Population, Family and Disease - a seminar by Prof. Alan Macfarlane

Prof. Alan Macfarlane seminar, presented as part of the research project on ‘Governance in an Age of Globalization’ in the Graduate School of Law at Hokkaido University, was based on the assumption that it is possible to find patterns in historical social action. He argued that understanding such patterns provides hints about the future, and thereby helps us avoid the unsavory consequences and pursue the good courses of action. Prof. Macfarlane suggests a way to approach this problem of finding pattern by concentrating on the three topics in his title: population, family and disease.

Population

Prof. Macfarlane introduced this topic by referring to the work of Malthus. He noted that the first edition of Malthus’ famous essay on population argued that while resources grow arithmetically, but population expands geometrically. Consequently, population always, in the end, catches up with and overtakes resources. This culminates in an inevitable crisis or crash, which takes the form of ‘positive checks’ of war, famine and disease. These are what Malthus called ‘iron laws.’ However, Prof. Macfarlane found that in the second edition (1803) of his essay, Malthus changed his argument from a set of deterministic and ‘iron’ laws, into one based on likelihood, probabilities and tendencies rather than laws. Malthus changed his position because he realized that there were inevitably exceptions to his predictions, such as, in the relation to fertility, some societies restricting their fertility even though they could afford to have more children. In relation to mortality, occasionally health improved even when there was no particular improvement in wealth or food. Prof. Macfarlane argued that we should follow in our own studies Malthus’s method of rejecting ‘iron laws’ in favour of analysis based on probability and tendencies.

Family

Prof. Macfarlane explained that Malthus divided the preventive checks that lower fertility below natural levels into the moral ones (non-marriage or late marriage) and ‘vice’ one (contraception, abortion and infanticide). Further, Malthus noted that in the majority of societies, fertility was embedded within the kinship system. Having large numbers of children enhanced both individual and the family power, as well as wealth and status. Prof. Macfarlane pointed out that, in the first edition of his essay, Malthus regarded this as a universal law, but later he found alternative regimes. In England and north-western Europe, there was a mechanism that checked fertility--essentially the pattern of late marriage and selective marriage. Prof. Macfarlane explained the reasons why some societies want more and some societies fewer children, He noted that this is related to the link between the unit of economic production and the unit of reproduction. In peasantries, the unit of production, consumption and ownership is a domestic group that tends to arrange marriage and encourage high fertility. But England is am individual-based society that separates the married couple from the wider kinship group and allows them to float freely on the market. Therefore the marriages rate and the number of children become sensitive to fluctuations of the wider economy, rather than the pressure of the domestic economy.

Disease

Prof. Macfarlane summarized a vicious circle, which was predicted by Malthus as follows: rising populations causes rising insecurity; rising insecurity cause a desire for higher fertility; and so on. However, Prof. Macfarlane pointed out that the present state of populations is proof that the vicious circle had been broken. Prof. Macfarlane was interested in how and why this chain had been broken. As an example, he noted that circa 1740, the rates of deaths from dysentery in London and all over England started to drop, both for infants and adults. Prof. Macfarlane argued that there is no evidence that sanitation, drainage, medical knowledge, food, water supply improved at this time. So in order to explain the decline, he started looking at changes in what people drank. He found that in the 1740’s, tea was becoming a general drink in England. Prof. Macfarlane explained the benefits of drinking tea as follows: first, tea is made by boiling water, which killed the microbes that cause dysentery. Secondly, tea contains a chemical called phenolics, a very powerful anti- bacteria agent. However, Prof. Macfarlane believes that tea was the result of an ‘accident’, an unintended consequence of the kind that occasionally happens allowing humans to escape from the Malthusian trap.

Conclusions

What Prof. Macfarlane tried to do is to use a Malthusian method in order to suggest that a fruitful way to proceed is using moving, time-based models. He pointed out that in order to understand our dynamic world in the past and present, we need to try to devise moving ideal types or models. Prof. Macfarlane believes that this is what Malthus tried to do. The indication is Malthus often use the word ‘tend’ or ‘tendency. So from the model, Prof. Macfarlane explained that we can have expectations of certain directions, but not laws of history. And having an idea of the rules or tendencies of history gives us, to a certain extent, predictive powers, but also allows us to see exceptions. Prof. Macfarlane believes that it is possible to look at human history comparatively to discern both deep tendencies, and the rare exceptions.

(This summary is base on a seminar given by Prof. Alan Macfarlane on 7/14/03, and a paper dated 7/10/7/03)