Thomas Malthus biography
An Essay on the
Principle of Population
Thomas Malthus was born near Guildford, Surrey, England in 1766 into a
well-off family. He was educated from 1784 at Jesus College, Cambridge
where he achieved distinguished marks in his mathematical studies. He was
subsequently ordained as an Anglican cleric in 1797 despite having an
inconvenient speech impediment. He became curate of the parish of Albury
in Surrey in 1798 and held this post for a short time.
His
main contribution is to Economics where a theory, published anonymously as
"An Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1798 has as a central
argument that populations tend to increase faster than the supply of food
available for their needs.
To quote directly from the
essay:-
"Population, when unchecked, increases in a
geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.
A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first
power compared to the second".
The essay thus
anticipated that this propensity could only lead to real distress:-
" The number of labourers also being above
the proportion of work in the market, the price of labor must tend
towards a decrease; while the price of provisions would at the same time
tend to rise".
This theory of the effective
inevitability of poverty and distress contradicted the optimistic belief
prevailing in the early 19th century, that a society's fertility would
lead to economic progress and helped to give Economics, then more
frequently known as "Political Economy" the alternative name of "The
Dismal Science."
Earlier that year the British statesman
William Pitt had proposed that poor relief should give special
consideration to the encouragement of large families as "those who,
after having enriched their country with a number of children, have a
claim upon its assistance for their support." In the event Malthus's
theory was often used as an argument against efforts to better the
condition of the poor.
Malthus later went so far as to
suggest that, for the lessening of the probability of a miserable
existence for the poor, it was advisable to seek to cut the birth rate in
society. This suggestion was unmistakably outrageous given the moralities
of the times (and would doubtless be most controversial
today).
The Essay on the Principles of Population and other
writings encouraged the first systematic demographic studies and also had
a significant influence in several ways:-
In Economics David
Ricardo's, "iron law of wages" and theory of distribution of wealth
contain some elements of Malthus' theory.
Of far more
dramatic significance is the fact that both Charles Darwin and Alfred
Russel Wallace admitted that the food scarcities regarded as being normal
by Malthus had been of KEY influence on their seperate development
of theories of the evolutionary Origin of Species.
From 1805
until his death Thomas Malthus was Professor of Modern History and
Political Economy at the newly established college of the East India
Company at Haileybury. This appointment may have been the first
professional post in Economics held by anyone in human
history.
Other works include An Inquiry into the Nature and
Progress of Rent (1815) and Principles of Political Economy
(1820).
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![[Thomas Malthus, population]](Thomas Malthus biography population_files/philosophy.gif)
![[Malthus]](Thomas Malthus biography population_files/quotes.gif){kind=small}
