Why Thanos didn't pay attention in economics class.

By Markandeya Karthik

Over the Christmas break, I re-watched “The Avengers: Infinity War”, this time without fanboy emotion, and just the temporary stoicism that came with the first couple of early application rejections from preferred schools. I do not recommend watching superhero movies in such a state of mind. All I focused on were plot holes. And Thanos was G.L.O.A.T.E.D (i.e. he presented the Greatest Loopholes Of All Time). 

Firstly, his snap was physically impossible. Try it: wear a glove and  snap your fingers. It’s not as easy you think, and Thanos had on a metal gauntlet. But all this is  a digression from my main rant, which concerns how a little knowledge was a dangerous thing for Thanos. 

Thanos mingles with his victims. (Photo by TanisVdb, courtesy of Pixabay)

Thanos’ argument was simple. He recalled the classic economic problem: there are a scarce number of resources available, and unlimited desires from human life to use up these resources, a problem exacerbated by high populations. His solution? Mercilessly wipe out half of all life in the universe. The crux of “The Infinity War” then became  the prevention of Thanos from acquiring the infinity gauntlet and stones that together would give him the power to ‘snap’ and kill half the world. . Given Thanos was an oxymoron - a well intentioned super-villain - the least he Avengers could have done was ask him why he wanted to do what he was doing, and explain the economic fallacy of going down such a path. 

Now, if I were an Avenger, my first argument would be that reducing the population of the universe by half was merely a quick fix to a problem that’s simply going to persist. When my parents were born in the ‘70’s, the population of the world was less than half (~3 Billion) of what it is today (~7.8 Billion). Assuming all life in the universe was as prolific as the human race in reproducing, we’d be back to the starting point in less than a lifetime. 

Secondly, Thanos’s approach to taking a completely random approach to snuffing out half of all life, while having a moral base (weak at that), was completely wrong. My visit to Did Thanos Kill You? informed me cheerily.

“You were slain by Thanos, for the good of the universe.”

Why is it wrong? First, it’s just immoral. A random extermination of half of all life on earth isn’t “good for the universe”, because its essentially mass murder. Even if we let Thanos choose who to kill and who to let live, he would be genocidal, making him the Hitler of his time. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the legacy he was after. Second, it’s because population growth isn’t necessarily the core cause of some of the most pressing issues the world is facing today. It is a factor that exacerbates these issues, but it certainly isn’t the cause of a lot of them. In fact, it could potentially help economies. Economists all over the world are torn between two theories: one states that population growth helps a nation’s economy by stimulating economic growth and development. The second is based on Malthus (Thanos’ most likely influencer pointing to the importance of keeping current with theories), who propounded that population increases are detrimental to a nation’s economy due to a variety of problems, like putting pressure on national resources.  

Let’s analyze the first claim, that population growth helps a nation’s economy by stimulating economic growth and development, caused by increased overall demand and supply in the economy. John Maynard Keynes, the revered godfather of economics, postulated that economic growth occurs when the quality or quantity of factors of production (a fancy term for resources - think land, labor, and technology) improves or increases. With population growth, economies are blessed with a large labor force. This increases the overall level of supply in the economy, as firms can produce more with a greater number of individuals working in the production process, contributing to economic growth. It is important to note, however, that there is a limitation to this argument. Just because there are more people in a country, it doesn’t mean all of them are going to find work that they will be paid for! So, the boon of higher population complementing the labor force is only something that can be reaped by economies which are generally still in the primary stage of development, and require very few skills in order to integrate new individuals into production processes - this looks like economies which are heavily dependent on natural resource extraction and have abundant resources for exploitation.   

In addition to this, the monetarist school of thought (i.e. the group of economists who want to be ‘quirky’ and are in favor of more government controlled economies) argues that, with high population growth, there are more people in the economy who spend money, which boosts overall demand and fosters economic growth This view, however, is contested by the Keynesian view that - after a certain point - population growth doesn’t increase economic growth. Instead, as demand increases, the quantity supplied eventually reaches a point of no increase due to firms’ inability to access greater spare capacity and resources to continue increasing supply in-line with demand. This hurts the economy as the prices of goods and services increase while supply remains the same (think about it - people are demanding more while firms can’t supply more. They’re only alternative is to increase prices). This essentially means that we’re paying more for the same number of goods. Economists arguing for the Malthus perspective (remember? population growth is bad?) argue that we have hit this very inflexion point, in that increasing populations will only serve to hurt the economy.

Now, let’s turn to the other idea - that population growth is detrimental to economies. underdeveloped countries and countries with hardly any natural resources. These countries will have more mouths to feed than the resources available, leading to poverty, unemployment and ultimately no economic growth.

On the other hand, low population growth in high income (developed) countries is likely to create social and economic problems while high population growth in low income countries may slow their economic development. Population growth affects many phenomena such as the age structure of a country’s population, international migration, economic inequality, and the size of the country’s workforce These factors both affect and are affected by overall economic growth.  

While talking about population vs economic growth, we also need to consider the decline in population growth and aging of the population across the world. Driven by falling fertility rates and increase in life expectancy, the aging population crisis  is on the increase across the world. The number of people aged 65 or older - which generally tends to be the age of retirement, and is the point where individuals go from being producers and employees to permanent consumers - is already on the increase in many countries like in Japan 28%, Germany 21%, Italy 23%, US 16%, China 12% and so on. The potential economic and social costs of an aging population have the ability to affect economic growth.

Aging is taking place alongside other broad social trends that will affect the lives of older people. Economies are globalizing, people are more likely to live in cities, and technology is evolving rapidly. Demographic and family changes mean there will be fewer older people with families to care for them. People have fewer children, less likely to be married and less likely to live with older people. This leads to governments spending on welfare and medical schemes for the elderly in a bigger way than ever. In some countries, the sheer number of people entering older ages will challenge national infrastructure, particularly health systems and housing. China’s elderly population will likely to increase to 330 million by 2050 from 110 million today and that of India’s from present 60 million to 227 million. It is obvious that China is reverting to older norms of family size, going away from the single child norm. Perhaps China is taking a lesson from western nations (US & Europe) where the population growth has declined drastically over the years and corresponding increase in the aging population tends to bring down economic growth over the coming years. Japan is a typical example where the aging population has crossed 28% and a country which was most advanced technologically and economically has now gone down in comparison to other nations.

So, I guess it’s pretty clear now that Thanos wasn’t right. But, he wasn’t wrong either? Population growth can help spur economic growth, from both the demand and supply side. This is especially true for countries with a high degree of resource availability. However, in developing countries where natural resources are non existent or minimal, population growth can eat at scarce resources and fuel social and economic problems. Given the absence of a strong economic argument, Thanos should’ve fallen back to moral reasoning to make his ‘snap’. And that’s the loophole. Thanos was a smart guy, and even if he had an emotional reason to wipe out half the population, he couldn’t have taken such a drastic decision on the grounds of morality.