Malthusianism

Malthusianism is the belief that a rapidly growing human population faces imminent starvation and misery as it exceeds the Earth's capacity to feed it. The concepts of Malthusianism are attributable to the Reverend Thomas Malthus, who first proposed his ideas—during the middle of the Industrial Revolution—in the 1798 volume An Essay on the Principle of Population. In this book, Malthus contends that humankind is quickly putting into production all arable land from which to feed its population. Because human population growth increases exponentially, whereas food production can only increase linearly, the size of the population will be checked by misery (disease, famine, or war) and vice (moral abominations) as it exceeds the planet's ability to support it.

Malthus specifically based his arguments on the fact that both food and “passion between the sexes” are necessary for human survival. However, when human population levels exceed the planet's carrying capacity to support them, a host of preventative and positive checks take effect to bring them back to a sustainable level. Preventative checks encompass a variety of actions taken by humans that both directly and indirectly lead to reduced fertility. For example, when the population grows larger, the overall economic pie is sliced more thinly. Therefore, more well-to-do men find it difficult to quickly amass sufficient wealth to support a wife, thus prolonging bachelorhood. Preventative checks also include vice—activities that satiate the “passions between the sexes” but minimize population growth. Examples of what is termed vice are prostitution, contraception, abortion, and infanticide. Malthus saw a lack of preventative checks leading to positive population checks. A positive check in the form of food shortages and starvation subjects the poorer among us to high infant mortality rates, undernourishment, and a general state of misery.

Malthus strongly argued against England's “poor laws” as being counterproductive to the needs of the indigent population. He contended that reducing the immediate misery of a few poor by providing them with food and clothing instills in these recipients a false sense of economic security in their ability to afford more children. With more mouths to feed, aided families return to their original states of destitution. Thus, governmental welfare programs promote procreation, which ultimately subjugates a larger segment of the population to misery.

Another concern that Malthus voiced—similar to his ideas on welfare—and that was shared by the economist David Ricardo was the stimulative effect that the Industrial Revolution would have on population growth. They argued that industrial workers could [Page 297]demand higher wages than agriculturalists. With higher wages, these workers would feel a sense of economic security, leading to a desire for larger families than their agrarian counterparts. Therefore, a transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy would further compound stated predictions for an impending population calamity.

Although Malthus accurately characterized the growth of the human population and agricultural production before the Industrial Revolution, his prognostications for explosive population growth following industrialization, and food scarcity leading to mass famine and misery for the poor, did not come to fruition. Other than the fact that his economic ideas regarding the effect of industrialization on human population growth were false, Malthus also failed to consider that per area food production is not necessarily a static process—unaffected by the advent of agricultural technology and changing methods of cropping.

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