Malthusianism is a psychological disposition more than an intellectual conclusion

From Farming the Sahara and the End of Malthusianism by Walter Russell Mead.

Slowing population growth. The restoration of massive swaths of farmland to nature. Increasing world food supplies. Lower food prices for billions of people. Massive water supplies beneath the driest deserts. Abundant oil and gas. The 21st century is looking like it will be a very different kind of place than the greens and Malthusians have warned us about.

Malthusianism is a psychological disposition more than an intellectual conclusion, and we have no doubt that the alarmists among us will find new looming catastrophic shortages to warn us about. But it’s striking nevertheless that centuries of failed predictions haven’t dented the confidence so many people have in what is so clearly a wrong-headed approach to world affairs.