> I don't want to relitigate Malthusianism

But you do want to assert that it is true, without being aware of its meaning?

Malthusianism is the notion that some people must be poor / hungry because humans choose to reproduce until they reach the limits of the environment to provide for them (especially those Irish potato farmers, according to Malthus), and that increases in productivity will not change this - they will just be absorbed by a growing population (which ought to be 'swept away').

In reality, growing populations have led to more than adequate improvements in food production efficiency and people are choosing to reproduce less rather than more.

There is an excellent summary and rebuttal of Malthusianism in the book 'Progress and Poverty' by Henry George, which offers an alternative view of how supply and demand for finite land (your words) rather than reproductive instinct (Malthusianism) creates poverty.