Nature (JP)

Population, resources and the ideology of science

Goal: [T]o show that the lack of ethical neutrality in science affects each and every attempt at ‘rational’ scientific discussion of the population-resources relationship? (256).

Harvey reacts against scientific claims to ethical neutrality and freedom from ideology Harvey argues that this too is an ideological claim. He argues that the scientific method includes a normative claim (256) and is therefore not free from ideology. He also cautions, however, that his assertion that there is no such thing as ethical neutrality does not mean that everything can be reduced to personal opinion (257). Rather, science should be situated; i.e., it takes place in a social setting, expresses social ideas and conveys social meanings (257).

Harvey traces the political work of three particular theorizations of population-resource relationships: that of Malthus, Ricardo and Marx. He does this to show at least two things: (1) that, whether we openly acknowledge it or not, scientific theorization always entails some form of ideological prescription, and (2) that how we understand environmental problems depends, in large part, on the categories we use to apprehend the ontological nature of nature.

On Malthus: Harvey bemoans the condition of scientific debate about the relationship between population and resources, noting that (neo) Malthusian scientists have used the argument that critics are being subjective and ideological, and therefore can only take the position contra to scientific knowledge (257). Such a view, he notes, rests upon the false claim of science as outside of and untouched by ideology.

Harvey notes that Malthus calls for a methodological commitment to logical empiricism as the litmus test against reality (258). This is characterized by the classic scientific recipe for research: the postulation and testing (verification) of hypothesis and the formulation of laws. Theorizations that rely on the proving postulates true and using empirical data are based on hypothetico-deductive methodology.

Malthus’ empiricism has a number of ideological assumptions. Ontologically, it assumes a truth that is outside of a social system. That is, it treats its objects of study as independent from the reach of humans and therefore not affected by human action in relation, these objects are also said to have their own nature. These assumptions have epistemological and epistemological implications, not least being that ‘truth’ can be captured through rigorous empirical design that involves leaving the objects of study as untouched by humans as possible so as to capture their nature as true to their ‘natural’ existence as possible.

Malthusian truths related to population and resources are well-known. Some would even say that these truths have taken on the status of ‘law’. In the process of being taken for granted, Malthusian truths become stripped of their original political underpinnings and goals. Harvey notes that Malthus’ theorization relies on and reinforces competitive individualism based on notions of private property, which act as ‘limiting factors’ (in the population ecology sense of the word) that keep populations in check (261). Three things are revealed here. First, Malthus relies on ecological assumptions that treat human populations are operating under the same laws as flora and fauna populations. Secondly, and in contradiction to the first, Malthus unsuccessfully and dangerously combines naturalistic (ecological) and social (e.g., private property) factors in his analysis. Thirdly, and most related to Harvey’s work, Malthus holds dearly onto private property as a crucial social institution.

On Ricardo: Harvey notes that Ricardo relies on abstraction as a particular epistemological tool for apprehending material reality. Ricardo also uses modelling as a methodological component of his theorization of population-resource relations. One of the basic ideological assumptions of Ricardo’s work is the assumption of the existence of homo economicus, the rational economic man whose complete knowledge of the world makes him a model of human rationality (262). The gendered and racialized nature of this assumption should be as clear as its class assumptions, although Harvey does not really get into the first two. Instead, like in his other works, Harvey privileges class relations. Ricardo’s liberal economic theory has been the subject of critique for feminist economic geographers (e.g., Katherine Rankin’s ‘rational economic woman’). In any case, Harvey slams Ricardo’s assumption of homo economicus for elevating industrial entrepreneurs as the ideal citizen-subject. Harvey also reveals Ricardo’s obnoxious claims to knowing truth, that if reality does not conform to his ideals, then reality is wrong (264).

Ricardo’s modelling relies on the notion of social harmony achieved through the market, which assumes that social actors are, first and foremost, economic actors and other social relations arise from this (not unlike Marx?) (262). However, contra Marx, Ricardo fails to include class conflict as a crucial social relation. His theorization of population checks as achieved through the relationship of population to labour and accumulation of capital reveals that he relies on Malthus’ ecological assumptions to treat the question of population-resource relations. Equilibrium in the system (which assumes the eventual arrival of a steady state) is achieved through this balance.

Contra Malthus and Ricardo, Harvey holds on to Marx’s theory of population-resource relations as the correct way of approaching reality. Marx’s theory is historical, dialectical and relational; that is, in relation to the question at hand, Marx treats the question of resources as historically contingent and definable in terms of the context that it exists in. There is no essence to the thing ‘resource’: it is part of a wider system of social relations. This view should by now be familiar to us: it relies on Marx’s social totality and law of internal relations. Interpreting them this way – in a social constructionist relational way – refuses to see objects of study as external to the researcher. It is unlike logical empiricism in that it focuses on the social production of categories. In terms of population-resource relations, theorizations that attempt to apprehend these relations are themselves social relations, which refract back onto society in a dialectical way.