There are, its estimated, 8.2 billion people on the planet. The UN projects that the world's population will reach 9.7 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion by 2100. We won’t reach that, says Steve Keen. Even if we ignore climate change, we’ll exceed our capacity to support the population, and the as countries become richer their fertility rate will decline. The hope is that the natural decline happens before more extreme declines brought about by war, climate change and starvation.  But, even intis best case scenario, we need to address the issue that the population is not always close to the food it needs, and economics naturally concentrates capital.

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