Pressenza
Towards the end of the 18th century, the economist Thomas Malthus published a study linking demographic dynamics and the dynamics of food production.
This thesis, later known as the “Malthusian catastrophe”, foresaw a situation of global pauperisation by the year 1880.
According to his analysis, population growth was growing geometrically, while food production was growing arithmetically.
As is evident, the catastrophe not only did not occur, but both population growth and food production have continued to grow.
The fact that nutritional deficiencies still persist for large sections of the world’s population is not linked to the availability of food, but to the various barriers to its access. These barriers are of a social political nature.
It is interesting to note the intention to understand and operate on social reality in those years of a nascent positivism, in which notable efforts were made to remove the cement cover of centuries of medieval obscurantism.
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