I propose that since the turn of the milenia technology has created a new law of human relations and it is this: Over time, in a technologically advanced country, the cost of raising everyone out of deprivation becomes progressively less than the cost of not doing so. 

In his book, An Essay on the Principle of Human Population, published in 1798, Thomas Malthus argued, persuasively at the time, that the general level of hunger and human misery stayed constant because any increases in the food supply brought corresponding increases in the population until all the excess food was consumed. This pessimistic view of the human condition became very influential and was known as Malthus’ Iron Law of Population. 

Coincidentally, around the same time Malthus published his book,  the population began rapidly increasing from one billion to our current seven and a half billion people.  Science, especially in its application to human health and agriculture, made this possible. These days, in the developed world, although there are still way too many hungry people, deaths of despair are much more common than deaths by starvation. Population growth in developed countries would be negative but for immigration. Global fertility rates are crashing, and obesity is becoming a world-wide problem.  

Notwithstanding these facts, Malthus’ way of looking at the world is still widespread. We act as though there is not enough for everyone, and cling to  Malthus’ paradigm as though keeping many people in financial, medical, and housing deprivation is a necessary prerequisite in order for civilization to function.

The current American condition is one in which it is technologically and practically feasible not only to raise all Americans out of hunger but also to share the wealth created by our astonishingly productive industrial economy.  In fact, we know it is possible because in the past we have been much fairer about sharing increases in national productivity with all citizens. Despite this, we now seem to believe that the horrifying wealth inequality in our country is the necessary result of “winners”, “disruptors”, or “job creators” performing their role at the top of the food chain of capitalism. It is as though we believe that the law of nature that allows a dominant wolf pack to fight for as much territory as necessary to provide for itself is the same law that allows one citizen to control more wealth and power than millions of others and to provide for generations of wealthy descendants who will need to do nothing productive for their entire lives and yet will be given the power of deciding how huge amounts of capital are allocated in our economy.

Worse still, as we saw with the Silicon Valley Bank bailout, this system is transparently hypocritical even on its own terms. The naive venture capitalists, incompetent wealthy, and losing corporations, far from being failed competitors devoured by the more successful, instead get bailed out and one way or another the cost gets paid by ordinary Americans struggling with usurious student loans. 

What has changed recently is that the same technological magic that creates fantastic wealth for a few now reveals to everyone the extraordinary inequities. The simplest smartphone can show a poor person the waste and indulgence of rich people. The force of this disparity can be felt by a subsistence farmer in Africa comparing her lot to that of Kim Kardashian, or by an impoverished American teenager comparing his condition to that of his wealthy peers a couple of zip codes away. In fact, the closer the comparison the more potent the inequity seems.

Technology, however, is a two-edged sword. The power to create is also the power to destroy. Think of the chemical fertilizer and diesel fuel, two cornerstones of agriculture and modern industry which were also used to make the Oklahoma City bomb. The same cell phone technology that provides miraculous communication also works for detonating improvised explosive devices. 

But the transformations in society which were driven by technology applied to  industry, agriculture and communication are likely to pale in comparison to those caused by artificial intelligence.  The surprising, occasionally charming wit of ChatGPT has caused many white collar workers to realize that their jobs are as vulnerable to replacement by robots as those of blue collar workers from a few generations ago with the only difference being that the transition from people work to machine work will be much quicker this time. 

If it can’t already, in a few years AI will be able to produce propaganda videos starring deep fakes of world leaders which will be, to the average person, indistinguishable from the real thing.  Benchtop gene editing machines may soon provide geniuses working in their garages the ability to create incredible medical breakthroughs, or the opportunity for some psychopath to create super infectious deadly viruses. 

In a perfect world it would be hard enough to prevent the catastrophic misuse of technology, but it will be impossible in a world teeming with unhoused, over indebted, people who feel excluded from society but have access to cutting edge technology for less than the price of a month’s rent.  If we don’t start creating a society that works for everyone, we may end up in a Malthusian hell resulting not from scarce resources but from violence and chaos spawned by our inability to share the abundance. It doesn’t have to turn out this way. Reason allows us to manipulate the world with machines and chemicals and now with AI, and reason also shows us that we don’t need to structure civilization around an “iron law” that no longer applies to us.