Editing Malthusianism (section)

== History ==

=== Malthus' theoretical argument ===
In 1798, [[Thomas Robert Malthus|Thomas Malthus]] proposed his hypothesis in ''[[An Essay on the Principle of Population]]''.

He argued that although human populations tend to increase, the happiness of a nation requires a like increase in food production. "The happiness of a country does not depend, absolutely, upon its poverty, or its riches, upon its youth, or its age, upon its being thinly, or fully inhabited, but upon the rapidity with which it is increasing, upon the degree in which the yearly increase of food approaches to the yearly increase of an unrestricted population."<ref>{{cite book |first=Thomas Robert |last=Malthus |author-link=Thomas Robert Malthus |title=An Essay on the Principle of Population |title-link=An Essay on the Principle of Population |date=1798 |chapter=VII}}</ref>

However, the propensity for population increase also leads to a natural cycle of abundance and shortages:
{{Blockquote|We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population...increases the number of people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which before supported seven millions, must now be divided among seven millions and a half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward a decrease; while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise. The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before. During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great, that population is at a stand. In the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to employ more labour upon their land; to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and improve more completely what is already in tillage; till ultimately the means of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period from which we set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened; and the same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to happiness are repeated.|Thomas Malthus, 1798. ''An Essay on the Principle of Population'', Chapter II.}}

{{Blockquote|Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.|Thomas Malthus, 1798. ''An Essay on the Principle of Population''. Chapter VII, p. 61<ref name="Oxford World's Classics reprint">Oxford World's Classics reprint</ref>}}

Malthus faced opposition from economists both during his life and since. A vocal critic several decades later was [[Friedrich Engels]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |author-link=Friedrich Engels |year=1892 |publisher=Swan Sonnenschein & Co |location=London |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.html}} Engels wrote that poverty and poor living conditions in 1844 had largely disappeared.</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite book |title=The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100 |last=Fogel |first=Robert W. |author-link=Robert Fogel |year=2004 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=London |isbn=978-0521808781}}{{page needed|date=December 2022}}</ref>

=== Early history ===
Malthus was not the first to outline the problems he perceived. The original essay was part of an ongoing intellectual discussion at the end of the 18th century regarding the origins of [[poverty]]. ''Principle of Population'' was specifically written as a rebuttal to thinkers like [[William Godwin]] and the [[Marquis de Condorcet]], and Malthus's own father who believed in the perfectibility of humanity. Malthus believed humanity's ability to reproduce too rapidly doomed efforts at perfection and caused various other problems.

His criticism of the [[working class]]'s tendency to reproduce rapidly, and his belief that this led to their poverty, brought widespread criticism of his theory.<ref name="Neurath 1994 7">{{cite book |title=From Malthus to the Club of Rome and Back |last=Neurath |first=Paul |year=1994 |publisher=[[M.E. Sharpe]] |isbn=978-1563244070 |page=5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_ZHx3GO_xLMC&pg=PA54 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

Malthusians perceived ideas of charity to the poor, typified by [[Tory]] [[paternalism]], were futile, as these would only result in increased numbers of the poor; these theories played into [[British Whig Party|Whig]] economic ideas exemplified by the [[Poor Law Amendment Act 1834]]. The act was described by opponents as "a Malthusian bill designed to force the poor to emigrate, to work for lower wages, to live on a coarser sort of food",<ref>{{cite book |first=Adrian |last=Desmond |author-link=Adrian Desmond |title=The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z7LeJ4i0-vAC&pg=PA126 |year=1992 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |isbn=978-0226143743 |page=126 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> which initiated the construction of [[workhouse]]s despite riots and arson.

Malthus revised his theories in later editions of ''An Essay on the Principles of Population'', taking a more optimistic tone, although there is some scholarly debate on the extent of his revisions.<ref name="intellectual roots"/> According to Dan Ritschel of the Center for History Education at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, <blockquote>The great Malthusian dread was that "indiscriminate charity" would lead to exponential growth in the population in poverty, increased charges to the public purse to support this growing army of the dependent, and, eventually, the catastrophe of [[national bankruptcy]]. Though Malthusianism has since come to be identified with the issue of general over-population, the original Malthusian concern was more specifically with the fear of over-population by the dependent poor.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.umbc.edu/history/CHE/InstPg/RitDop/Discovery-of-poverty-Malthusianism.htm |title="Outcast London" and the late-Victorian Discovery of Poverty: Malthusianism and the New Poor Law |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070621105033/http://www.umbc.edu/history/CHE/InstPg/RitDop/Discovery-of-poverty-Malthusianism.htm |archive-date=21 June 2007}}</ref></blockquote>{{Eugenics sidebar}}
One proponent of Malthusianism was the novelist [[Harriet Martineau]] whose circle of acquaintances included [[Charles Darwin]], and the ideas of Malthus were a significant influence on the [[inception of Darwin's theory|inception of Darwin's theory of evolution]].<ref name=JvW>{{cite web |url=http://darwin-online.org.uk/darwin.html |title=Charles Darwin: gentleman naturalist: A biographical sketch |first=John van |last=Wyhe |date=2006}}</ref> Darwin was impressed by the idea that population growth would eventually lead to more organisms than could possibly survive in any given environment, leading him to theorize that organisms with a relative advantage in the struggle for survival and reproduction would be able to pass their characteristics on to further generations. Proponents of Malthusianism were in turn influenced by [[Darwinism|Darwin's ideas]], both schools coming to influence the field of [[eugenics]]. [[Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr.]] advocated "humane birth selection through humane birth control" in order to avoid a Malthusian catastrophe by eliminating the "unfit".<ref name="intellectual roots"/>

Malthusianism became a less common intellectual tradition as the 19th century advanced, mostly as a result of technological increases, the opening of new territory to agriculture, and increasing international trade.<ref name="intellectual roots"/> Although a "[[conservation movement|conservationist]]" movement in the United States concerned itself with resource depletion and natural protection in the first half of the twentieth century, Desrochers and Hoffbauer write, "It is probably fair to say ... that it was not until the publication of Osborn's and Vogt's books [1948] that a Malthusian revival took hold of a significant segment of the American population".<ref name="intellectual roots"/>

=== Modern formulation ===
[[File:Oded Galor pic.jpg|left|thumb|[[Oded Galor]]]]
The modern formulation of the Malthusian theory was developed by Quamrul Ashraf and [[Oded Galor]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Ashraf |first1=Quamrul |last2=Galor |first2=Oded |date=2011 |title=Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch |journal=[[American Economic Review]] |volume=101 |issue=5 |pages=2003–2041 |doi=10.1257/aer.101.5.2003 |pmid=25506082 |pmc=4262154}}</ref> Their theoretical structure suggests that as long as higher income has a positive effect on [[reproductive success]], and land is a [[limiting factor]] in resource production, then technological progress has only a temporary effect on income [[per capita]] (per person). While in the short run technological progress increases income per capita, resource abundance created by technological progress would enable population growth, and would eventually bring the per capita income back to its original long-run level.

The testable prediction of the theory is that during the Malthusian epoch technologically advanced economies were characterized by higher population density, but their level of income per capita was not different from the level in societies that are technologically backward.