Ben Franklin warned about consequences of population growth both in the short run for his own fledgling nation, and for the longer run (in which more recent generations live today).

Ben Franklin is remembered for his Founding Father role in North America’s experiment in Democracy.

He was more. A polymath with keen powers of observation, he saw great opportunity in the underpopulation of his new country amid what seemed to be unlimited resources “from sea to shining sea.” For King George II and III of England his writings projected furious population growth (20-year doublings) supported by vast, virgin and unexploited industrial raw materials. He anticipated a giddy (but not permanent) rise to great wealth and power within just a few generations.

Ben Franklin contrasted old-country overpopulation that allowed for no such growth into greater wealth and power.

“4. In Countries full settled, the Case must be nearly the same; all Lands being occupied and improved to the Heighth: those who cannot get Land, must Labour for others that have it; when Labourers are plenty, their Wages will be low; by low Wages a Family is supported with Difficulty; this Difficulty deters many from Marriage, who therefore long continue Servants and single.”

Thus Europe, “(5.) is generally full settled with Husbandmen, Manufacturers, &c. and therefore cannot now much increase in People: America is chiefly occupied by Indians, who subsist mostly by Hunting. But as the Hunter, of all Men, requires the greatest Quantity of Land from whence to draw his Subsistence, (the Husbandman subsisting on much less, the Gardner on still less, and the Manufacturer requiring least of all), The Europeans found America as fully settled as it well could be by Hunters; yet these having large Tracks, were easily prevail’d on to part with Portions of Territory to the new Comers…

Ben argued that Britain should regard his new country as a valuable trading partner and ally likely to achieve great power for “a course of years.” Hoping to inspire favorable trade policies Franklin was offering Europe the opportunity to share the initial surge of wealth that takeover of “New World” continents would allow.

Even so, Ben was quite aware of long-term implications.

Ben Franklin worried “that this (constitutional government [noun added]) is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”

Ben Franklin taught and inspired first Reverend Malthus and then Charles Darwin.

Reverend Malthus is remembered for his writings on human overpopulation.

During his lifetime, Reverend T. Robert Malthus published six formal, successive editions of his “An Essay on the Principle of Population” after the first in 1798. As a cleric he feared  poor laws structured in ways that encouraged conception of ever-growing numbers of poverty-stricken people. 

Reverend Malthus is remembered today as an early economist for dedicating his life’s effort to shrinking, rather than growing poverty. As well, Robert Malthus is remembered as a demographer.

Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus’ writings repeatedly quote from Ben Franklin’s Observations on the Increase of Mankind that had been published previously in 1751. Ben’s perspective, living at the start of a monumentally unique human social experiment–underpopulation affluence on continents depopulated of natives by Guns, Germs, and Steel–led Ben Franklin to his startling insights.

Perusing Malthus’ repeated references to Ben Franklin makes clear the consistency of these visionaries’ shared concerns.   

Ben Franklin inspired Charles Darwin through Reverend Malthus.

Years later, Darwin would publish his famous, On the Origin of Species, more fully originally known as On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. Darwin, educated to become a cleric, credited Reverend Malthus’ earlier Principles of Population for guiding his recognition of the process of natural selection.  “[M]ore individuals of every species are born than can possibly survive.” So there are “frequent struggles for survival” that select for helpful characteristics that favor momentarily-more successful survivors. Darwin had recognized the seriousness of selection from overpopulation.

Ben Franklin warned of the danger to his beloved experiment in democracy.

Darwinian principles of overpopulation have become widely applied in medicine and science. Great benefits have come from such knowledge.

Unfortunately countries, industries, religions, and other entities have learned to exploit overpopulation to inflate soldier recruitment, the size of markets, cheapen labor, and/or outgrow competitors. The cost of  population-aggressive attitudes and policies are discussed in Clever but Clueless that Overpopulation drives Genocide, Slavery, and War.

The footnote to Ben Franklin’s last words to the U.S. Constitutional Convention is among the most visionary remark that came from those heady times of such (European) hope. “I…believe… that (constitutional government) is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can onlly end in despotism, as other forms have done before…when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.” (Clever but Clueless that Overpopulation drives Genocide, Slavery, and War, p. 168.)