Thomas Robert Malthus
1766-1834
Early Life
• Born in 1766 in a small
town in Surrey, just south
of London
• One of eight children
• His father regularly met
with Rousseau, Hume
and Voltaire.
• Malthus was schooled by
Richard Graves, the
rector of Calverton
Academic Career
• At 18, Malthus went to Jesus College at
Cambridge where he majored in
mathematics, and won prizes in English,
Latin and Greek.
• He was ordained as an Anglican cleric in
1797 and became curate of the parish of
Albury in Surrey in 1798.
Fellowship
• Malthus was appointed to a fellowship at
Jesus College in 1793 and forfeited it in
1804.
• During this time he wrote his most
important work, Essay on the Principle of
Population.
• He published six editions of the work,
which was a best seller.
Jesus College, Cambridge
Later Life
• In 1818, he became a
fellow of the Royal
Society.
• Malthus was
appointed a professor
of history and
political economy at
Haileybury College,
where he worked for
the rest of his life.
Essay on the Principle of
Population
• Originally wrote it to argue with the current
optimistic popular writers, such as his father’s
friend Rousseau.
• Main postulate of the essay (now known as
Malthus’ Iron Law of Population): The population
increases in a geometric ratio, while the means
of subsistence increases in an arithmetic ratio.
• Basically, that the population is growing too fast,
and eventually the world’s food supply will be
insufficient to provide for everyone.
Essay on the Principle of
Population
• Malthus believed that natural disasters,
wars and poverty (“positive checks”) were
all necessary in order to keep a check on
the population.
• In later editions, Malthus started to
advocate abstinence and birth control in
order to limit the population.
Criticisms
• Malthus had many critics
because at the time,
there was an optimistic
belief that prevailed his
contemporaries’ theories.
• Communists, such as
Engels and Lenin,
thought that Malthus’s
ideas were “completely
barbaric”.
Influence
• John Maynard Keynes, known for Keynesian economics,
modeled his theories upon Malthus’s.
• His theories helped to shoot down the reform acts of the
British Prime Minister, who thought that larger families
should be rewarded financially.
• In 1834, the Poor Law Amendment was passed, strongly
influenced by Malthus.
– Amendment put into law that no able-bodied person
was to receive money or other help from the Poor
Law authorities
• Due to the Essay, there was a census taken in 1800 in
Great Britian, Scotland and Wales.
Darwin and Malthus
• Malthus’s theories influenced Charles Darwin.
– Idea that animals will continue to breed until the food
supply becomes limited, at which point there will be
competition for the scarce resources. Which led
Darwin to theorize about biological fitness.
– "It is the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force
to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms"
• Darwin on Malthus:
“In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I
had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to
read for amusement Malthus on Population, and
being well prepared to appreciate the struggle
for existence which everywhere goes on from
long- continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that
under these circumstances favourable variations
would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable
ones to be destroyed. The results of this would
be the formation of a new species. Here, then I
had at last got a theory by which to work”
Wallace’s thoughts on Malthus
• “It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are
continually acting in the case of animals also; and as animals
usually breed much more quickly than does mankind, the
destruction every year from these causes must be enormous in
order to keep down the numbers of each species, since evidently
they do not increase regularly from year to year, as otherwise the
world would long ago have been crowded with those that breed
most quickly. Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant
destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question,
why do some die and some live? And the answer was clearly, on the
whole the best fitted live… and considering the amount of individual
variation that my experience as a collector had shown me to exist,
then it followed that all the changes necessary for the adaptation of
the species to the changing conditions would be brought about… In
this way every part of an animals organization could be modified
exactly as required, and in the very process of this modification the
unmodified would die out, and thus the definite characters and the
clear isolation of each new species would be explained.”
Evolution and Malthus
• Wallace said that the
Essay was one of the
most important books
he’d ever read.
• Basically, Wallace
thought that Malthus’s
theories showed that in
the animal kingdom,
much like among
humans, only the
toughest survive and the
environment weeds out
the weak.
Summary
• Malthus’s Iron Law of Population said that
competition would be created by the fact
that population growth is much more
substantial than the growth of resources.
• This influenced both Darwin and Wallace’s
theories of biological fitness and natural
selection.
Works of Malthus
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An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future
Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr Godwin,
M. Condorcet and Other Writers,
An Investigation of the Cause of the Present High Price of Provisions,
Containing an illustration of the nature and limits of fair price in time of
scarcity and its application to the particular circumstances of the country,
1800.
An Essay on the Principle of Population; or a View of its past and present
Effects on Human Happiness; with an Inquiry into our Prospects respecting
the Removal or Mitigation of the Evils which it occasions, 1803,
Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a rise or fall in the
price of corn on the agriculture and general wealth of the country, 1814.
In Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, and the principles by which
it is regulated, 1815.
The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of
Foreign Corn , 1815.
Major Works
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Principles of Political Economy: Considered with a view to their practical
application, 1820.
The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated, With an Application of it to the
alterations in the value of English currency, 1823.
"Tooke -- On High and Low Prices", 1823, Quaterly Review
"Political Economy", 1824, Quarterly Review
"Population", 1824, Encyclopedia Britannica.
Definitions in Political economy: Preceded by an inquiry into the rules which
ought to guide political economists in the definition and use of their terms;
with remarks on the derivation from these rules in their writings, 1827.
A Summary View of the Principle of Population, 1830
Works Cited
• “An Essay on the Principles of Population”:
http://books.google.com/books?id=BcNEZlXh
• My Life by Alfred Russel Wallace,
http://books.google.com/books?id=iHRbU5PbEnMC
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthus
• http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosoph
y/Malthus.htm
• http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
• http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Thomas_Malth
us