Thomas Robert Malthus

Thomas Robert Malthus was an English demographer and economist. He was born on the 13th, 14th or 17th (depending on the source) of February 1766 near Surrey as the sixth child of Daniel and Henrietta Malthus and died on the 23rd of December 1834 in St. Catherine. His father was a cultivated gentleman who earned enough money through family connections in law and medicine. Therefore, the family was able to pay for Robert’s education and sent him amongst others to Jesus College at Cambridge in 1784 from which he graduated in 1788 as the ninth best mathematician of the year. After his studies he became a minister of the Church of England in 1789.

Malthus became popular for his “Essay on the Principle of Population” which he published anonymously as a first edition in 1798 and later, as an enlarged version, in 1803 as a response to the utopian ideas of William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet. Both thinkers were the opinion that “the elimination of private property would ensure equality for all; mind would triumph over body the body and the passion between the sexes would disappear…” (Huzel 17).

Malthus spent most of his essay arguing against this utopian view of mankind and promoted a rather pessimistic view. The central point of his essay is his theory on population growth and its impact on society. Right at the beginning, he postulates first that food is essential for human life and second that “the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state” (Huzel 18). From his observations of plants and animals he concludes that far more descendants are produced than can be supplied by nature. 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.

The gap between food production and the demand for food leads to a lack of food supply and a general decline of the living conditions. Therefore, this shortage must be countered by certain means of population control. As possible means he suggest ‘preventive’ checks for all social classes, like the delay of marriages and all forms of sexual intercourses which do not aim at procreation, and especially ‘positive’ checks for the poor to reduce their population. To his mind, war, diseases and the famine are justifiable means to reduce the family size to number they can supply on their own because he regards the labour class as irresponsible and not able to control their size on their own. These three factors together, food shortage, overpopulation and the lower classes’ irresponsibility are from Malthus’ point of view the main reasons for the decline of the living conditions in Britain at that time. As a result from this, he promoted also some other social changes; especially the abolishment of Poor Laws because the working class needs constantly to be forced to work as they “prefer ‘leisure’ and ‘drunkenness’ to ‘industry’ and ‘sobriety’” (Huzel 21).

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 3 ed. 2007

Huzel, James P. The popularization of Malthus in early nineteenth century England. Ashgate 2006

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