Outrage Dujour -- Malthus, Marx, and the New York Times

John Boyer (johnboy@hiwaay.net)
Fri, 22 Aug 1997 17:56:41 -0500


[ Things look bleak for the people of the PRK, one of the last bastions o=
f
marxism, (including american intellegentsia of course). For the record,
Thomas Malthus' theory asserts that population growth almost always
outstrips food supply growth. Thus overpopulation not fiscal policy or ot=
her
factors is to blame for famine. -- johnboy]

http://www.nationalreview.com/nationalreview/outrage/082197out.html
Malthus, Marx, and the New York Times
"Food shortages and a starving population of North Korea have nothing to =
do
with Communism, they're caused by a famine. Last Friday, August 8, a New
York Times editorial opened: 'Two months of drought and scorching heat ha=
ve
turned North Korea into a veritable oven enclosing 24 million people.' Th=
e
Times absolved Communist policies: 'It is not the doctrines of Marx but
Malthus that now shape this isolated and fanatical Communist fortress.' "
=97Media Research Center, CyberAlert, August 14, 1997

[ me again....
Lets put this into perspective, shall we?

Three years ago, I was in South Korea while in transit to Vietnam, the
biggest story in the local papers was not the impending famine in the Nor=
th
nor the fact that the North was close to Nuclear Bomb grade material; it =
was
the acute labor shortage in the south!

http://es.rice.edu/projects/Poli378/CIA_Factbook/nkorea.html
http://es.rice.edu/projects/Poli378/CIA_Factbook/skorea.html
North Korea
Population 22,645,811 (July 1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 14,000 km2 (1989)
South Korea
Population 44,613,993 (July 1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 13,530 km2 (1989)

Thus, the South manages to feed twice as many people with the same amount=
of
farmland. The contrast of the South's booming economy and the North's fam=
ine
makes any Mathusian reference by the NYT absurd! That's my opinion
anyway... meant to agitate you NYT lovers out there.
-- johnboy ]