Thomas Robert Malthus
(1766-1834)
Before we begin …
• England in the 1700s
– Age of Enlightenment / Age of Scientific Thought
– Society and the Population
• Life and Times of Thomas R. Malthus
– His Influences and Observations
• Essay on Population and the Malthusian Model
– Inputs
– Breakdown of the Model
• Principles of Political Economy
– Market Gluts and Unproductive Consumption
• Impact on Subsequent Economic Thought
But first, let me take you back to Christmas, 1842 …
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)
"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge … it is
more than usually desirable that we should make some
slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want
of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in
want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons.”
"And the Union workhouses? Are they still in operation?"
"They are. Still, I wish I could say they were not."
"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,
then?" said Scrooge.
"Both very busy, sir."
"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that
something had occurred to stop them in their useful
course . I'm very glad to hear it.”
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843)
“A few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the
Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We
choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when
Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I
put you down for?"
"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.
"You wish to be anonymous?"
"I wish to be left alone … Since you ask me what I wish,
gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself
at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I
help to support the establishments I have mentioned -they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go
there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better
do it, and decrease the surplus population…”
Europe in the 1700s
• Review of Feudalism
– The King = God; The Manor; Serfs
• Transition begins into an age of…
–
–
–
–
–
–
Reason / Humanism
Wit (Freedom of the word, Press, Satire)
Enlightenment (Sapere aude, or “dare to know”)
Scientific Thought
Industrialism
Society versus the Manor (Revolution!)
Europe in the 1700s
• 1694/98: Bank of England and LSE are chartered
• 1707: United Kingdom is formed by the union of
England and Scotland
• 1710: First British copyright law
• 1756-1763: Seven Years’ War
– 9 European powers are involved
– England “wins” Canada (called “New France” at that time) from France
and Florida from Spain
– Spain gets Cuba and the Philippines and some parts of Gulf US (Louisiana)
from France
– France wins colonies in India, Africa and the Carribean
– Prussia gains Silesia (Eastern Europe)
• 1765: Watt’s steam engine is developed
• 1775-1783: US War of Independence from England
• 1789: French Revolution
Europe in the 1700s
• Some thinkers we have already met in this time period in
class:
– Francois Quesnay (1694-1774)
– David Hume (1711-1776)
– Adam Smith (1723-1790)
• Some other thinkers before or during this period:
– Isaac Newton (1642-1716)
– Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) - A Dictionary of the English
Language
– Immanuel Kant, J. W. von Goethe, Carl Gauss (German
scholars)
– Thomas Paine (1737-1809) - Common Sense
– Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams (USA! USA!)
– Marquis de Sade (1740-1814) - !!!
The Age of Enlightenment
Enlightenment – reason and rationality, natural rights versus social
contracts, civil liberties, free markets and capitalism, democracy,
deism (God made universe but doesn’t control it or interfere with
human life)
•
•
•
•
John Locke (1632-1704)
– His theory of mind is often cited as the origin for modern
conceptions of identity and "the self”
– Property is a natural right and it is derived from labor – essentially
John Locke
rejecting feudalism
Gottfried Liebniz (1646-1706) – Theodicy (1710)
– Tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by
claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) – An Essay on Man (1734)
– Man is only part of a “Great Chain of Being”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) – The Social Contract (1762)
– Man “is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man
thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave
Jean-Jacques
than they are…”
Rousseau
The Age of Wit
Satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
–A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the
Children of Poor People in Ireland from
Being a Burden to Their Parents or
Country, and for Making Them Beneficial
to the Publick (1729) – an interesting
economic theory:
–"A young healthy child well nursed,
is, at a year old, a most delicious
nourishing and wholesome food,
whether stewed, roasted, baked, or
boiled; and I make no doubt that it
will equally serve in a fricassee, or a
ragout."
A Top Chef making delicious
Irish Baby Sandwiches
Population in the 1700s Huge
population
growth
here
Problems in England in the 1700s
Some of the negative effects of the
Industrial Revolution and growing
urbanization began to appear:
– Unemployment and poverty were
increasing
– “Poor Laws” (first established in 1601)
were always amended as effects became
more and more obvious
• The poor should have a minimum
income regardless of their earnings
• Linked family income to price of bread; if
earnings fell below a level, allowances to
make up the difference were granted
• Caused debate – the propertied class
denied responsibility for poverty
(SCROOGE) and actively opposed income
redistribution.
Life and Times of Thomas Malthus
•Born February 13th, 1766
– 6th of 7 Children Born to Wealthy British Family
– Born with a harelip and cleft palate and refused
to have his portrait painted until they were
surgically corrected in 1833, a year before he died
(which is why very few portraits of him exist)
•Married his first cousin in 1804 at age 38; they
had three children: Henry, Emily, and Lucy (no
grandchildren)
•Died December 29th, 1834
– Note that Dickens’s A Christmas Carol was
published 8 years later
Life and Times - Education
• “Robert” is educated at Home – Father (Daniel)
was a personal friend of economist David Hume
• Father was also a friend of Rousseau:
– "...[Daniel] was a gentleman of a good family and
independent fortune, a man of considerable culture
both in literature and philosophy, the friend and
correspondent of Rousseau and one of his executors,
one, too, who showed no little interest in those social
problems in which his son was to be an original
enquirer”
Life and Times - Education
• Father also encouraged study of contemporary
writers, William Godwin (1756-1836) and Marquis
de Condorcet (1743-1794)
– Both writers encouraged individualism (versus collective action), equality
for all, rule of reason
• However, Godwin believed population growth
would not be a problem (Liebniz optimism) and
Condorcet believed in the abolition of war,
redistribution of property and that food supply
would increase as rapidly as population
– “War - What Is It Good For?” Malthus: If you have to ask …
Life and Times – Profession
Attended Jesus College (part of
the University of Cambridge) in
1784
– Main subject was Mathematics, But also
excelled in Greek, Latin, English and
French Literature
– Earned a Masters Degree in 1791
1793 – Elected a Fellow of Jesus College
Entered the Church – although some felt his speech
impediment would hinder his career
Leaves position in 1804 due to his marriage
Life and Times – Profession
1796 – Ordained in Anglican
Church, and becomes a Country
Parson in Okewood Chapel in
Surrey (near his parents’ home in
Albury)
– Discovers life of the poor was a constant
battle for the necessities of life
– "It cannot fail to be remarked by those who
live much in the country, that the sons of
labourers are very apt to be stunted in their
growth, and are a long while arriving at
maturity. Boys that you would guess to be
fourteen or fifteen, are upon enquiry,
frequently found to be eighteen or nineteen.“
Life and Times – Profession
• 1798 – First Publication of An Essay on The Principle of
Population (several expanded re-issues over the next two
decades)
– Family historian J. O. Payne notes “his Essay originated in a discussion
which he held with his father, Daniel, on the 'perfectibility of society,'
and that the parent, struck by the arguments and observations of his
son, recommended him to commit them to paper, and afterwards to
give them publication”
• Begins extensive travel – allowing him to observe life in
foreign land, prices of commodities and services, wealth and
health, laws, war effects, climate, etc.
• 1805 – Becomes Britain’s First Professor of Political Economy
at East India Company College in Haileybury (a post he holds
until his death)
• 1818 – Selected as a Fellow in the English Royal Society
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
I.
Population level is severely limited by
subsistence
II. When the means of subsistence increase,
population increases
III. Population pressures stimulate increases in
productivity
IV. Increases in productivity stimulate further
population growth
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
V.
VI.
Since this productivity can
never keep up with the
potential of population
growth for long, there must
be strong checks on
population to keep it in line
with carrying capacity
It is through individual
cost/benefit decisions
regarding sex, work, and
children that population and
production are expanded or
contracted
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
VII. Checks will come into operation as
population exceeds subsistence level
VIII. The nature of these checks will have
significant effect on the rest of the
sociocultural system—Malthus points
specifically to misery, vice, and poverty
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
“I think I may fairly make
two postulata.
First, That food is necessary
to the existence of man.
Secondly, That the passion
between the sexes is
necessary and will remain
nearly in its present state.
An Essay on The Principle Of Population
• In Malthus’s worldview, total population
will remain fairly stagnant in the long run
because growth in population occurs at a
geometric (exponential) rate, and food
supply grows at an arithmetic (linear)
rate.
• When population > food supply, natural
checks such as famine and war will bring
population down to a sustainable level.
An Essay on The Principle Of Population
Previously, high fertility was
thought to be advantageous
because it increased a
country’s total output.
Malthus convinced many
economists that although a
larger population increases
total output, output per
capita (and the standard of
living) would decline.
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
“The power
of population is so superior to the power of the
earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature
death must in some shape or other visit the human
race. The vices of mankind are active and able
ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the
great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work
themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly
seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in
terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands.
Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine
stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with
the food of the world “
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
PREVENTIVE CHECKS – reduces the birth rate
• Malthus approved of “Moral Restraint”
– Postpone marriage – and no sex before then!
– Forget about marriage! Be celibate!
• Malthus disapproved “Vice” (even though
these methods also reduced birth rate)
– Prostitution
– Birth control
– Homosexuality
An Essay on The Principle Of
Population
POSITIVE CHECKS – increases the death rate
• Malthus elevated these to natural phenomena
or laws - unfortunate evils needed to limit the
population
– Famine
– Misery
– Plague
– War!
• Positive checks were “punishment” for those
who did not practice “Moral Restraint”
(OUCH!)
Malthusian Model
The main principle of the Malthusian Model, like
Malthus’s Essay, is that population and standard
of living do not grow in the long run.
We start with the consumers: They consume
food and provide I unit of labor to produce this
food (the output )
Malthusian Model
Yt = f(At, , Lt) = AtLt1- , 0 <  < 1
Output at time t is a function of inputs
productivity, land and labor at that time.
Note, there is no subscript for time for land ();
this is due to the fact that land is a fixed amount
(all of the land is cultivated to produce food at
all times in history).
Malthusian Model
Population is growing at an exponential rate:
Lt+1 / Lt = g(yt)
Where g(yt) is a function of output per capita:
yt = Yt / Lt
Therefore, output per capita
yt = AtLt1- / Lt = (At)/ Lt
Malthusian Model
Using the formula for output per capita, we see
the next period’s output per capita to be
yt+1 = (At+1)/ Lt+1
Using the formula for population growth (and
some algebra chicanery), we get
yt+1 / yt = [(At+1/ At)/ g(y)]
Malthusian Model
yt+1 / yt = [(At+1/ At)/ g(y)]
The growth of output is equal to the ratio of the
growth in productivity and the growth of
population (which is exponential – hence the
exponent ).
Malthusian Model
yt+1 / yt = [(At+1/ At)/ g(y)]
Is there a better way to describe this???
Let this guy tell you …
Problems with Malthusian Theory
Critics feel that Malthus appears to target the poor and
extremely pessimistic (especially during this optimistic
time).
– They believed he was more interested in maintaining a
large, hard-working, poorly-paid population than
establishing effective measures of limiting population
growth
– Felt he was overly “pessimistic” and appealed to
conservatives as a defense of the status quo
• Malthus: vices and misery that plague society are due to
prolific fertility rather than evil human institutions
• Poverty and misery are the natural punishment for the
failure of the lower class to restrain their reproduction
Problems with Malthusian Model
Problems with Malthusian Model
Because Malthus was writing at the beginning of
England’s industrial revolution, he didn’t include
improvements in agricultural technology into his
theory.
In the centuries prior to his lifetime, frequent
and wide-spread famines were the norm. His
theory was revolutionary in explaining WHY
these famines happen.
Malthus predicted that the next great famine
would happen in the coming decades. (But it
didn’t!)
Problems with Malthusian Model
Because Malthus was writing at the beginning of
England’s industrial revolution, he didn’t include
the idea of continuous innovation in technology
into his theory.
A one-time improvement in technology results
in a temporary increase in standard of living …
But, as history shows …
Problems with Malthusian Model
Principles of Political Economy (1820)
Malthus introduced the idea of a demand
schedule in the modern sense (as the conceptual
relationship between prices and the quantity
sought by buyers rather than the empirical
relationship between prices and quantities
sold).
He also paid much attention to the short-run
stability of prices.
Principles of Political Economy (1820)
Most famously, Malthus denied
the validity of Say's Law and
argued that there could be a
"general glut" of goods.
Malthus believed that economic crises were
characterized by a general excess supply
caused by insufficient consumption. His
defense of the Corn Laws rested partly on the
need for landlord consumption to "make up"
for shortfalls in demand and thus avert crisis.
Jean-Baptiste Say
(1767-1832)
quoted
(incorrectly) as
"supply creates its
own demand".
Malthus’ Influence
• Malthus’s assertion that a population cannot
grow more than its food supply had a
profound impact on economic thought and
the development of other disciplines.
• The influence of Malthus and his Essay was
substantial in his own time as well as on
subsequent economic thought throughout the
next two centuries.
Immediate Influence on Public Policy
The Essay on Population caused an immediate
stir and quickly affected policy
– Concerns about Malthus’s population predictions
influenced the decision to conduct the first
modern British Census in 1801
– Malthus devoted an entire chapter to bashing
Britain’s Poor Laws, which levied taxes to support
the indigent. He believed the Poor Laws
encouraged the poor to have more children –
there must be no government relief for the poor.
Immediate Influence on Public Policy
Malthus and the Poor Laws
– In the 1830s Malthus’s writings influenced British
Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and the
Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.
• By 1840, the only way for the poor to receive assistance
was to enter a Poor House
• To discourage people from entering Poor Houses and
relying on public assistance for support, conditions
were terrible, as noted in writings of the time by
Charles Dickens and Frances Trollope.
Immediate Influence on Public Policy
Corn Laws (1815-1846) controversy:
– Tariffs were placed on imported grain (basically a minimum
price on grain)
– Growing population placed pressure on food supply, so it was
necessary to import grain
• Outside factors, like the Napoleonic wars, caused import levels to
drop, and domestic grain prices to rocket
• When wars ended, English landlords – who controlled Parliament –
worried domestic grain prices would fall; they pressured for Corn
Laws
• Other business interests, however, wanted Corn Laws repealed: it
prevented free trade
– Malthus believed Corn Laws were good, and that it would
be dangerous for Britain to rely on imported corn
• lower prices would reduce laborers' wages, and manufacturers
would lose out due to the fall in purchasing power of landlords and
farmers
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Malthus’s work had substantial impact on the
developing field of economics. Although his
prediction that another European famine was
only decades away proved false, his ideas on
population were revolutionary and directly
influenced the work of his contemporary
David Ricardo, and later Alfred Marshall.
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Malthus and Ricardo
• Around 1810 Malthus read a series of
tracts by stockbroker David Ricardo on
monetary questions
• Malthus wrote Ricardo a letter, and
the two corresponded for years. They
were good friends, but held opposite
views an almost every economic issue
of the time
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Malthus and Ricardo (cont’d)
• In 1815, Malthus, Ricardo, Robert Torrens and
Edward West simultaneously discovered the
differential theory of rent
• Malthus’s An Inquiry into the Nature and
Progress of Rent, and the Principles by Which
it is Regulated was the first of the four to be
published
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Malthus and Ricardo (cont’d)
• Previously, rent had been considered a factor
of production, but Malthus argued that it was
merely a deduction from the surplus
• Malthus argued that rent is enabled by 3
things:
• Agricultural production yields a surplus
• Wage-fertility dynamics ensure that the price of
corn remains above its cost of productions
• Fertile land is scarce
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Malthus and Ricardo (cont’d)
• Ricardo’s own 1815 essay on the subject of
rent was in response to Malthus’s
• He dismissed most of Malthus’s arguments and
claimed that his third – fertile land is scarce - is
enough to explain rent
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Malthus and Ricardo (cont’d)
• Ricardo and Malthus continued to have differing opinons
and influence eachother’s work.
• Ricardo combined his own theory of profits with Malthus’s
theory of rents to create what we now call the “classical”
statement of the theory of distribution
• Ricardo’s 1817 work On the Principles of Political Economy and
Taxation, which set down the doctrine of the Classical School on
value, distribution, and production, incorporated the “natural
wage” version of Malthus’s population theory and his theory of
rent
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
• Malthus influenced the Classical Economists but was
never fully convinced of their doctrines
• In 1820 he published Principles of Economics, in which
differs from the Classical Ricardians on several points
– Malthus introduced the idea of a demand schedule – analyzing
the conceptual relationship between prices and the quantity
demanded in the market rather than analyzing the empirical
relationship between prices and the quantity sold
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
• While Classical Economics was the school
of Ricardo, Malthus had his own group of
followers.
• The Neo-Malthusian movement was
born with the publication Francis Place’s
Proofs on the Principle of Population in
1822.
Not a Neo• Neo-Malthusians hold to Malthus’s
Malthusian
theories about over population and
argue that on the global scale, war and
famine will not end until population
pressure is reduced
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
• Neo Malthusians (cont’d)
• Neo-Malthusians argue for contraception (which Malthus was against)
as a means to control global population
• A resurgence of neo-Malthusian principles was heard in the 1960s and
1970s
– Julian Huxley’s Evolutionary Humanism, 1964, called for a World
Population Policy
– Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, 1968, predicted disaster for
humankind over the next two decades as population outgrows
resources.
– 1972’s The Limits to Growth published by the Club of Rome modeled
the exhaustion of natural resources over the coming decades if current
trends continued. It was influential in the establishment of Federal
controls on pollution and general awareness of the cumulative impact
of humans on the Earth.
Immediate Influence on Economic
Thought
Amartya Sen (born 1933)
Nobel Prize winner, 1998
Acknowledged the “Malthusian” causes of
famine, but also believed that Malthus’s
contributions added to the problem of
starvation!
He believed that the “Malthusian
Optimism” – putting attention on food
output per capita – caused policy-makers
to concentrate on the wrong issues.
Immediate Influence
The Chinese government introduced the one-child
policy in 1979 to alleviate overpopulation, social
and environmental problems.
The policy is controversial both within and outside
China because of human rights issues it raises;
because of the manner in which the policy has been
implemented; and because of concerns about
negative economic and social consequences.
Immediate Influence on Other
Disciplines
An early believer in Malthus’s
population theory was the leading
creationist and natural theologian
writer of the time, William Paley.
– Natural Theology attempts to find
evidence of a supreme deity through
reason, science, and nature.
– Paley and Malthus both saw positive
checks on population as evidence of a
higher power
Immediate Influence on Other
Disciplines
Although Malthus was a Christian and
creationist, his work had a profound impact
on Charles Darwin and the emerging study
of evolution.
Evolutionists applied Malthus’s idea of
man’s “struggle for existence” to all plants
and animals. This struggle is the catalyst
for natural selection and “survival of the
fittest”
Immediate Influence on Other
Disciplines
• Malthus’s Influence on Evolution (cont’d)
– In his book Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin
called his theories “an application of the doctrines
of Malthus without the complicating factor of
human intelligence.”
• Through Malthus, Darwin recognized the significance of
competition between populations of the same species
as well as competition between species of plants and
animals
Immediate Influence on Other
Disciplines
"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".
Charles Darwin, from his autobiography. (1876)
Immediate Influence on Other
Disciplines
Most of Charles Dickens’s works
A Christmas Carol
David Copperfield
Oliver Twist
Hard Times
Charles Dickens
“Smith and Malthus Gradgind”
Aldous Huxley,
Brave New World (1932)
The “Malthusian belt”
Never
judge a
book by its
cover …
Malthusian Model and Today
Questions …
Is it still relevant?
Is it completely wrong?
What countries (if any) are affected?
Is famine unavoidable?
If population is unchecked, what happens?
Is this on the final?