The empirical validity of traditional perspectives on poverty and under-development has been seriously challenged over the past decade. In contrast to emphasis on what were said to be disfunctional characteristics of the poor themselves, attention has been redirected towards economic and ecological factors which reveal much of the cultural repertoire of peasants and urban and rural poor to be a positive or adaptive response to limits imposed on them by the political economy of capitalism.
This article describes the role of Malthusian thinking as a rationale for the commercial development of global agriculture at the expense of peasant-livelihood security. Focusing on the impact of the cold war, in an era of peasant insurgency, it explores how the Green Revolution reflected and reinforced the West's conviction that technological innovation, rather than more equitable systems of production, should resolve the problem of world food security said to be due to "overpopulation." JEL classification: N50; O13; Q18
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.