The Facts of Life as Seen in 1798

by Walter Sherman Atwood (1887-1974)
March 16, 1969

It is a pleasure to read and quote from an article by John Nuveen, a Chicago investment banker, who shares my interest in Malthus, in an ecumenical weekly known as the Christian Century, dated 8/10/1966.

In the last article written by the late political-socialist Norman Thomas, he said that political science was not a science, which all scientists will understand, but all social workers will dispute. Mathematics may be accepted as having some scientific aspects, such as this item of progression or ratios.

Malthus in 1798 was by no means the first to predict famines, but he may have been one of the first with a good explanation of why. The Bible in predicting wars and rumors of wars is not too specific, and not remotely scientific.

With Nuveen's article, The Facts of Life, before me, I quote freely. If we start with the figure 1 and add the figure 2 thirty times, and arithmetic progression mounts at the rate of 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. to 61. But if we start with 1 and multiply it by 2 thirty times, a geometric progression will mount at the rate of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. to 1,073,741,824. On graph paper the arithmetic progresses in a straight line, but the geometric bends ever so slightly at first, and begins to shoot upward, finally becoming almost a vertical line. You may need a graph paper the size of a football field, but start first with an ordinary sheet.

Malthus knew that population increased in geometric ratio, while the means of subsistence, food, increases in arithmetic ratio. Nuveen, 168 years later, brings the early figures up to date: if the rate of increase in world population remains as it is today, doubling every generation (and this is reasonably accurate in my family history) our present 3.5 billion people will in thirty generations (900 years) become nearly 4 sextillion, or 4,550 people for each square foot of earth's land surface. (How many zeros follow the 4 in sextillion?) And I note that Nuveen, as a banker is an expert on figures, and is not necessarily dealing with shapes as in sex.

He quotes an associate, a statistician, who says, fifty billion could exist if they were satisfied to live on the products of yeast factories and algae farms, but these farms exist chiefly in the mind's eye as of today. The question then is whether life is worth living.

Ample proof exists today that mice and other small animals go crazy when kept in small crowded cages, and we view with alarm the riots in the crowded ghetto and the anarchy in the overcrowded free State-supported universities. It will take more than Black Power and permissive tactics by authorities to overcome this situation.

The Congress that gives billions to feed famines abroad, and more billions to allow morons, illiterates, and anarchists a free education no longer represents all citizens by increasing our taxes while debasing the coinage. Throughout history, revolutions have repeatedly been caused by this failing of governments to represent the people who pay the bills.

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