What factors will trigger the Malthusian trap?

1. The ghostly Malthusian trap More than 200 years ago, the British parliamentary monarchy gradually rose. The victory of bourgeois revolution made Britain focus on exploiting peasants and expanding colonies. Britain became the center of global slave trade and human smuggling. Under such a historical background of barbaric expansion and mixed culture, many free ideas were born.

Seeing many problems in British society, English village priests published the book Population Principles anonymously, which mentioned the extreme mismatch between the population growth rate and the growth rate of material means of subsistence and the resulting crisis, namely Malthusian trap.

Malthus believes that population growth is explosive exponential growth, while the growth mode of means of subsistence is slow arithmetic growth. The over-expanded population and material demand do not match the relatively backward agricultural productivity, resulting in extremely low per capita resources, which leads to social forms such as famine, war and plague to eliminate the increased population in order to adapt to the level of productivity development. This is the crisis caused by Malthus trap.

Generally speaking, when the cake is too small and there are too many people, some people will disappear in some way (war, plague) or everyone will not have enough to eat (famine).

Second, the mysterious historical cycle Malthus trap tells us that this kind of human social crisis seems to reveal the inevitable social law of dynasty replacement and rise and fall cycle. At the beginning of a dynasty, the population was small, the resources were abundant, and the distribution of resources was relatively fair.

With the development of dynasties, the growth of population and the shortage of resources, the priority distribution of nobles led to extreme unfairness and the collapse of society, thus achieving new relative fairness, which is inevitable. Also known as historical periodicity.

"Its prosperity is also rich, and its death is also sudden." Successive dynasties changed. Chairman Mao believes that democracy is the way to survive without periodic law. "Only when the people supervise the government can the government dare not relax; Only when everyone stands up and takes responsibility can people not die. " . However, the people's supervision alone cannot escape the historical cycle. Only by understanding the causes of the cycle can we avoid "human death"

The change of dynasties is not so much the rebellion of the new oppressed class or group against the exploiting class or group, but rather the irreconcilable gap between the rich and the poor in a society with extremely low per capita resources, which led to the overthrow of the original resource allocation system and the redistribution of resources. There seems to be some connection between the population loss caused by social unrest and the "prosperous times"

In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, China experienced the hegemony in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period, the Julu War at the end of Qin Dynasty and the Chu-Han War. In the early Warring States period, the population was 30 million (15% of the world population), while in the early Han dynasty, it was only160,000, accounting for 8.5% of the world population. The sharp drop of population and the progress of scientific and technological ideas have created one of the three prosperous times in China-the rule of Wenjing.

During the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, China experienced the hegemony of the Three Kingdoms, the Five Revolts, the Northern Expedition of the Sui Dynasty and the war against Jiangdu. The population dropped sharply from nearly 50 million in the late Han Dynasty to120,000 in the Zhenguan period in the early Tang Dynasty. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty made great efforts to create the second of the three prosperous times in China-Kaiyuan Prosperity.

During the reign of Kangxi in Qing Dynasty, China experienced wars, famines and plagues in Ming and Qing Dynasties for more than 40 years. The population dropped sharply from 65.438+0.9 billion in the Wanli period to 80 million in the Kangxi period in the early Qing Dynasty, so that the prosperity here lasted for more than 65.438+0.40 years-the last prosperity of China-the prosperity of Kanggan.

We can see that the fiercer the war of changing dynasties, the more serious the population loss and the more prosperous the next dynasty will be. The ghostly Malthusian trap virtually controls the social population. If the population crosses the red line, there will be social unrest and war, while if the population is far below the red line, there will be peace and prosperity.

Governments around the world have seen this, so they have adopted various birth policies to limit the birth rate. But if a country or region has no population, how can it be said to be "strong"? For a long time, population is an important or even the only criterion to measure whether a country is strong or not. Developed countries or regions rely on people to feed, and places with people have hope and a future.

For example, the net inflow of population in the north, Guangzhou and Shenzhen remains high, and only restrictive measures can be taken to raise the threshold for settlement. However, the slow development of brain drain areas has caused a situation of "siphon of talents, and the strong will remain strong". In reality, in order to improve international strength, countries cannot choose to significantly reduce the fertility rate.

Overexpanded population has nowhere to put, which leads to more severe pressure on survival and employment and scarcer living resources. It is more difficult for each generation to accumulate wealth resources than the previous generation, which leads to the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and finally leads to dynasty replacement, social change and resource redistribution.

The law of historical periodicity is a vigorous and revolutionary structural change and consumption of the whole society, and it is also a social "macro-qualitative change" revealed by Malthus trap.

3. Invisible pusher-not built in a day. Turbulence and war are only temporary disorder, and social peace and stability are the normal state. When things develop to the stage of macro qualitative change, they need to accumulate micro quantitative changes, as do dynasties and ups and downs. So where is the microscopic quantitative accumulation stage of Malthus trap?

The recent hot word "involution" is the best expression of the quantitative change stage of "Malthusian trap" "involution" first appeared in the academic circle in the north of Qing Dynasty, and then spread to colleges and universities, and was widely circulated by college students. It refers to the irrational competition phenomenon that the stagnation of social development leads to the homogenization of internal members.

Generally speaking, "involution" means inward development, becoming more and more sophisticated and complex, but the model remains unchanged and there is no innovation. Compared with the historical periodic and vigorous macro-law, "involution" is more dull and microscopic.

College entrance examination is a typical involution phenomenon. At the same time, parents hope that their children can go to a good university, because the number of college places is limited. Everyone can only choose to prepare for the exam day and night, in order to surpass the "opponents" who also take the exam and form vicious competition.

There are others, such as: if a person stands up to watch a movie for better viewing effect, then the person who is blocked by him should also stand up to watch it, then the third person is forced to stand up to watch it, and finally everyone should stand up to watch the movie.

At work, the first thing a person applies for is a job with low salary and high education. In order to ensure that they can have a job, others can only take higher education to participate in jobs with lower education. In the end, "undergraduate courses are everywhere." Everyone has to do jobs that don't match their academic qualifications.

When grabbing tickets, one person will open the ticket grabbing member first, and others can only buy members to ensure that they can get tickets. Finally, everyone started a member, and finally everyone returned to the starting line.

We can see that the process of involution is vicious competition and the result is meaningless. People waste energy, time, money and even life in complex internal vicious competition. The result is the same as the previous social development.

So why are we willing to engage in such vicious competition?

Because jobs and social resources are limited, too many people participate in the distribution. Due to the popularization of social education and the opening and enjoyment of social information, more and more people are qualified for jobs that were scarce before, and more and more people divide up social resource cakes, but the speed of creating new cakes is very slow.

In the end, people have to beat their competitors to win social resources by establishing other relative advantages that have nothing to do with others' work, but this advantage that has nothing to do with work cannot improve work efficiency, and everyone tries his best to become mediocre and complicated. This involution intensifies the consumption of social resources, which is the microscopic quantity accumulation stage of population crisis revealed by Malthus trap.

Fourth, the road to survival is "involuted" around us. Now, the crisis of mismatch between population and means of subsistence discussed in Malthus Trap still exists, so how can we escape from Malthus Trap?

The way to get rid of Malthusian trap is in the history of industrial revolution.

In the history of human society, there are only two times to escape from the Malthusian trap-two industrial revolutions. The first industrial revolution was 18 in the 1960s. When human beings enter age of steam, the productivity is greatly improved, people's material and cultural needs are met, happiness is high, and the fertility rate and population growth rate are exploding.

/kloc-In the middle of the 0/9th century, the second industrial revolution followed by mankind entered the electrical age, and the productivity increased explosively again. With the advent of the big industrial era, the productivity explosion of two consecutive industrial revolutions has brought about the problem of overcapacity, that is, the cake is too big and too few people eat it. As a result, a lot of resources were wasted in the 20th century, consumerism and extravagance prevailed, and the population doubled.

This tells us that the way out of the Malthusian trap is to vigorously develop productive forces, meet the material and cultural needs of the expanding population through huge productive forces, and improve the per capita resources.

5. There has been no great change in a hundred years, but the third industrial revolution entered the era of science and technology in 2 1 century, and the productivity improvement brought by the era of science and technology did not meet people's expectations. The third industrial revolution is more of a leap in biotechnology, precision technology and aerospace technology.

Compared with the previous two industrial revolutions, the third industrial revolution made little contribution to the growth of the means of subsistence, but the growth of the world population was not controlled accordingly. The extensive international social system in Europe and America, which originally relied on excess productivity, began to produce various problems, especially in the United States, which has the highest degree of globalization.

The United States has a land area of 9.37 million square kilometers, which is similar to that of China, but its population is only 300 million, which seems to be far from the Malthusian trap. However, the problem in the United States lies in its social structure and resource allocation system.

The United States pursues a liberal system, and the government's control is weak, which leads to the problems that the strong inevitably exploit and oppress the weak, 80% people work hard for 20% people, 80% people's material and cultural needs are not met, and most people have low resources. The core of Malthus trap is the crisis caused by low per capita resources.

The black movement, feminist movement and racial discrimination in the United States are all against the unequal social structure and resource allocation system. The United States ranks first in the world in military spending, accounting for 40% of the world's military spending, and its imprisonment rate is second in the world. Less than 5% of the world's population imprisons 23% of the world's prisoners. This epidemic undoubtedly exposed the social governance ability of the United States.

When the productive forces greatly exceeded the consumption capacity during the two industrial revolutions, the disadvantages of this extensive social structure could not be exposed. Now, the dividend of the industrial revolution has been basically released, and the extensive social structure in the United States has not adapted to normal social development.

Under the condition of global economic depression, the international situation dominated by American-style social structure and resource distribution system is extremely unstable, which is bound to be political, economic, cultural and military frictions and fluctuations. All mankind urgently needs a new stable international pattern and a peaceful international situation.

The change of the pattern is bound to be accompanied by the redistribution of resources. Some countries are bound to revive and some countries are bound to decline. This is "the great changes we have experienced in the past 100 years"

In order to maintain their exploitative position, some western countries restrict technology circulation and commodity trade. They are only willing to maintain their hegemony instead of making a cake for all mankind, and allocate most of their resources to a few countries and a few people, which makes the per capita resources of most people low and leads the world to slide into the Malthusian trap step by step.

Dangers and opportunities of intransitive verbs in the new era Under the general situation that the world has slipped into the Malthusian trap because of the extensive social structure and resource allocation system in the West, on the one hand, we should "treat the symptoms": vigorously develop productive forces and encourage innovation and entrepreneurship.

On the other hand, we must also "cure the root cause": change the unreasonable hegemonic international pattern and lead the establishment of a new international pattern with peaceful development as the theme and more rational resource allocation. This is not only the danger of "imperialists not dying", but also the opportunity for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Standing on the tide of historical progress, China puts forward the unity of "human destiny * * *", the essence of which is to build a large industrial social pattern for all mankind, and eliminate exploitation through institutional division of labor and distribution design, so as to maximize the overall productivity of mankind, improve the per capita resource possession of all mankind, and make the overall cake of the world bigger to escape the Malthusian trap.

In this crisis-ridden new era, we should firmly stand on the position of most people, persist in innovation, constantly absorb new knowledge, and always pay attention to national policy trends and international news, so as to find a golden struggle track to get rid of "involution". It is the only way for us to turn crisis into opportunity in the industrial and economic changes brought about by the changes in the international pattern, and even realize class transition in the magnificent and great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.