Not exactly the same, but I do think there would be too many people making too many more people in better houses. The resources on this planet are finite, but the human race's ability to breed is approaching infinity at an alarming rate.
In large part I do not agree. There is no question that unequal resource distribution plays a part, but increasing the population won't make that any easier. There will just be less and less for more people to share.
If you are taking this stance based on personal opinion and casual observations, there is nothing wrong with educating yourself in terms of the economic underdevelopment of so-called third world countries.
The countries that have suffered underdevelopment all have one thing in common-they have suffered economic and political oppression at the hands of a western power. This is true of Africa, during and after the slave trade and has been true of Central and South America.
As an example, Brazil is no longer under the thumb of the Portuguese but the wealthy elite classes still dominate as a de facto arm of their European ancestors. And this is a country with one of if not thee worst wealth distribution percentages in the whole world.
"The Instituto de Pesquisa Econ?mica Aplicada (IPEA) of the Brazilian Government in a recent study stated that in S?o Paulo the wealthiest 10% controlled 73.4% of the city's wealth, while in Rio de Janeiro they retained 62.9% and Salvador 67%.
Also, IPEA attributes the primary cause for the poor wealth distribution to an outdated tax system that taxes the least wealthy up to 44% more than the most affluent.
Near the end of the 1800s, the richest 10% in Rio had 68% of the wealth." When you have this sort of stagnation in terms of wealth distribution over centuries, the inevitable outcome is a permanent lower class who own no land ownership rights who are beholden to large scale farmers and industrialists for their meager existence.
And a meager existence is all but guaranteed to this portion of the population. When a country like the DR relies so heavily on tourism, rest assured the jobs on offer, while some may argue is better than no jobs at all, does nothing but keep the lower classes right where they are while the lion's share of the profits are siphoned off by the wealthy elites.
This is how underground economies emerge-from the advent of the sanky to micro drug distribution centers in the barrios. Law and order will do nothing to stem this tide, it will just be contained in certain unsavory parts of the island and will continue to operate.
Look at Jamaica's relationship with the IMF. Their domestic agricultural base has been decimated by the draconian measures instituted by the IMF. To qualify for loans, they had to open their markets to US farm corporations where local agricultural interests could not compete. What you have now is a small island-nation dependent on exports in a world market they could not compete in. This documentary will give you a better look into the effects the IMF deals have had on the country's economy-
Your point about the world having finite resources doesn't take into account how much is controlled and consumed by such a small percentage. Case in point-North America is 6% of the world population, yet control 50% of the world's wealth. These aren't esoteric abstractions, this is the truth.
And out of this statistic, a staggering 1% of the US population have more combined wealth then the the bottom 90%.
In Walter Rodney's excellent book "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa", he states the profound negative effects of colonial imperialism very clearly-
"A second and even more indispensable component of modern underdevelopment is that it expresses a particular relationship of exploitation: namely, the exploitation of one country by another.
All of the countries named as ‘underdeveloped’ in the world are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now pre-occupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist and colonialist exploitation.
African and Asian societies were developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus ensued, depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labour. That is an integral part of underdevelopment in the contemporary sense."
Just look at the effects of imperialism on the island of Hispaniola. The indigenous populations were wiped out and replaced by African slaves for the sole purpose of extracting the country's natural resources to be exported for the benefit of Spain. Other western nations followed suit all over the Americas and in Africa.
As for the DR,
"the GNP is currently divided so that the top 10% gain 40% of the wealth, with a very stratified social system". They have also suffered an intellectual brain drain, with many top students choosing to go abroad because the overall feeling is that nepotism and limited opportunities severely hinder their socio-economic advancement on the island.
What you have now are countries that are economically dependent on the west due to centuries of this type of exploitation. So saying that the Earth's resources are finite is but a very small part of the overall picture and not intellectually correct when you consider how these resources have been historically divvied up.
It is quite easy to see how the west flourished while many of the Earth's countries floundered given the imperialistic nature of their relationship. Sucking all manner of resources out of one country for the benefit of another will do that.
This stuff is not left-wing liberal drivel. I believe in an exchange of ideas as free as possible from any one particular political ideology. You are free to dismiss it, but the facts remain and they say more about the state of the world's poor than an overly simplistic view of overpopulation that you have put forth as the reason why these people live the way they do in places like Capotillo.