Economies of scale are not exactly a central focus or concern of many economists. But they are real. They diminish at a certain point (which various a lot depending on the good or service being produced, and other circumstances), and you can even have diseconomies of scale, but certainly moving away from a predominately peasant agriculture system, can result in more food being produced by less people. More food means less starvation (and often more variety). Less people needed to produce the food, means you free up labor to produce other goods and services. Remaining in a primarily substance farming pattern is one of the reasons large parts of Africa have remained so poor.
As for turning more of the population in to human biomass - If your concerned about runaway population growth, well that doesn't seem to be in the cards. World wide population will grow, but growth is leveling off, even ending as countries develop. And the substance farming paradigm may if anything encourage people to have more children, as the children are used as labor on the farm, and support in old age, while in a more developed economy children are more a cost than an asset (in direct financial terms, I'm not including the emotional aspect, or even more indirect financial benefits such as children paying the taxes for public pensions). Of course maybe if all those children starve you won't have to worry as much about population growth, but that isn't my favorite method of population control. |
