Rising Cost of Surpluses (1980)

From the October 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

From Financial Times (5.9.80)  

Malthus, for those who don’t remember, was an 18th century cleric who forecast that within a few years world populations would grow to the extent that the possibilities of food production would have been exhausted, and mankind would perish from hunger and consequent disease. Over the last two centuries Malthus has been proved several hundred per cent wrong. The producers of food have suffered and are still suffering the pangs of hunger, are the victims of inefficiency or war, neither of which have the least bit to do with food production. In European markets meat is showing nasty signs of surplus too . . . In view of this trend the Commission in Brussels must be hoping for some really disastrous crop news from the US and elsewhere.