Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Are there too many people?
This first of a three-part answer from the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY looks at the ‘two sides’ of the population argument

THE question sounds simple but if you really want a simple answer, there isn’t one.

It’s curious that when people invoke population growth as a problem — local or global — they rarely offer the removal of themselves or their family as a contribution to its solution.  

“Too many people” is usually directed against others — and often at the wrong “kind” of people (their colour, religion, country or class).  

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Activists celebrate ‘buy nothing day,’ protesting agains
Full Marx / 11 August 2024
11 August 2024
Most currently popular arguments for degrowth describe a real problem without recognising its true cause – capitalism’s insatiable need to accumulate, argues the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Full Marx / 29 July 2024
29 July 2024
Most phenomena have an explanation, writes the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY, but occasionally ‘anomalous’ events have led to new scientific understanding
Features / 8 July 2024
8 July 2024
The fight to defend public services is as important as the struggle over wages, but presents different challenges to workplace organising — especially with regards to bourgeois propaganda and conditioning, writes the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
A farmer spreading fertiliser on a field in North Yorkshire,
Full Marx / 27 May 2024
27 May 2024
Marx and Engels’ concern with soil provides a focus for understanding the relationship between capitalism and the environment, argues the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Similar stories
MONEY TALKS: A general view of City workers on Bank Street a
Full Marx / 6 April 2025
6 April 2025
Labour’s fiscal policy is already in trouble. But simply printing money is not a solution, says the Marx Memorial Library and Workers School
RAPID RENEWAL: Changsha’s statue of Mao, the city at night
Features / 3 December 2024
3 December 2024
Hunan province’s transformation shows how state investment can lift millions from deprivation — but Western states avoid discussion of this while ramping up military spending instead, writes FIONA EDWARDS
Full Marx / 26 August 2024
26 August 2024
The ‘degrowth’ debate raises critical issues to which only a Marxist approach can provide answers, argues the Marx Memorial Library
Activists celebrate ‘buy nothing day,’ protesting agains
Full Marx / 11 August 2024
11 August 2024
Most currently popular arguments for degrowth describe a real problem without recognising its true cause – capitalism’s insatiable need to accumulate, argues the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY