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Rev Thomas Robert Malthus (February, 1766 – December 23, 1834), was an English demographer and political economist best known for his pessimistic but highly influential views.
Malthus was born to a prosperous family. His father was a personal friend of the philosopher and sceptic David Hume and an acquaintance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The young Malthus was educated at home until his admission to Jesus College, Cambridge in 1784. There he studied many subjects and took prizes in English declamation, Latin and Greek. His principal subject was mathematics. He earned a masters degree in 1791 and was elected a fellow of Jesus College two years later. In 1797, he was ordained and became an Anglican country parson.
In An Essay on the Principle of Population, published in 1798, Malthus predicted population would outrun food supply, leading to a decrease in food per person.
This prediction was based on the idea that population if unchecked increases at a “Exponential rate” (i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, etc.) whereas the food supply grows at an “Arithmetic” rate (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.) (See Malthusian catastrophe for more information.) Only misery, moral restraint and vice (which for Malthus included contraception) could check excessive population growth. Malthus favoured “moral restraint” (including late marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on population growth. However, it is worth noting that Malthus proposed this only for the working and poor classes. Thus, the lower social classes took a great deal of responsibility for societal ills, according to his theory. Essentially what this resulted in was the promotion of legislation which degenerated the conditions of the poor in England.
The foregoing is all taken from “Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.htm” – An Essay on the Principle of Population. Ch 1
The different modes which nature takes to prevent or repress a redundant population, do not appear, indeed, to us so certain and regular; but though we cannot always predict the mode, we may with certainty predict the fact. If the proportion of births to deaths for a few years, indicate an increase of numbers much beyond the proportional increased or acquired produce of the country, we may be perfectly certain, that unless an emigration takes place, the deaths will shortly exceed the births; and that the increase that had taken place for a few years cannot be the real average increase of the population of the country. Were there no other depopulating causes, every country would, without doubt, be subject to periodical pestilences or famine.
“…the Malthusian doctrine, that population tends to increase faster than subsistence. Examination, however, shows that this doctrine has no real support either in fact or in analogy, and that when brought to a decisive test it is utterly disproved”
– H .George. Progress & Poverty (Preface 1880ed)
“The current doctrine as to the derivation and law of wages finds its strongest support in a doctrine as generally accepted—the doctrine to which Malthus has given his name—that population naturally tends to increase faster than subsistence. These two doctrines, fitting in with each other, frame the answer which the current political economy gives to the great problem we are endeavoring to solve.”
H. George, Progress & Poverty Bk II, Population and Subsistance.
It is evident from the above sources that the Malthusian theory “that population tends to increase faster than subsistence” was used to blame the poor for their own condition. A very prevalent argument used today by politicians and others who advocate that nature is tardy and has not provided adequately for her offspring: Which is what George objected to and showed how it was wrong.
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