The Original Population BombPart I of II http://www.swans.com/library/art17/barker92.html  The ruling class has always loved to blame the workers of the world for the systemic problems caused by their betrothal to capitalism. In their eyes, workers are wage-slaves whose fertility must be regulated (by themselves) to meet the ever changing mandates of capital. Controlling human reproduction on a global level is, however, far from easy, but over the last several hundred years one of the patron saints of population control has been the Reverend Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) -- an economist whose "most enduring influence has been to shape academic and popular thinking about the origins of poverty, and to defend the interests of capital in the face of the enormous human misery which capitalism causes."