Transcription
In Avengers: Infinity War, the universe is threatened by Thanos, a gigantic purple alien whose stated goal is the wipe out half of the population of all known existence. One by one, he collects the infinity stones. With all six in his gauntlet, he can snap his fingers and achieve his goal. The Avengers fail to stop Thanos, resulting in the aforementioned catastrophic loss of life.
In the comic books, Thanos wants to wipe out half the population to impress Death, a woman he loves but has no interest in him. Basically, he's the universe's most powerful incel. But in the film, his motivation is different. Thanos snaps his fingers to perform his grisly task because he believes it's a “mercy” – the universe, he claims, only has so many resources and far too many people. In doing so, he says, he will actually save the universe.
Thanos is...wrong. He's wrong. He's wrong for a lot of reasons, but not only the reasons stated in YouTube videos and fandom articles filled with Marvel Comics lore and talk of plot holes. He's wrong because his arithmetic is wrong and because he is blaming resource drain on the people instead of the real source of the problem – capitalism. Oh yeah. It's one of those videos.
Because of the way our discourse and politics inform popular culture and how popular culture informs our discourse and politics, the subject of overpopulation has once again returned to media. Not only because of Infinity War, this topic becomes popular once a generation, but with the most successful movie in the world having overpopulation as its subject, the reintroduction of overpopulation in serious news articles written by serious people was inevitable. Also, with the return of fascist ideology as an semi-acceptable talking point – so long as we call it something else – we now have the perfect incubator for the rebirth of this wrong-headed idea. Right-wing buzz words like “overpopulation” often contain conversations using Thanos as their example to explain eugenics, racism and capitalism. As this has become part of the discourse now, I will also use Thanos as my example to more explicitly oppose the very same.
Thanos is wrong. There is enough food – more than enough, in fact. We just don't allocate it properly under our current economic system. There is enough space – more than enough, in fact. There is enough energy. We just don't utilize renewable energy sources because they are not as profitable as non-renewable energy sources under our current economic system. The problem...is capitalism. Not those of us living under capitalism, the vast majority of us in the middle to lower classes, meaning the people who do not benefit from capitalism.
But first, some necessary background on overpopulation and eugenics. In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” in which he laid out his theory about overpopulation. To summarize, he believed that eventually there would be more people than the world could feed. His solution was to find a way to prevent population growth by killing the poor. “Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases: and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.”
Malthus was the Thanos of his day, and he justified his proposals much in the same way. Malthus was wrong because he did not foresee that food production would drastically increase in the coming centuries, but we'll get into dunking on him later. For now...did you notice something about that quote? I mean, besides that it advocated reintroducing the bubonic plague? He didn't say kill...some people. He said kill...the poor. Much as it is today, the poor in the 18th century were blamed for their own poverty, and the upper class believed that helping the poor would decrease the overall quality of life, which really only means the quality of life for said upper class. This made capitalism under the industrial revolution a conflict for survival. Work hard, gain property, gain wealth and maybe you won't be part of the next culling of the filthy poors.
Although Malthus did not use the word, what he was advocating is a form of eugenics, a series of beliefs and practices with the stated goal of improving the “genetic quality” of the human population and the secondary goal of excluding groups judged to be inferior. Most commonly, these groups are the poor, the non-white, and anyone who the eugenicists claim should not be part of what they view as their perfect human population. Eugenicists wished to raise the rate of population among people who they believed had “desirable traits” and lower the rate of population among people who they believed had “undesirable” traits. This was instituted through forced sterilization and marriage restrictions – and later, much worse.
Who decides who is desirable? Well, those with power, and under capitalism that means those with means and the ability to influence politics with said means. Eugenics as a more popular theory rose to prominence in the western world partially as a response to labor questioning their place in the capitalist system. Eugenics sought to create scientific justification for the status quo – “the way things are” – through quackery like judging human beings based on skull shape. These “sciences” were used as justification for imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, by claiming that races who the Europeans wanted to colonize and enslave were “inferior” anyway, and that nature itself granted permission for this endeavor.
Eugenics was huge in America and not only as theory but as practice. Throughout the first six decades of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Americans were not permitted to continue their families by reproducing. This is a map of sterilization in America in 1913, which seems like this is ancient history, but the Federal Sterilization Regulations that curtailed much of this wasn't instituted until 1978, and even now, it's not always consistently enforced.
Thanos' method of population control might seem more “fair” than that of real-world eugenicists – he claims that his finger snap will kill half the population at random rather than focus on the poor – but he is still employing the upper class' use of eugenics by sparing someone: himself. Thanos is asked what he will do after his mission is complete, and he remarks that he will watch the sun set on a “grateful” universe. This implies that he has no intention of adding himself to those who may be randomly killed with his de-population. If he knows he will be spared, then he never intended to make himself eligible for this culling. And indeed, we see that at the end of the movie. Those who enact eugenics always see themselves as those who are “worthy” of being spared and “necessary” for the future.
Eugenics fell out of favor for a while due to Adolf Hitler employing it on a massive scale, and modern eugenicists cite this as the only drawback of eugenics. Hitler, the eugenicists claim, tried to make the master race the “wrong” way, while still believing in a master race themselves. But...no. Murdering the poor and forcibly sterilizing so-called “undesirable” people was always bad, actually, and the Nazis' adoption of eugenics was not a bug in the system but a feature and the inevitable end goal of a belief that some people are more “worthy” of life than others.
In The Population Myth, Social theorist and political philosopher Murray Bookchin wrote: “...by reducing us to studies of line graphs, bar graphs, and statistical tables, the neo-Malthusians literally freeze reality as it is. Their numerical extrapolations do not construct any reality that is new; they mere extend, statistic by statistic, what is basically old and given. … We are taught to accept society, behavior, and values as they are, not as they should be or even could be. This procedure places us under the tyranny of the status quo and divests us of any ability to think about radically changing the world. I have encountered very few books or articles written by neo-Malthusians that question whether we should live under any kind of money economy at all, any statist system of society, or be guided by profit oriented behavior. There are books and articles aplenty that explain 'how to' become a 'morally responsible' banker, entrepreneur, landowner, 'developer,' or, for all I know, arms merchant. But whether the whole system called capitalism (forgive me!), be it corporate in the west or bureaucratic in the east, must be abandoned if we are to achieve an ecological society is rarely discussed.”
OK. So...let's discuss it. Food is brought up explicitly in the film, and that is as good a place to start as any. Remember Malthus, that great big piece of sh*t? His projections about population growth and food production were wrong. Technological advances have made the rate of food production explode – far more than the explosion of population. Not only is enough food produced that the whole world could be fed, but enough food is produced that the whole world could have a lot left over. So, why are so many people starving? It's not because of a surplus population if food production far exceeds the population. Malthus talked of mathematics justifying his beliefs. Well, the real math does not lie. People continue to be hungry because of the economic system that does not distribute food based on need but based on whether or not people have “earned” the food under said system – a system, by the way, they did not choose but are forced to live under.
Governments are paying farmers to cut back their harvests, as we have run out of storage space. Under capitalism, this is preferable to having an excess amount of food and simply giving it to people in need. Companies that make an excess of food generally dispose of it rather than giving it away too because the cost of giving it away is greater than the cost of disposing of it. Under capitalism, a system that prioritizes private property and profit over quality of life, this is preferable. A couple years ago, this grew to the point that the world had a third more rice and wheat in storage than it was expected to consume, sell or turn into fuel. The combined world surplus of wheat, corn, rice and soya recently passed 670 million tons. To put another way, that's enough to feed all of China for a year – just on the surplus food. The excess food that nobody uses.
Governments sometimes send aid to countries suffering from a drought or food shortage, partially because of the earned relations and influence this gives the “giving” country over the “receiving” country. But corporations are not incentivized to do this even though they are hoarding all the food and disposing of it.
In Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos claims that his planet doomed itself by not following his population culling. For the sake of argument, let's pretend Titan had a similar society, economy and problems as Earth. Thanos could have solved the problem by instituting a radical economic change. Presumably, nobody did. The people of Titan could foresee their own end, but those in power could not even imagine giving up a hierarchical economic society. This is what Mark Fisher calls “capitalist realism” – the idea that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system but it is also now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it due to its prevalence. Even in the face of catastrophe that could be solved by finding an alternative or going around capitalism, we do not even consider it.
Arguments for wasting food rather than improving the quality of life of others are supported by the hierarchical model and even philosophy of capitalism. “The poor didn't 'earn' that food.” “It's their own fault that they're starving.” “That's just how the system works.” “This is the natural order.” Defending starvation as natural or acceptable because of capitalist concepts is entirely common if capitalists believe in hierarchies that benefit themselves over others. Overpopulation is not the source of world hunger if the amount of food far exceeds the population. There is a distribution problem and a problem of a system that decides who “deserves” food.
Considering the vastness of space and the sci-fi technology in the MCU, finding energy sources probably does not have the same challenges as on Earth. But in either case, problems arising from energy are not caused by overpopulation. The argument goes that so many people are causing global warming. If we had less people, the modern eugenicists argue, we would have less change to the climate. After all, so many people drive cars. This ignores a few key details. Over 70% of global emissions are created by 100 companies. Your individual contribution to climate change – your “lifestyle consumption emissions” – are marginal. Even among these limited emissions, it is not most of us – the poor and middle classes – who are to blame. The top 10% richest people in the world account for nearly half of lifestyle consumption emissions.
Energy companies have known about global warming for a long time but have actively tried to obfuscate their role by hiring right-wing think tanks to create false studies and by buying politicians to side with them against anything that might hinder their profits. Believers in overpopulation would still argue that these companies would not have to produce as much coal and oil if not for the growing population, but that still puts the onus on the consumer and not the producer of the product and the problem. Coal is the biggest issue, both as a cause of emissions but also because it is significantly more profitable than wind power and solar power. The means of production are owned by the very few, which means very few people have decided that this is what our planet is going to be and this is what consequences our planet will have. Capitalism provides no incentive for millionaires and billionaires to give up their industries or restructure their industries around much safer but less profitable energy sources.
As much as popular media has demonized nuclear power, the truth is that it causes far less harm to our atmosphere than coal. Although mining and refining uranium ore do require large amounts of energy, nuclear reactors themselves do not produce air pollution or carbon dioxide while operating. However, nuclear power is currently less profitable than coal, which has made it less prevalent. The key thing to understand here is that the cause of global warming is not overpopulation. It's a prioritization of profit over quality of life – or even life itself. Corporations are not incentivized to save the world under capitalism. They are incentivized only to make money.
This is, perhaps, the most laughable of all the overpopulation arguments, so I won't take much time on it. In Avengers: Infinity War, interstellar travel is commonplace, and gigantic space station cities can be built in the void of space itself. So, Thanos isn't worried about there simply not being enough “room” for more people in the infinite grandeur of outer space, but here on Earth, that is somehow an argument. “Where are we gonna put all these people?” they ask. See, they ask this as if we're all presently stacked on top of each other or if there isn't a lot of open space left. Well, to that, I answer, have you ever heard of Wyoming? You would be surprised how much nothing there is. 95% of the world's population is concentrated on just 10% of the world's land surface. There is so much open space to build more cities should the circumstances arise. If we lived at the density that people live in Manhattan, the entire global population could fit in New Zealand. Now maybe you live in Alaska, a place that has a density so low and so spread, that if everyone on Earth lived that way, we would need 108 Earths to fit us all. And maybe, as an Alaskan, these figures scare you because you don't want to live anywhere with a dense population. Well, fair enough, but is that enough of a reason to believe in culling the world population? So there isn't a line at the coffee shop?
Hierarchies are usually defined by people who believe they are high up on that hierarchy. “Genetic superiority” books were generally written by people who believed they were among the superior race. “Overpopulation” believers are usually people who think that they themselves should not be among those removed or among those whose people or race or class should not be removed. And capitalism is enforced by those with the most wealth. Hierarchies are self-serving, not serving the quality of life of all. Belief in “overpopulation” also only aims to serve those who believe they themselves are the “worthy” race or class who must continue to exist. This belief is also self-serving while under the guise of “helping” the world at large.
Nearly all discourse on overpopulation places the blame on the poor or on non-white countries even though the poor don't have much to do with these problems, and the entire continent of Africa contributes only about 3% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, by far the least in both absolute and per capita terms. The overpopulation discourse from books on the subject all the way up to Thanos memes serve as an excuse to ignore the root causes of poverty, starvation, climate change, etc. The rich telling us why some people are poor is like a salesman telling you why their product is the best available: they have a vested interest in presenting it that way.
Capitalist apologists can look at the fact that there is more than enough food but some people are starving, more than enough space but people are homeless, and more than enough sources of cleaner energy but people are facing global warming, and still say that capitalism is not the problem. They claim things like only “crony capitalism” is toxic or that if we just make a couple small changes to the system, it will somehow have radical results. But disparity is its very dogma – not an unintended side effect or anomaly. There is no...version of the system we are using right now that can solve our problems. It cannot be reformed if capitalism is rapidly creating more and more disparity. The idea that incredible suffering can be removed simply by tweaking the system or putting it through mild reforms is a neoliberal fantasy. Capitalists created the aforementioned circumstances in the world but also wish that you will address these circumstances only within the confines of capitalism itself. Capitalism wants you to fight fire with fire instead of looking for some water.
Philosopher Fredric Jameson once remarked that it's now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Thanos, after gaining the power of all six infinity stones, has the power to perform this radical change. He can create a post-scarcity universe in which everyone is fed, every planet has clean energy, and so forth. But he can't imagine that. He can't imagine such a universe. It's easier for him to imagine the end of all things than the end of the system in which we currently exist.