Kurt Vonnegut often examines the relationship between free will and institutions such as the government, religion, academia, the healthcare system, and the military throughout his works. In “2 B R 0 2 B,” Vonnegut uses satire and dark humor to critique Malthusianism and institutional responses to population growth. Malthusianism is the theory that population growth is exponential, while the growth of resources is linear. This means that population growth will always outpace the production of resources, which leads to wars over resources, famine, and other catastrophes that then return the population to levels that allow for sociopolitical stability and resource sustainability.

The concept of Malthusianism was introduced in 1978 by Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of Population. This essay argued that technological advances would allow for the production of more resources and improve people’s quality of life. However, this would then lead to population growth and an eventual return to the original quality of life prior to the impact of the technological advances. The natural relationship between a population and resources, according to Malthus, is a cycle of abundance and scarcity.

Neo-Malthusianism includes a wide variety of theories, philosophies, and policies that encourage population control by advocating for birth control or abstinence, or, in more extreme cases, directly legislate birthrates (such as China’s one-child policy between 1980 and 2016).