Chapter CXV: Section CCLIII: Dense Population.--Over-Population

The nation's economy attains its full development wherever the greatest number of human beings simultaneously find the fullest satisfaction of their wants.

A dense population is not only a symptom of the existence of great productive forces carried to a high point of utilization;[253-1] but is itself a productive force,[253-2] and of the utmost importance as a spur and as an auxiliary to the utilization of all other forces. The new is always attractive, by reason of its newness; but at the same time, we hold to the old too precisely because of its age: and the force of inertia would always turn the scales in favor of the latter. This inertia, both physical and mental is so general, that perhaps the majority of mankind would continue forever satisfied with their traditional field of occupation and with their traditional circle of food, were it not that an impulse as powerful and universal as the sexual and that of the love of children compelled them to extend the limits of both. That man might subdue the whole earth it was necessary that the Creator should make the tendency of man to multiply his kind more powerful than the original production-tendency of his earliest home. The unknown far-away deters as much as it attracts.[253-3] It is easy to see how the division and combination of labor become uniformly easier as population increases in density. Think only of large cities as compared with the country.[253-4] "Under-populated"[253-5] countries, which might easily support a large number of human beings, and which, notwithstanding have for a long period of time had only few inhabitants, are on this account abodes of poverty, regions where education and progress are unknown. While, therefore, it cannot be questioned that a nation under otherwise equal circumstances is more powerful and flourishing in proportion as its population embraces a large number of vigorous, well-to-do, educated and happy human beings, the last mentioned attributes should not be left out of consideration.

The possibility of over-population is contested by a great many theorizers (§ 243); and, indeed, the complaints on this score are in most cases only a baseless pretext of the inertia which feels the pressure of the population without being helped and spurred thereby to an increase of the means of subsistence. This inertia itself, especially when it governs a whole nation, is a fact which cannot be ignored. Over-population, as I use the term, exists whenever the disproportion between the population and the means of subsistence operates in such away that the average portion of the latter which falls to the share of each is oppressively small, whether the effect produced thereby manifests itself in a surprisingly large mortality, or in the limitation of marriages and of the procreation of children carried to the point of hardship. Over-population of this kind is, as a rule, curable by extending the limits of the field of food, either as a result of the advance of civilization at home, or by emigration.

That the whole earth should be incurably over-peopled is an exceedingly remote contingency.[253-6] But where, within a smaller circle, by reason of the great stupidity or weakness of mankind, or by the too great power of circumstances, over-population cannot act as a spur to new activity, it is indeed one of the most serious and most dangerous political diseases.[253-7] The immoderate competition of workmen involves the majority of the nation in misery, not only materially but also morally; one of the most dangerous temptations, for the rich to a contempt for human kind, for the poor to envy, dishonesty and prostitution. In every suffocating crowd, the animal part of man is wont to obtain the victory over the intellectual. Precisely the simplest, most universal and most necessary relations are most radically and disastrously affected by the difficulty or impossibility of contracting marriage, and the sore solicitude for the future of one's children.[253-8]

[Footnote 253-1: A map of Europe, which would show the
density of population by the intensity of shade, would be
darkest in the vicinity of the lines between Sicily and
Scotland, between Paris and Saxony, and grow lighter in
proportion to the distance from their point of intersection.
Italy is the country with the earliest highly developed
national economy of modern times, and England that which
possesses the most highly cultivated national economy; as
the Rhine is, from the standpoint of civilization, the most
important river in Europe. It is remarkable, in this
connection, how slowly population increased in all European
countries during the 18th century, and how rapidly after the
beginning of the 19th, and especially since 1825. According
to _Dieterici_ (Berliner Akademie, 16 Mai, 1850), the
population increased annually per geographical square mile:

===========================================================
_In_ |_1700-1800._|_1800-1825._|_1824-1846._
---------------------+------------+-----------+------------
| BY | BY | BY
France | 4 | 16 | 32
Naples, | 15 | 18 | 49
Piedmont, | 6 | 8 | 50
Lombardy, | 19 | 40 | 80
England and Wales, | 16 | 42 | 136
Scotland, | 3 | 16 | 34
Ireland, | 17 | 80 | 77
Holland, | 13 | 14 | 95
Belgium, | 15 | 44 | 136
Prussia, | 7 | 17 | 68
Hanover, | 6 | 12 | 32
Württemberg, | 17 | 12 | 56
Bohemia, | 16 | 27 | 73
===========================================================]

[Footnote 253-2: "The useful rearing of children the most
productive of all outlay." (_Roesler._)]

[Footnote 253-3: Compare _J. Harrington_ (ob. 1677),
Prerogative of a popular Government, I, ch. II; _Sir J.
Stewart_, Principles, I, ch. 18; _Malthus_, Principle of
Population, IV, ch. 1; _McCulloch_ very happily shows how
seldom those who can live comfortably without it are
extraordinarily active. The Malthusian law prevents this
ever becoming the condition of the majority. Precisely
during those years that man is most capable of labor, there
is a prospect of a great increase of outlay, in case one
does not remain single, which would inevitably degrade every
one, a few over-rich excepted, who had not taken care to
provide for a corresponding increase of income. Were it not
for this, human progress would become slower and slower, for
the reason that the _dura necessitas_ would be felt less and
less.]

[Footnote 253-4: According to _Purves_, Principles of
Population, 1818, 456, there were, in England (London not
included):

Column Head Key A: _In the seven most densely populated counties._
B: _In the seven counties of average population.
C: _In the five most sparsely populated counties.

| A | B | C
----------------------------+-----------+---------+---------
Inhabitants per | | |
geographical sq. mile, | 4,904 | 2,229 | 1,061
One man with £60 income | | |
in every |34 inhab'ts| 37 | 77
One man with £200 income | | |
in every | 193 " | 199 | 472
Aggregate of all incomes | | |
over £200 per square mile,| £25,118 | £12,676 | £2,441
----------------------------+-----------+---------+---------

Compare _Rau_, Lehrbuch, II, § 13. Something analogous has
frequently been observed as to taxation capacity. Thus, for
instance, the Hessian provinces paid in direct taxation and
taxation on wines, liquors, etc.; and the density of the
population was in the ratio--

In Rhenish Hessen, 100 100.
In Starkenburg, 65 64.
In Upper Hessen, 64 59.

(_Rau_, Lehrbuch, III, § 280.) In many European countries,
the population has for a long period of time, and in a
comfortable way, increased most rapidly where it has been
densest. Thus, for instance, the kingdom of Saxony was, in
1837, the most densely populated of all the monarchical
states of Germany (6,076 inhabitants per square mile),
Hanover (2,416) and Mecklenburg-Schwerin (2,004) were among
the most sparsely peopled. And yet the annual increase of
population between 1837 and 1858 was greatest in Saxony
(1.36 per cent.) while Hanover (0.44) and
Mecklenburg-Schwerin (0.59) stood very low in this respect.
In very thinly populated countries, nature permits even the
civilized man to deteriorate: thus the French in Canada, the
Spaniard in the valley of the La Plata.]

[Footnote 253-5: This excellent expression seems to have
been first used by _Gerstner_, Grundlehren der
Staatsverwaltung, 1864, II, 1, 176 ff. It must indeed be
distinguished from a rapidly growing, but for the time
being, a sparsely settled country. A nation with an equal
population on a larger surface is, frequently in the
immediate present weaker than another in which the
population is more dense; but it has the advantage of a
greater possibility of growth in the future. Think of the
electorates of Saxe and of Brandenburg in the sixteenth
century. Just as _Thaer_, Landwirthschaftliche Gewerbelehre,
§ 149, advises that a mere annuitant should, values being
the same, rather purchase a smaller fertile estate; a very
able husbandman the reverse.]

[Footnote 253-6: We need only call to mind such facts as for
instance that the United States wealth of coal is 22 times
as great as that of Great Britain. (_Rogers_, The Coal
Formation and a Description of the Coal Fields of North
America and Great Britain, 1858.) In addition to this, only
about 16 per cent. of the combustible material is really
used in the way furnaces are now generally filled, only 10
per cent. in foundry furnaces, and from 14 to 15 per cent.
in the transportation of passengers on railways. The Falls
of Niagara afford a water-power equal to 2/3 of all the
steam engines which existed, a short time since, in the
whole world. (_E. Hermann_, Principien der Wirthschaft,
1873, p. 49, 153, 243.) But that single families, houses,
branches of business, etc. may be over-peopled, and the
impoverishing disproportion between numbers and the means of
subsistence not be susceptible of immediate removal by the
unaided power of the crowded circle, cannot be questioned.]

[Footnote 253-7: _Aristotle_ had recognized the possibility
of over-population. (Polit., II, 4, 3, 7, 4; VII, 4, 5; VII,
14.) _Schmitthenner_, Staatswisensschaften, I, distinguishes
between relative and absolute over-population: the former is
remediable by intellectual and especially by political
development, while the latter borders on the extreme
physical and possible limits of the means of subsistence.
_W. Thornton_, Over-population and its Remedy, 1849, 9,
considers a country in English circumstances over-populated
when a man between twenty and seventy years of age is not in
a condition to support, by means of his wages, 1-1/4 persons
in need of assistance (children under 10, women over 60, and
men over 70 years of age).]

[Footnote 253-8: Thus, for instance, in war, one million of
peasants are infinitely more powerful, especially in case of
a protracted defensive war, than two millions of
proletarians. Alaric's saying: "thick-growing grass is most
easily mowed."]