707

If you like the comic you can support me on patreon or Ko-Fi

Become a Patron!

Thomas Malthus was an English philosopher and economist who thought that because food growth grew at a slower rate than population growth, catastrophic events such as famines and plagues were always needed to "re-balance" the population. While he didn't advocate for going back to nature like Treebeard (and to a lesser extent Tolkien, although it was more nostalgia than a real policy, as he understood you can't go back), it's clear that trying to reverse technological progress, particularly in farming, would kill of millions of people in a kind of Malthusian catastrophe.

Malthus was wrong, by the way, precisely because the industrialization of farming has the exact opposite effect that he was describing (food production goes up at a much faster rate than population). Saruman's industrialization is the cure to the perpetual famines that humanity used to suffer.

Thomas Malthus was an English philosopher and economist who thought that because food growth grew at a slower rate than population growth, catastrophic events such as famines and plagues were always needed to "re-balance" the population. While he didn't advocate for going back to nature like Treebeard (and to a lesser extent Tolkien, although it was more nostalgia than a real policy, as he understood you can't go back), it's clear that trying to reverse technological progress, particularly in farming, would kill of millions of people in a kind of Malthusian catastrophe.

Malthus was wrong, by the way, precisely because the industrialization of farming has the exact opposite effect that he was describing (food production goes up at a much faster rate than population). Saruman's industrialization is the cure to the perpetual famines that humanity used to suffer.