NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... the discussion was Ricardo's 'Principles' in 1817, which set down the doctrine of the Classical School on value. Malthus was never comfortable as a member of the Classical school. Nowhere is this more evident than in Malthus's own essay, 'Principles of Economics' (1820). He differs from the Classical Ricardians at several points.
For example, Malthus introduced the idea of a demand schedule in the modern sense, as the conceptual relationship between prices and the quantity demanded by buyers rather than the empirical relationship between prices and quantities sold. He also paid a good deal of attention to the short-run stability of prices, insisting on a labor-commanded theory of value. Malthus also denied the validity of Say's Law and argued that there could be a "general glut" of goods. He 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 property owner consumption to make up for shortfalls in demand and by doing this avert the crisis. In the time between Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations and Rev. Thomas Malthus Essay on the Principle of Population, the French revolution had caused the downfall of the old social system without improving the condition of the French people. A succession of bad harvests had impoverished the agricultural districts of England, while her credit had become so impaired by the recent wars as to render very hard the importation of supplies from abroad. Although, the rapid development of the textile and other industries through the recent mechanical inventions had brought forth the existence of new towns, and greatly stimulated the increase of population. The system of public allowances of money to all pauper children encouraged improvident marriages among the poorer classes.
Although there had been a considerable increase in the national wealth as a whole, the working classes had received none of the benefit. Increased production seemed to mean a disproportionate increase in population, and a decrease in the subsistence of the poor. William Godwin, a disciple of the French revolutionary philosophers, chiefly in his work Political Justice, had been defending the theory that all the evils of society arose from defective social institutions, and that there was more than enough wealth for all, if it were only evenly distributed. Malthus replied to this position with his Essay on the Principle of Population. His thesis was that population constantly tends to outrun subsistence, but that it is held in check by vice (abortion, infanticide, prostitution) and by misery in the form of war, plague, famine, and unnecessary disease. If all persons were provided with sufficient subsistence, and these checks removed, the relief would be only temporary: for the increase of marriages and birth would soon produce a population far in excess of the food supply.
The first edition of Malthus work had a definite polemical purpose, the refutation of a communistic scheme of society. Its arguments were general and popular rather than systematic or scientific. They were based upon facts easily observed, and upon what the average person would expect to happen if vice and misery ceased to operate as checks to population. The second edition of the essay came out in 1803 and differed from the first so much in size and content as to constitute, in the words of the reverend himself, a whole new work. In the first chapter of the new edition, he declared that the constant tendency of all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it had not thus far received sufficient attention.
Before attempting to prove the existence of this tendency, he inquired what would be the natural increase of population if left to exert itself in perfect freedom under the most favorable circumstances of human industry. Based on North America during the century and a half preceding 1800, and from the opinions of some economists, he concluded that population when unchecked goes on doubling itself every 25 yrs, or increases in a geometric ratio. A brief examination of the possibilities of food increase convinced him that this could never be faster than in an arithmetical ratio. Applying these conclusions to England with its 11, 000, 000 inhabitants in 1800, he found that the natural result at the end of the nineteenth century would be a population of 176, 000, 000, and subsistence enough for only 55, 000, 000. The remainder of the first volume is occupied with an account of the positive checks, that is, vice and misery, which had thus far concealed this disastrous discrepancy between population and subsistence in the various countries of the world. In the second volume he discusses the means which have been proposed to prevent an undue increase in population, and, therefore, to render unnecessary the action of the positive checks.
Some of the means that he recommended were abstention from public provision for the encouragement of population increase and for the relief of the poor, and abolition of existing laws of this kind, especially the Poor Law of England. His chief recommendation was the practice of what he called moral restraint. That is, people who were unable to maintain a family properly should line in chaste celibacy until they had overcome this economic disability. In the new edition of his work, consequently, Malthus not only pointed out a new check to population, but also advocated if, in order to prevent and forestall the operation of the cruel and immoral checks set in motion by vice and misery. The theory may be briefly characterized thus: In its most extreme and abstract form it is false; in its more moderate form it has never been and never can be demonstrated; even if true, it is so hypothetical, and subject to so many disturbing factors, that it is if no practical value or importance.
It is, of course, abstractly or theoretically possible that population may exceed subsistence, temporarily and locally, or permanently and universally. This possibility has been frequently realized among savage peoples, and occasionally among civilized peoples, as in the case of famine. However, the theory of Malthus implies something more than an abstract possibility or a temporary and local actuality. It asserts that population shows a constant tendency to outrun the food supply, a tendency, therefore, that is always about to pass into a reality if it is not counteracted.
In all six editions of his work that appeared during Malthus lifetime, this tendency is described in the formula that population tends to increase in geometrical progression. While, the utmost increase in subsistence that can be expected is according to an arithmetical ratio through any considerable period; but we cannot show that such an increase, by natural means, is physiologically impossible. All that it implies is that every married couple should have on the average four children, who would themselves marry and have the same number of children to each couple, and that this ratio should be kept up indefinitely. It is not, however, true that the means of living can be increased only in an arithmetical ratio. During the nineteenth century, this ratio was considerably exceeded in many countries. Malthus view on this point was based upon a rather limited knowledge of what had been happening before his time.
He did not foresee the great improvements in production and transportation, which, a few years later, so greatly augmented the means of subsistence in every civilized country. In other words, he compared the potential fecundity of man, the limits of which were fairly well known, with the potential fertility of the earth and the potential achievements of human invention, neither of which was known even approximately. This was a bad method, and its outcome in the hands of Malthus was a false theory. So far as we can see at present, the Malthusian theory, even if true in the abstract and hypothetical, assumes the absence of so many factors which are always likely to be present, that it is not deserving of serious attention, except as a means of intellectual exercise. As a law of population, it is about as valuable as many of the other laws handed down by the classical economists.
It is about as remote from reality as the economic man. Although, this theory met with immediate and almost universal acceptance. The book in which it was developed went through five editions while Malthus was still living, and exerted a remarkable influence upon economists, sociology, and legislation during the first half of the nineteenth century. Aside from a section of the Socialists, the most important group of writers rejecting the Malthusian theory have been Catholic economists, such as Literature, Devas, Peace, Antoine, etc. Being pessimistic and individualistic, the teachings of Malthus agreed thoroughly with the temper and ideas of his time. Distress was deep and general, and the political and economic theories of the day favored the policy of laissez faire.
The most notable results of the work and teaching of Malthus may be summed up like this: he contributed absolutely nothing of value to human knowledge or welfare. The facts that he described and the remedies that he proposed had long been sufficiently obvious and sufficiently known. While he emphasized and in a striking way drew attention to the possibility of general overpopulation, he greatly exaggerated it, and thus misled and misdirected public opinion. Had he been better informed, and seen the facts of population in their true relations, he would have realized that the proper remedies were to be sought in better social and industrial arrangements, a better distribution of wealth, and improved moral and religious education. As things have happened, his teaching have directly or indirectly led to a vast amount of social error, negligence, suffering, and immorality.
April, 2001 web > Thomas Malthus (1766 - 1834 web > The International Society of Malthus web > Thomas Robert Malthus, 1766 - 1834. web > The Victorian Web; Thomas Robert Malthus. 1995 http: // 65. 107. 211. 206 /victorian / econom ics / malthus . html Background Briefing: Malthus on Population. September 4, 1994 web > The Victorian Web; Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834). 1988 http: // 65. 107. 211. 206 /victorian / history / Malthus. html Thomas Malthus.
August 13, 1996 web > Thomas Malthus: web > The Malthus Syndrome. April, 1998 web > Reclaiming Malthus. Frank W. Elwell. November 2, 2001 web >
Free research essays on topics related to: food supply, classical school, h 2, nineteenth century, thomas malthus
Research essay sample on Thomas Malthus Nineteenth Century
