Boserup’s Theory on Technological Change as a Point of Departure for the Theory of Sociometabolic Regime Transitions

This chapter is devoted to the core theoretical propositions unfolded in E. Boserup’s 1981 book Population and Technological Change and represents an attempt to take these ideas further. The 1981 book makes an effort to provide a theoretical explanation for the full course of human history, from hunting and gathering communities through various stages of agricultural societies right into the industrial transformation. First we re-examine her own data, confirming her core thesis about average agricultural output per area risingwith population density at the expense of declining output per labour hour, but demonstrating a strong discontinuity at the industrial end of her technology scale.Clearly, what is measured at this end, the transition to fossil fuel use in agriculture, leads to saving labour. Second, we explain our theory of sociometabolic regime transitions and try to show how much this theory learned from Boserup. This theory, though, supposes that it makes a fundamental difference if societies base practically all of their processes on solar energy, its conversion into plant biomass and, consequently, on agriculture as the key energy supply sector, or if they base their processes on fossil fuel energy sources – this is a qualitative leap beyond what Boserup introduces as gradual distinctions. In a third part, based on our comparative research on resource use, we elaborate on three examples for the lasting validity of Boserup’s arguments: on the non-linearity between population growth and land requirements, on the transferability of this thesis to other resources as well, and finally on the persistent relevance of population density as key factor allowing for lower resource consumption. This chapter confirms Boserup’s role as an eminent theorist and analyst of the development trajectory of agrarian societies, but also points to her weakness in understanding the industrial transformation.