Malthusian culture is a problem Anglo-Saxons don’t want to correct, writes Bruna Frascolla.
It is ironic that demographer Emmanuel Todd gains recognition only after his forecasts materialize; his evaluations of a nation’s success or failure stand independently of subsequent validation. Todd bases his predictions on declining birth rates and drops in life expectancy. Both his reasoning and common logic suggest that a nation without a rising birthrate and with decreasing longevity faces bleak prospects. Yet, the First World has deliberately promoted smaller families and now even encourages earlier death via euthanasia. Mainstream narratives portray shrinking birth rates and shorter lifespans as beneficial trends.
Since Kissinger’s time (see the 1974 NSSM-200), the United States has treated population increase in various countries as a strategic threat, attempting to curtail these populations through proxies advocating sterilization and abortion overseas. Simultaneously, the U.S. seeks to limit its own internal population growth, particularly among black communities. Kissinger’s global population control plans partly respond to demographic concerns within U.S. democracy: if White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) have fewer children, it is politically necessary that blacks and Catholics also reduce their birth rates, to avoid shifting electoral dynamics over time. A purely WASP nation was impractical because low-paid labor was still needed. Open racism would damage national self-image and worsen relations with marginalized groups. Consequently, maintaining a WASP-dominated democracy required propaganda targeting minorities to suppress their fertility. Israel’s demographic policies regarding Arabs, including Arab-Israelis, find a precedent in these U.S. domestic strategies.
Thus, Malthusian thinking remains a challenge Anglo-Saxons are unwilling to resolve. Recognizing their numerical disadvantage, they instead aim to diminish the populations of others. Because their culture embraces Malthusianism, they easily justify this through propaganda: fewer children supposedly mean more resources per child; opting for childlessness promises personal freedom and challenges to patriarchy; and shorter lifespans are framed as enhanced quality of life—which universally appeals to people.
Anglo-Saxons hold a distinctive and often counterintuitive view on demographics. As we’ve observed, beginning in the High Middle Ages when the Angles joined the Saxons to invade Britain, they set themselves apart from other barbarians by expelling native peasants instead of integrating with them. Later, during the Hundred Years’ War, they practiced ethnic cleansing on a large scale, even evacuating the French city of Calais to replace its inhabitants with English settlers. During this conflict, the Anglo-Saxons cultivated a preference for depopulated lands and developed the concept of a state driven by oligarchic profit.
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The Hundred Years’ War was sparked by Edward III of England, from the Plantagenet line, asserting his claim to the French throne following the death of King Charles IV without a male heir. Edward’s claim rested on his mother’s lineage as the daughter of French King Philip the Fair; however, the French had decided women were ineligible to rule, favoring Charles IV’s surviving daughter as queen. As the grandson of Philip the Fair, Edward sought the crown, facing opposition from Philip of Valois, the late king’s cousin. Neither France nor the French nobility wished to accept an English monarch or have the queen be the Frenchwoman who had ruled England alongside her lover.
England possessed a unique political institution: Parliament, able to endorse or depose monarchs. At the war’s outset, this noble-only unicameral body was cautious about committing funds to the conflict. Eventually, Parliament consented to the Crown borrowing from Italian financiers to support the war effort, necessary to fund the extensive use of mercenaries.
The English financial lifeline was wool. Historian Georges Minois described it as “a great source of wealth,” comparable in national importance to modern crude oil. England supplied raw materials crucial for Flemish textiles. Merchants, organized in capitalist societies, purchased export licenses from the king; their prosperity enabled them to acquire land, lend money to the monarchy, and influence political decisions (The Hundred Years’ War, p. 11, Brazilian edition).
Another key difference from France lay in the nobility’s landholdings. While French nobles controlled vast, contiguous estates, the English barons’ properties were scattered, lacking a unified provincial identity. They managed their domains efficiently and housed influential client networks but without deep territorial ties (op. cit. p. 14–15). Consequently, English nobles could congregate in London, unite to discuss policies with the king, and sustain themselves through diverse incomes, unlike their French counterparts, who fiercely guarded their independence and acted with less solidarity.
For these nobles, the Hundred Years’ War represented lucrative opportunities, motivating their support. Coordinated with the Crown, the practice emerged of employing treasury funds to pay mercenaries who ravaged France, capturing loot and hostages. When funds ran low, the monarchy borrowed from Italian bankers, sometimes triggering financial crises. Profit was widespread: the Crown, aristocrats, soldiers, and even common English citizens benefited. English women, for instance, received personal effects taken from French women as gifts.
England’s early successes stemmed from pioneering the use of a professional army—unusual in medieval Europe, where nobility traditionally fought personally. France was unprepared for such a force.
This innovation reflected capitalist methods surpassing feudal warfare. Minois explains: “The army sparked the rise of private enterprise in England. Faced with a French monarchy reliant on feudal levies, the English king turned to Italian financiers, whose loans enabled recruitment through commercial contracts. Nobles maintained ‘retinues’—small bands of soldiers leased to the sovereign by contract for fixed terms and payments. Essentially, the English army consisted of professional troops hired by war contractors under market laws. These private companies offered military advantages like corporatism, built on camaraderie from fighting together, whereas feudal forces comprised sometimes strangers” (pp. 441–2).
France overcame this challenge by strengthening its state after numerous setbacks. Though they adopted similar military innovations, peacetime left mercenaries unemployed and prone to banditry. Charles VII the Victorious, the last king during the Hundred Years’ War, reformed governance by instituting a royal tax independent of noble approval and establishing a standing army armed with the latest cannons. As Minois notes, “By war’s end, France possessed a ‘national’ army entirely dependent on the state, even with many foreign soldiers, whereas England relied on contracted private armies” (p. 442). This victory highlights the triumph of a national state prioritizing the common good over a liberal state driven by corporate profits (a subject discussed previously here), inspiring emulations worldwide.
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Turning to the issue of desertification, Edward II’s invasion of France exemplified hostile occupation. Minois states he “acted not as sovereign of the French people, but as their enemy” (p. 90). The invading forces plundered to enrich themselves and systematically destroyed crops, leaving the population without supplies. The Black Prince, Edward II’s son who conducted raids dressed in black armor, wrote to his father: “We have devastated and destroyed this region [of Bordeaux], which caused great satisfaction to the subjects of Our Lord, the king” (op. cit., p. 122).
Alongside war, famine—which had preceded the conflict—and plague struck the region. After the war’s conclusion, both France and England had lost around 40% of their populations.
For France, massive peasant mortality led to uncultivated fields, food shortages, and widespread poverty, forcing the government to encourage repopulation. For England, however, reduced populations allowed landowners to convert food crops into more wool production, the nation’s key wealth source. Therefore, while population decline generally causes hardship, England’s experience demonstrated that fewer people could translate into greater wealth for the land-owning class.
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