Thomas Robert Malthus

Born near Dorking on February 14/17, 1766 and died on the 23rd of December 1834 in St. Catherine. He was a demographer and economist and wrote the “Essay on the Principle of Population” in 1798 where he expressed his theory on population growth and its impact on society.

In this essay, he observed that plants and animals produce far more descendants than can be supplied by nature which leads to a natural shortening of the population caused by a lack of food supply. Malthus transferred this idea to the human population and claimed that humans are also able to overproduce until the limit of food supply is reached. To his mind, the human population increases geometrically while food production only increases arithmetically which leads, at the end, to the outbreak of the famine as a natural outcome. To counter this development, he suggests limiting the family size of the lower classes to a number they can supply on their own. This would not only prevent the effects of the famine but also the decline of living conditions in Britain for which food shortage, overpopulation and the lower classes’ irresponsibility were seen as the main reasons.

Encyclopædia Britannica. Thomas Robert Malthus. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 14 Nov. 2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/360609/Thomas-Robert-Malthus>.

Heineberg, Heinz. Einführung in die Anthropogeographie/ Humangeographie. Paderborn: Publishing House?? 3 ed. 2007

University of California Museum of Palaeontology. Thomas Malthus. 14. Nov. 2010 http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html