‘Overpopulation’ is often implicated as a major causative factor of poverty and environmental degradation in the developing world. This review of the population-resource debate focuses on Red, Green and neo-Malthusian ideologies to demonstrate how they have ramified into current economic and development theory. A central hypothesis is that key elements of Marxist analysis, tempered by the best of Green thought, still have much to offer the subject. The contributions of capitalism to ‘underdevelopment’, and its associated environmental crises, are clarified and reasserted in a contemporary context.
