Thomas Malthus

Thomas Robert Malthus (born on February 14th 1766 - died on December 23rd 1834) is a Pasteur Anglican and a British economist of the traditional École. It is known especially for its work on the problem of the relationship between the population and the production, analyzed from the pessimistic point of view, completely opposed to the idea smithienne of a harmonious and stable balance. Its name gave in the language running an adjective: " malthusien" to characterize a preserving frame of mind which opposes the investment and fears the scarcity and doctrines, the Malthusianisme, which imposes an active policy of control of the population.

Biography

Malthus was born on February 14th 1766 in Dorking, in the Surrey, sixth child of an easy family. His/her father is a personal friend of David Hume and a relation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. From 1784, Malthus studies with Jesus College with Cambridge where it obtains a pulpit in 1793. He becomes Pasteur Anglican in 1797.

In 1798, it publishes without name of author: " Essay one the principle off population… " , which is an immense success and starts many polemics. Malthus then undertakes to look further into its research and travels on the continent, visiting the Denmark, the Sweden and the Russia. In 1803, it gives a new edition, very increased, of its Test and the sign of its name. The repercussion is considerable. Since 1805, it is the subject of a translation in French.

In 1804, he Marie and, thanks to the protection of William Pitt, becomes political professor of economy to the College of the English Compagnie of the Eastern Indies (in Haileybury, in the Hertfordshire), which there has just been founded for the agents of the Company, posts that he occupies until his death. He will have an unquestionable influence on the affected English civils servant in India.

He meets David Ricardo for the first time in 1811, the two men hold then an abundant correspondence which will enable him to develop new analyzes on the request. He composes of other works, in particular the Principles of political economy , published in 1820.

He dies in 1834 and is buried with the abbey of Bath, in the Somerset.

Malthus and the relationship between the population and the production

Context

The reading of Adam Smith and Hume attracts it early towards the political economy. It tries to apply the ideas of William Godwin, a rationalist of the 18th century, influenced by the thought of Rousseau and that of Condorcet and which believes in a progress without limits. Pasteur Malthus is in charge of the assistance to the poor in his commune; bad harvests of 1794 to 1800 generate misery and distress, and strike its imagination. He writes, in 1796, a test on the crisis which undergoes England which gives an opinion in favor of social justice and proposes to develop the system of public assistance with the poor, but he does not publish it.

However, the disciple of Godwin will revolt against his inspirer when he reads political justice (1793). In this work utopian, Godwin describes a company where an increasing population will know prosperity and justice. The divorce between the ideas of Godwin and brutal reality that it observes leads Malthus to change analysis radically. Its Essai on the principle of population is a lampoon in reaction against these ideas.

Against the “moral” reformers who allot to the government the responsibility for the evils of the company, Malthus wants to show that those actually come from natural laws and inescapable.

The thesis

He predicts that the population increases in an exponential way or geometrical (for example: 1,2,4,8,16,32,…) while the resources grow in an arithmetic way (1, 2,3,4,5,6,…). He concludes from it with the inevitability of demographic catastrophes, unless preventing the population from growing.

The old demographic regulators (wars and epidemics) not playing their part more, he imagines new obstacles, like the limitation of the size of the families or the retreat of the age of the marriage for the poor population - these restrictions being voluntary. He preaches also the stop of any help to needy, in opposition to the laws of Speenhamland.

The policies of demographic restriction inspired of Malthus are called “Malthusians”.

Economic facts

Although the sinister model of Malthus is exact (maximum fruitfulness, all the descendants of a generation cannot survive), its forecasts were not carried out. The new elements were:

the demographic Transition: as of 2005, " more half of humanity is already below the threshold of remplacement" generations (Gilles Pislon (INED, Six billion men ). It is however to note that in this gives:

humanity passed in the Années 1960 by one period when two men out of three suffered from malnutrition (in 2005, one out of seven)
the two countries most populated in the world - India and China - adopted policies Malthusians

the fact that part of the overflow of individuals would emigrate towards the the United States or the colonies, that it would contribute to emphasize.
the massive use of fossil energies came to distort the equation on which Malthus had based its reasoning in:

increasing the agricultural energy resources and outputs (Green revolution based on the mechanization of massive agriculture and the use of manures resulting from petrochemistry);
allowing international exchanges of goods of subsistence extremely low costs of transport;

Opposite theses

Comments

" Some obtained an easy victory over a remark that Mr. Malthus had made while passing, and had advanced mainly as an illustration, according to which one could perhaps suppose that the increase in food took place according to an arithmetical ratio, while the population grew according to a geometrical proportion; whereas any honest reader knows well that Mr. Malthus does not accentuate any this attempt unhappy to give a numerical precision to things which do not support it, and all those which are able to reason must see well that this remark is a superfluous addition with its argument." John Stuart Mill, Principles of political economy , II, XI, 6.

For Meillassoux, Malthus “confuses two concepts: those of absolute and relative overpopulation. However, there would be absolute overpopulation compared to the subsistence, if the population managed to grow until being able to reproduce beyond the nutritional capacities of the supplys in hand; it is thus about an unrealistic speculation. On the other hand, there is relative overpopulation when an existing population is private resources which enabled him to grow until its state present”.

Malthus, heralding the keynesiannism

Extremely scandal caused by this Test, Malthus passes the remainder of its life to give him a less literary appearance and more scientist, and to acquire in a field nearby, but different, the economy, by its treaties and its correspondence with David Ricardo, a great reputation of competence.

The theory of demand, one of the theories founders of the keynesiannism does not have as a Keynes father. Although he is regarded as the founder of the aforesaid the theory, one already finds it at Malthus. Malthus is one of the first economists (Jean de Sismondi develops also this idea at this time) to claim to theorize the crises known as of overproduction, concept that Jean-Baptiste Say refutes. This idea will be taken up by John Maynard Keynes to analyze the Crise of 1929.

Malthus, however Liberal, announced this theory to him. According to him, the offer does not create the request inevitably, because part of the incomes can be saved, which can cause a retreat of the economic activity. He thinks that the law of the outlets is false since the products are not exchanged solely against products, but much are exchanged against work. However certain work is unproductive (as those of the servants) whereas others are productive; he results from it that the level of the production and the level of the request are not necessarily identical. The capitalist system can thus fear an insufficiency of outlets

He writes in Principes of political economy: “… However these doctrines, with all the extension that to him seem me was given completely false, and in manifest contradiction with the great principles which regulate supply and”.

Works

Year Essay one the Principle off Future Population, ace it Affects the Improvement off Society with Remarks one the Speculations off Mr. Godwin, Mr. Condorcet, and Other Writers London, printed for J. Johnson, in St Paul' S Church-Yard , edition of 1798 and supplemented edition of 1803 translated into French in 1805: Test on the principle of population ,
Principes of political economy from the point of view of their application practices , 1820
Définitions in political economy and measurement of the value , 1823
An Investigation off the Couse off the Present High Price off Provisions (1800)
Observations one the Effects off the Corn Laws, and off has off Rise gold Fall in the Price Corn one the Agriculture and General Wealth off the Country (1814)
An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress off Rent, and the Principles by which it is regulated (1815)
The Grounds off year Opinion one the Policy off Restricting the Importation off Foreign Corn: intended ace year Appendix to (1815)

Notes and references of the article

See too

Malthusianism
Ester Boserup
Green revolution
social Darwinism
Cybernetic Stability
Self-regulation
List of the economists

External bonds and documents

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