theme 3

• An Essay on the Principle of Population was written


  1798
• The great and unlooked for discoveries that have taken place of late years in natural philosophy, the increasing diffusion of general knowledge from the extension of the art of printing, the ardent and unshackled spirit of inquiry that prevails throughout the lettered and even unlettered world, the new and extraordinary lights that have been thrown on political subjects which dazzle and astonish the understanding, and particularly that tremendous phenomenon in the political horizon, the French Revolution, which, like a blazing comet, seems destined either to inspire with fresh life and vigour, or to scorch up and destroy the shrinking inhabitants of the earth, have all concurred to lead many able men into the opinion that we were touching on a period big with the most important changes, changes that would in some measure be decisive of the future fate of mankind.
• It has been said that the great question is now at issue, whether man shall henceforth start forwards with accelerated velocity towards illimitable, and hitherto unconceived improvement, or be condemned to a perpetual oscillation between happiness and misery, and after every effort remain still at an immeasurable distance from the wished-for goal.
• Garrett Hardin: 'The population problem has no technical solution; it requires a fundamental extension in morality.'

  
• At the end of a thoughtful article on the future of nuclear war, Wiesner and York concluded that: "Both sides in the arms race are ... confronted by the dilemma of steadily increasing military power and steadily decreasing national security. It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution. If the great powers continue to look for solutions in the area of science and technology only, the result will be to worsen the situation."
• Technical solution


  One that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values or ideas of morality
• In our day (though not in earlier times) technical solutions are always welcome. Because of previous failures in prophecy, it takes courage to assert that a desired technical solution is not possible.
• Susan George wrote the book "How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger"
• First published

  1976
• Reprinted with revisions

  1977
• Reprinted

  1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, 1985
• Reprinted with additional foreword

  1986
• The book was published by Penguin Books in Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England; Viking Penguin Inc. in New York, USA; Penguin Books Australia Ltd in Ringwood, Victoria, Australia; Penguin Books Canada Limited in Markham, Ontario, Canada; and Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd in Auckland 10, New Zealand
• The book is copyrighted to Susan George in 1976, 1977, 1986
• The book was set, printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading
• The book was set in Monotype Times
• The book is subject to conditions that it shall not be lent, re-sold, hired out or circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published, and with a similar condition imposed on subsequent purchasers
• The book is dedicated to Maria and Claude
• The book contains a list of some shorthand used
• The book contains a foreword to the 1986 reprint written by the author Susan George
• The book contains a foreword
• The book contains an introduction
• The book is divided into 4 parts: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
• The book contains 12 chapters
• The book contains an appendix on agricultural inputs
• The book contains a section with a few useful addresses
• The book contains references
• The book contains notes to the 1977 reprint
• Industrialized country governments and their corporate and financial élites never intended that everyone should participate creatively in the development process both as producers and consumers
• The New International Economic Order and the 'Brandt Commission' programmes called for massive resource transfers from North to South, arguing that this was the best way to get sluggish Northern economies moving again as well as accelerating Southern development
• The North will not concede anything when the Third World could make no credible threats and had little to give in exchange except a clearer conscience
• New, even 'massive', transfers to Third World governments and élites will not 'trickle down' towards the people really in need when transfers of the previous thirty years never displayed the slightest trickling tendencies
• The greater part of industrialized country establishments and that heterogenous beast called the 'international community' are immune to moral suasion and human suffering
• They will not raise a collective finger to alter the situation of millions of hungry people in any meaningful way unless they fear their vital interests are at stake or unless forced to do so by public pressure
• Centre


  Élite centre or core of a country
• Periphery


  Where the poor and hungry are invariably found in a country
• Up to now, the centres of the developed (dominant) countries have largely had their own way in running the affairs of the world in cooperation, whenever necessary, with the centres of the underdeveloped (dominated) countries
• The peripheries of both have had relatively little to say (though more in democratic countries than in autocratic or repressive ones)
• If past experience is any guide, the centre-to-centre connection will only aggravate and perpetuate hunger
• Hope lies in the number and the strength of links that can be forged between 'ordinary people' on the peripheries of the North and the South, on the pressures that these same 'ordinary people' can bring to bear on their governments and on the 'international community'