The Rational Optimist (P.S.)

by Matt Ridley

Not only did the Americas ship back their produce; they also allowed a safety valve for emigration to relieve the Malthusian pressure of the population boom induced by industrialisation. Germany, in particular, as it industrialised rapidly in the nineteenth century, saw a huge increase in the birth rate, but a flood of emigrants to the United States prevented the division of land among multiple heirs and the return to poverty and self-sufficiency that had afflicted Japan two centuries before. When Asia experienced a population boom in the early twentieth century, it had no such emigration safety valve. In fact, Western countries firmly and deliberately closed the door, terrified by the ‘yellow peril’ that might otherwise head their way. The result was a typical Malthusian increase in self-sufficiency. By 1950 China and India were bursting with the self-sufficient agrarian poor.