minimizing abuses against these rights have never been debated in the context of entrapment, and especially of entrapment that is severe enough to contribute to ongoing slaughter (Rwanda), or incipient starvation (Malawi). The human rights movement has yet therefore to face its gravest dilemma.

                This dilemma stems from the ecological constraints on some human rights, in that to declare that a couple has the right to decide the number of their children, or that the child has a right to adequate nutrition, does nothing to increase the size of the ecosystem that supports those children. Human rights must adapt themselves to ecology, since ecology cannot adapt itself to human rights. To fail to do so is to cause an increasingly serious disjunction, in that what is held theoretically by the human rights movement, has less and less relevance to what is actually happening - and what could happen for the better.

           The challenge now is how to define such reproductive rights so that they are balanced against the needs of everyone, both in a trapped community and in a world in which future food security is uncertain. The legitimate incentives and disincentives on the limitation of human reproduction under particular circumstances (the legitimate forms of coercion) now need urgent discussion -  particularly by the communities most seriously trapped, by the UN agencies, and by the Holy See. For the purposes of opening the dialogue, we argue that,  globally, a woman now has a right to only one child, and that to achieve this in a severely trapped community the state may be justified in using all incentives and disincentives, except compulsory abortion, sterilization, contraceptive injection, and the  forceful insertion of an IUD. As the head of one agency put it: "...families must be brought to see absolutely, the issues before them, but they must not be forced..."

                It has become largely axiomatic that all communities, which have exceeded the carrying capacity of their local ecosystems, will develop economically to the point at which their exports can compete on the world markets and thus secure the necessary food imports, in time before starvation and slaughter increase. To admit that they cannot develop economically, and are not likely to do so in the near future, has become politically unacceptable.
 

               Hence, one of the cornerstones of development theory, and indeed of the international order,  is that economic development is going to take place everywhere. Although this has been questioned (Bayart 1993), it is still so widely believed that there is, in practice, a taboo on questioning it and suggesting that there are communities, particularly in Africa,  where there is little sign of it happening, and certainly no sign of it happening in time to provide the technologically based export economies that would disentrap such communities as Rwanda and Malawi. Economic development usually has a profound and rapid effect on fertility - if it occurs. The problem is to get it started. Communities vary greatly in the ease with which this happens. China and Central Africa for example, have a very different cultural heritage; economic development happens much more readily in East Asia.
 

                Just as the (Hardinian) population taboo needed a name, this one does too - if it is to be effectively countered. We suggest that it be called 'the starting line taboo' (it could also be called the 'iron age taboo'). Retrospectively, it was hardly to be expected that a community which,  in 1900,  was 'at the starting line' for further development, without the wheel, {22} a written language, or permanent buildings could:

              (i) develop a technologically based export economy to compete with the tiger economies of East Asia, which have been developing technologically for millennia,

               (ii) run an efficient modern state,

               (iii) undergo demographic transition

                - all this in less than 100 years, and fast enough to let it escape the consequences of exceeding the carrying capacity of its local ecosystem.

               No other community could have done so - including our own. African communities should never have been expected to. The question is what to do about it now? To this we offer some tentative suggestions later.

               We consider that the 'starting line taboo' is necessary to counter Demeny's argument   that Malawi is not trapped when he wrote "...should Malawi take a leaf out of the book of Malaysia?" - expecting that it could. We argue that it cannot, nor in the short term, could it have been expected to.

                If demography has been gravely flawed by the Hardinian taboo, we suggest that development economics, which has seriously lost its way since its early enthusiasm in the 1960s,   has done so because it has been flawed both by the Hardinian,  and by the starting line taboos. These taboos are in fact linked, since, if there was no Hardinian taboo on controlling population, there would be no need for a starting line taboo.

             Methods of escaping from the demographic trap - `disentrapment' - are implicit  in the definition of entrapment itself. Theoretically, a community could escape the demographic trap by, separately or in combination:

           (i) increasing the carrying capacity of its ecosystem,

           (ii) developing an export economy,

           (iii) increasing its opportunities for migration,

           (iv)  reducing its population growth, if necessary to the point at which its population becomes smaller - 1-child families.

           We will  assume that everything possible has been done to augment the first three of these, and will consider only the reduction of population growth. In our definition a community is trapped if "...its population is projected to exceed... the carrying capacity of its ecosystem...". Theoretically, a mildly trapped population could escape entrapment by a quite minor reduction in its fertility, and hence in its population trajectory. We say no more about these lesser degrees of entrapment, because (i) diagnosis is uncertain, because the necessary studies have not been done, and (ii) because we are mostly concerned with the gravest cases, which we suspect may be the majority, where fertility reduction to the point of 1-child families is required, and where disentrapment has become an acute emergency.

            We note that China's population would continue to grow well into the next century, even if every couple were to have only one child (Baochang Gu 1996), illustrating the possibility that disentrapment may require that total fertility may need to fall to less than one ('half-child families'), particularly in communities with even younger populations than China's. We note that  demography appears to have no technical term for population momentum after 1-child families, and suggest that is necessary to distinguish 2-child demographic momentum (strictly 2.2 children) and 1-child demographic momentum. See also.

            Excluding increased mortality, especially from starvation and slaughter, the possibilities for reducing population growth include:

           (i) The reduction of unwanted fertility, both by married couples, and by unmarried adolescents, including the provision of abortion.

           (ii) Postponement of the mean age of childbearing, which has substantial demographic impact, whether achieved by legislation to raise the mean age at marriage, or by non-coercive measures, particularly the secondary education of girls.

            (iii) Longer birth intervals.

           (iv) The reduction of high desired family size', that is two children and above.

           (v) The reduction of `non-high desired family size', that is less than two children - 1-child families. This is the most effective way to reduce population momentum.

           The other less important cause of demographic momentum is future mortality decline. Future adult mortality decline is largely inescapable. Future childhood mortality decline exposes the dilemma as to what proportion of new funds are to be devoted directly to family planning, and what to reducing child mortality (King and Elliott 1993) on the grounds that mothers will not have fewer children, until they see that those that they do have will have a reasonable chance of surviving. We do not discuss this further here, except to say that from the entrapment perspective a delicate balance is likely to be required.

            Bongaarts (1994: Fig. 4) has shown that for the developing world as a whole, unwanted fertility, and high desired family size would be responsible for about half the expected population growth until populations are expected to stabilize in 2100. The other half is population momentum. Since communities such as Rwanda and Malawi appear to have already exceeded their carrying capacity, they are in no position to accommodate their own population momenta, and are thus forced to consider 1-child families, if they are to avoid starvation and slaughter.

            We suggest that,  if a community recognizes that it is trapped and that future food aid is uncertain, this could greatly reduce fertility when the desired range of family size is high. This is likely to be one of the most valuable and least controversial results of abolishing the Hardinian taboo.

            The many aspects of the discussion would include: "If we don't have smaller families our children's fields will be too small, so that they starve". And "If we don't have smaller families, our children will have to have 1-child families". The first of these questions is likely to be at least partly perceived, the second not at all. Both need to be articulated and promoted for discussion urgently.

            One of the m ost urgent measures, as soon as the Hardinian taboo lifts sufficiently for it to be possible, is to instill all schoolgirls with the idea that tyhey need to have 1-child families.  This would have an indirect effect on their parents.  Its limitation is, that by itself, it would usually be to slow.

            The effect of merely discussing entrapment would seem likely to have little effect in reducing family size below 2 children ('1-child families'), and therefore to have little effect on population momentum, with the result that coercive incentives and disincentives for population control seem certain to be needed to supplement the standard supply and demand approaches - as alternatives to starvation and slaughter. The policies of the feminist agenda (improved status of women, female empowerment, etc.) besides being highly desirable in themselves, are likely to be useful in promoting all the possibilities for reducing population growth except 1-child families. As disentrapping agents they are however likely to be too slow-acting to be effective alone, except in the mildest cases of entrapment.
 

A further method of disentrapment is possible - a major pandemic with a high mortality, such as that which might be caused by an exceptionally virulent strain of the influenza virus. AIDS, by contrast, has an inadequate disentrapping effect, in that in Malawi, for example, even the worst AIDS scenario would only reduce population growth from 33 to 21 per thousand (UN in Malawi 1993). Bongaarts (1996) using his medium variant for the incidence of HIV infection, estimated that it would only make a 1.4 per thousand difference to the growth rate of sub-Saharan Africa [check] as a whole. Simon Gregson [reference needed] has show that a combination of declining fertility and high HIV could cause population numbers to fall. If carrying capacity is a problem, this need not be wholly disadvantageous.

                 The Government of Malawi and the UN agencies have no realistic development policy (UN in Malawi 1993). Given the reality of Malawi's entrapment, what could be done? We argue that some radical `emergency disentrapment' programme is now called for, which aims to produce a uniquely rapid demographic transition. While everything possible must be done to improve the carrying capacity of the country, develop a manufacturing economy, and promote migration, we do not see such measures, in so far as they are possible at all in Malawi, as being remotely adequate to bring its projected population and perhaps even its existing one, to within the carrying capacity and connectedness of the country. The remaining method of disentrapment is therefore fertility reduction or starvation. Bizarre, or not, Malawi appears to need 1-child families urgently. The alternative is to allow the famines, such as that which more than halved the population of Machakos in 1898 (Tiffen 1994:40) to control rural and urban populations in the near future. What does the community think? In the trapped communities of the South, and taking Malawi as an example, we think that, as the alternative to probable starvation or slaughter, a message to Malawians on the following lines, and in easily understood language,  is now required.
 

               "If you continue to have 7 children (in one district 9.6) you cannot expect the world community and the international agencies to feed you indefinitely, especially in view of future uncertainties about global grain production. We (the UN agencies) will do our best to continue to provide you with food aid, but cannot guarantee it indefinitely and reliably. Meanwhile, in the world as a whole, we are encouraging 1-child families, a sustainable lifestyle, and a photon-efficient diet. We have prepared estimates of the likely future global grain harvests, and the maximum levels of food aid that you are likely to get; and we will do all we can to assist your population to remain within these limits. For your own well-being your population growth should become negative as soon as possible, and remain so until your population has returned to within the carrying capacity of the country".

               The message "Your children will starve if you continue to have seven" is a message that has hitherto been missing from family planning programmes. We think that the time has come when it should be considered as the ultimate message in the direct approach to fertility decline. Although it has been argued that it is difficult to be rational when you are poor, Notestein (1954: 166) observed that: "most people, however uneducated, are far from stupid... they may be counted upon to be interested in understanding the nature of situations that present problems in terms of their own values, and to seek solutions to such problems". Partha Dasgupta (1995:1899) observed that "Neither evidence nor analysis has yet disproved the notion that the poor in poor countries know, at least in a rough manner, what is in their self interest".

               We argue that in trapped communities nobody has dared tell them where their self interest lies. Should the trapped reply, according to some incommensurable rationality: "The Lord will provide" {23} or "it is not our custom", that is their decision, the 'scientific' case will at least have been put to them.

               Malawi appears to need is what Kingsley Davis (1950b: 17) called an "all-out governmental campaign backed by every economic inducement, educational device, and technical assistance to diffuse contraception" . This needs to be backed up with the maximum of development assistance, particularly for child survival to make sure that single children live. We argue that the widespread discussion of entrapment could greatly reduce fertility. We do not expect it to be completely effective, since it may now be too late to more than mitigate disaster, but at least the attempt should be made to try to mitigate it. We argue that to advocate 1-child families locally is only possible in the context of advocating them globally, hence the major indication for a 1-child world, the other being real doubts about future global food security. This might indeed be considered a blessing, since it could greatly assist in abolishing the taboo, and is probably still far from having reached serious proportions. The argument that "We are all in it together", could make local entrapment easier to accept.

              The practicalities of an emergency demographic transition of this kind, in the attempt to mitigate starvation and slaughter is now the major challenge to development practice. Elsewhere, we have argued for a similar disentrapment programme in Rwanda, where there is the added complication of population pressure fuelling tribal violence (King and Elliott 1996a). Such programmes are now urgent, both in the interests of Malawi and Rwanda themselves, and as demonstration projects to show other trapped communities what is possible.

               We think that the decision as to what the options should be, should be made by the community itself, and not by default, as the result of the UN agencies continuing to deny (officially) that entrapment exists. An urgent need is for a 'Demography in Primary Health Care' a true 'demography by the people',   in which the realities of the population situation, and the tragedies before them, are brought home to the community.  This  no easy undertaking when, as in Malawi, half the children never go to school, and only half of these attain a permanent state of literacy. It is even more difficult in communities, such as Rwanda, where the State has virtually disintegrated. We argue that widespread public discussion could greatly reduce fertility, if it was part of a broader 'disentrapment programme' that brought a major increase of funds to the country, and particularly if it provided universal access to modern contraception, as a matter of great urgency.

               How would trapped communities take such a message? Nobody knows, but experience from Uganda is encouraging.  We suggest that they might take it with remarkable stoicism; life is at best uncertain, and Africa has a long history of periodic local rural famines. We are aware that no government in Sub-Saharan Africa has the mechanism for social control that China has. Most governments don't even know who their citizens are and could never find or trace them. Methods for enforcing legitimate incentives and disincentives for 1-child families would therefore be weak. At their best, much fertility reduction might result from such disentrapment programmes. At their most marginal there might only be a desultory publicity campaign. Parts of West Africa are presently so anarchic (Kaplan 1993) that it is doubtful if the message would ever get through at all. We argue that to take the steps we suggest is better than to do nothing, knowing that this will allow starvation and slaughter to increase.
 

               Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa have now so exceeded their carrying capacity that they are unlikely ever to feed themselves from their own lands again (Famine, 1985) so that the region as a whole is likely to need increasing quantities of food aid indefinitely (Dyson 1996:127). FAO and the world food programme will thus have to attempt global food sharing and rationing, by trying to estimate the food aid that is likely to be available to particular communities in the coming years under different scenarios of global grain production, and the hoped for change among the better-fed communities towards a more photon-efficient diet. It will need to remember that  many communities, particularly in China, are moving towards less photon-efficient diets containing more animal products (Dyson 1996:184-90).

               There is also the possibility that attempts to introoduce 1-child families could be violent (malignant uproar).  We argue that, wisely prepared and presented from the perspective of the global predicament, with the tasks before North and South, disentrapment programmes need not result in malignant uproar.  {24}

                In the North the major purpose of recognizing entrapment is to promote the sharing of resources and to encourage a sustainable lifestyle - in the face of incessant advertising pressure to i do exactly the reverse - the message being:

               "Some of you eat four times as much grain as do most of those in the South, you consume 50 times more of some other resources, and as the major consumers of fossil fuel, you make the greatest contribution to global warming. Surely you should try to share the world's resources more equitably, live a sustainable lifestyle, to eat a more photon-efficient diet and have 1-child families".

               Such a message would rely heavily on whatever level of equity there might be in the North. We argue that, only if North/South policy were to be balanced in this way, would it be possible to think of disentrapment programmes in the South. Any such tenuous expectation can only hope to succeed by gaining support from other, perhaps equally fragile, movements in society, that may be going in more or less the same direction. We suspect that, once discussion of entrapment starts, these forces may well consolidate and gather strength.

               A new aseticism*. For this to happen the new lifestyle must be seen as positive, and must have an identifiable  image and  logo. Natural allies would be the green movement , the Christian churches, and the NGOs (Oxfam, Save the Children Fund, etc.) which are active both North and South. Needless to say, many of their adherents would find themselves gravely split by the complex foundations of the taboo - hence the need for active dialogue, so that people can make up their minds. Other radical changes also need discussion, particularly the new pattern of the family, and the effect of the new asceticism on employment. Another need, not discussed further here is a detailed and authoritative code as to exactly what constitutes a 'sustainable lifestyle' - low carbon combustion, `low car', photon-efficient, 'low tourism', etc. We do not suggest a new NGO, but rather a `code of behaviour' that any organization, governmental or non-governmental, or any individual can subscribe to. However fragile may be the hope for such a new asceticism, the future of humanity appears to depend on it.

                We emphasize the urgent need to abolish the Hardinian taboo, to open the dialogue, among both professionals and  the lay, North and South, and thus to search for dynamic compromise. For the moment we still have some choice. Is it to be the benign uproar of abolishing the Hardinian taboo, or the malignant uproar of slaughter and starvation that results from leaving it in place - while continuing to persuade ourselves that entrapment does not exist? Do we wait for Africa's population crash which many see as inevitable (Mumford 1994:366), and indeed has already begun in Rwanda, or do we do our best to try to prevent it?

The Boserupian argument, is a variant of the argument that carrying capacity does not apply to man. Boserup (1993) has demonstrated the forcing effect of population growth on technology, and on the change from extensive to intensive agriculture. We maintain that there comes a threshold at which the Boserupian process of agricultural extension slows and eventually ceases, and in some ecosystems is largely impractical anyway. Thus Ho (1985) has shown that the closer a country is to the limit of  its carrying capacity, the slower its rate of agricultural growth, suggesting that a balance is reached as the role of population pressure in inducing technological change is countered by its effect in increasing resource degradation (Pierce, 1993:158). We are also aware of the `ingenuity gap' in limiting the application of new technology (Homer Dixon 1994). This is closely related to  what we describe as  the 'starting line taboo'.

  Arguments based on the assumption that the `demographic trap', as defined by us, is the same as the often discredited `low-level equilibrium trap' have been much used (Dyson 1996, Todaro 1994) to try to disprove the reality of both Malthusian and neo-Malthusian processes {25} , and in particular to try to prove that demographic entrapment does not exist. The `low-level equilibrium trap' stems from Richard Nelson (1956:894) and Harvey Leibenstein (1954), who argued that a small gain in income per head in low income countries would produce a decline in mortality, and therefore a more rapid rate of population growth that would push the population back to its original level of income, hence the need for a `big push' in economic development. Preston (1975:241) while concluding that "the Malthusian mechanism should probably not be disregarded altogether (our italics)", argued that "there is convincing evidence that it plays a minor role in contemporary economic processes. The low level equilibrium trap shuts so slowly that escape seems inevitable".

               We reply that:

               (i) The demographic trap as defined by us in terms of the carrying capacity of a specific area, limitations to migration, and the lack of an economy able to provide sufficient means of exchange, differs greatly from the Nelson/Leibenstein model.

               (ii) Whereas Malthus was primarily concerned with food when he referred to `the means of subsistence', economists, in the interests of rejecting Malthusian and neo-Malthusian theories for the developing world, have usually been concerned with subsistence levels of income   (Todaro: 1994). In shifting from food to income, and doing so from ecology to a narrow economics, economists omit the key consideration which is that, in the most severely trapped communities the technological progress that would support an export economy is not taking place, so leaving food and carrying capacity as the critical variable (in the absence of migration) - just as Malthus foresaw.

               (iii) Since food is ultimately the critical factor in demographic entrapment, it is irrelevant as to whether or not the Nelson/Leibenstein model to stands up to empirical testing.

               (iv) Similarly, the argument that the Nelson/Leibenstein  model supposedly focuses on the wrong variable, per capita income, as the determination of population growth, when it should be concerned with the micro-economics of family size (Todaro 1994), is also irrelevant.

               (v) Whatever may hold about the mechanism, a community which exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecosystem and its connectedness faces the tragedies of entrapment, whether it be a local population or the world as a whole.

               (vi) Far from Preston's assertion about `escape being inevitable', ` the Malthusian mechanism' has certainly been at work in gravely trapped Rwanda (King and Elliott 1996a), and can be expected in Malawi.

               Demeny (1975:204) notes that "...the knowledge about the exact nature of an economic-demographic relationship renders a qualitative evaluation of the importance or even the relevance of the criterion exceedingly difficult" and that in the debate following the paper by Galenson and Liebenstein (1955:343) there was "little clarification of the validity of the...   proposals". It would seem therefore that the theoretical validation of the `low-level equilibrium trap' is where Leibenstein (1954) left it, the final words of his paper being "...to suggest means of testing the proposition developed in this essay is, at present otiose".

               Testable or not, an illuminating perspective is to consider entrapment as a particular event that takes place when income is zero (too little food grown and no money to buy it) in both the Nelson-Leibenstein model and in Preston's (1975:235) graph of life expectancy against national income. Nelson (1956:905) observes that "the assumptions of the model become increasingly unrealistic as per capita income increases above subsistence level". It seems likely therefore that the low level equilibrium trap is real, that it is only valid close to subsistence level, and that entrapment is a manifestation of zero income. Far from the need for `a big push' being discredited, we argue for a very big one indeed (King and Elliott 1996a), combined with the most stringent measures to reduce fertility.  

Dyson's argument. There remains the argument as to whether `the situation' needs a name, and what that name should be. Dyson (personal communication) while agreeing that "...rapid population growth is exacerbating many of Africa's other serious problems..." argues that "...it is not sensible to see the situation in terms of traps. Better to encourage those who want to reduce fertility - give women the chance and they will always take it".

               We argue that:

               (i) The `situation' is sufficiently real to need a name, and it happens to have been named, not by us, the demographic trap. Any other term would soon have equally unfavourable connotations.

               (ii) That to deny it a name denies its existence.

               (iii) That the situation is so grave, ending as it does in starvation and slaughter, that it calls for urgent local and international action.

               (iv). Although women, will, given the chance, reduce their fertility, the Hardinian  taboo on the real 'situation' denies them, their local community, and the international community the stimulus to help them reduce it fast enough to avoid disaster.

               (v) Failure to name and confront the situation also denies its potential effect in moderating Northern lifestyles.

               We argue that the real issue in relation to entrapment is not, whether `the situation' exists, which we think is indubitable, but what one's political and ethical stance is in recognizing it.

Apart from Rwanda and Malawi, countries which have at various times been mentioned informally by aid agency executives as being trapped, although how severely and according to what definition is unclear, but which is probably increasing population density and imiseration (see above) include:

                In the absence of badly needed formal studies, these are the countries we refer to as `possibly trapped communities'.

                Caldwell has stated that for at least two thirds of sub-Saharan Africa's 36 states, the possibility of "...interacting economic and demographic transitions is pretty bleak...", but neither he nor demographic orthodoxy have considered the consequences of them not interacting (King and Elliott 1996a).

                The World Bank (1984: 164) reporting FAO's data, observe that, while "...many African countries' non-agricultural exports are unlikely to provide a viable short-term source of foreign exchange...", fourteen countries containing half the region's population did not have enough land for subsistence level farming to support even their 1975 populations on a sustainable basis. Of these, seven would not achieve self sufficiency in food in the year 2000, even if their agricultural techniques were to match those found on commercial farms in Asia and Latin America. Although Zaire, the Central African Republic and Gabon are still capable of supporting many times their present populations, migration into them is politically difficult.  

China. Its celebrated 1-child policy was a de facto admission of entrapment. It now has 0.08 ha (hectare) of arable land per capita, compared with the global average of 0.27 ha and the 0.5 considered minimal for a diverse Northern diet (Pimentel 1996). China now seems to be disentrapping itself, not only by its family planning policies, but also by its flourishing economy, which promises to let it compete favourably on the international market for such grain as there might be. If it continues to squander its farmland and water resources as it industrializes, it is expected to want to import 400 million tonnes of grain by 2030. This is twice the quantity presently traded internationally, with no certainty that it will be available (Brown 1995: 120).  

India. Entrapment is causing increasing concern in India. {26}  If the monsoon is good and there has recently been a succession of eight good ones, India can just feed itself - the average Indian only eats 200 kg of grain. India's population is set to double and to exceed that of China. India is coming to the end of the bounty of its green revolution, and water is now an even greater constraint than land. Although food has recently been rising faster than population, the manner of its rise is cause for concern, since increased yields have been mostly due to the increased use of (limited) irrigation water and chemicals. The `envelope' of attainable yields has not moved upwards, despite heavy investment in research so that yields have simply risen within the technical frontier (Repetto, 1994).

               Like China, India is rapidly industrializing, and seems likely to be soon competing with China for grain on the international market, to the grave disadvantage of countries which would  also like to import grain but are less able to pay for it.

For references,  see   Continued on Page 6b Main index      Detailed index