Adam Smith claims that human growth will inevitably push the limits of agricultural growth, as humans reproduce at exponential rate and plant life does not. The limits of our agrarian capabilities are somewhat unknown, however, there is current awareness that if the human population does outgrow the available resource pool, the result would be wide spread starvation and death.

             The People’s Republic of China imparted the “One-Child Policy”, or the banning of Chinese families to produce more than one child without extra taxation, in 1979. The One Child Policy prevented an estimated 200 million births, and has greatly alleviated the overstretching of China’s industrial and agricultural resources necessary to accommodate its citizens. Over population and scarcity of resources is usually a byproduct of a society that is undergoing a rapid process of industrialization and urbanization, while simultaneously failing to expand its resource pool—the exponentially increasing population density despite the absence of adequate resources for maintenance. In contrast, less refined hunter-gatherer societies do not run into these issues, as naturally their populations do not grow exponentially in density because they lack the original resources and they must be mobile.