[flask_manager]

Its Malthusian, low income families grow until they run out of resources... Its a pattern we only briefly stepped away from in the industrial revolution, supported by the rapid growth in the amount of real goods able to be produced by each worker.

In the modern world most advancements take the form of less workers required for the same amount of production, however because we have largely reached "peak arable land", the efficiency goes up, but you can only get so many crops out of each hectare.

The only real "solution" is to limit population growth; or start looking for ways to optimize for calorie efficient crops, with more centralized and industrial scale food production for the proles.

[jltsiren]

Population growth is largely a solved problem, as is food production. The hard part is logistics; distributing the food to people. Especially in situations where the market fails to provide enough for everyone.