Robert Malthus' Theory of Population

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the production of the food supply isn’t enough to offset the dangers that he had predicted, Malthus realized the solution needed to be found in decreasing the growth rate of population. Malthus broke up the different types of solutions into two categories, preventive checks, and positive checks. Preventive checks are classified as anything that will lower the birth rate to help slow down the growth of the population. A preventive check is anything that will raise the death rate to lower the population. Malthus gave examples for both types of these solutions in his essay.

Positive checks were looked at as more “natural” solutions compared to the preventive checks but still aren’t all naturally occurring checks. Examples of positive checks that Malthus talks about are Hunger, disease, and war. The idea behind these solutions is that as the population reaches and even passes the food supply then these checks will begin and kill off enough people to bring the population back down to the below the food supply and will balance back out. Malthus believed that this cycle of war, starvation, and disease will keep cycling as population fluctuated above and below the food supply. This idea is represented in figure 2, the “*” represents where the positive checks will begin.

Key

_____ - Population

_____ - Food Supply

(Figure 2, “S-Cool, the Revision Website.” Population Models | S-Cool, the Revision Website)

Malthus believed these checks would prevent the food supply from completely running out and humans losing the ability to sustain life, but obviously not in the best way in terms of lifestyle. Malthus recommended the use of preventive checks to prevent the impending destruction that would come without it (Tushar 1).

Malthus looked at preventive checks as mankind’s ability to make a change in this issue. Obviously, human interaction to increase the death rate isn’t an option in any moral society so Malthus’ proposed preventive checks are based on lowering the birth rate. Examples of preventive checks Malthus gave were abortion, birth control, postponement of marriage, and celibacy. Abortion and birth control are an obvious solution, if you don’t have children and prevent pregnancy then you will see a decrease in population growth. Celibacy is another simple concept that if you stay unmarried and remain sexually abstinent then there you won’t have any children and once again you will lower the growth rate of the population. The idea of postponement of marriage was actually added by Malthus in his second edition of Essay on the Principle of Population. In this edition, the biggest change he made was the emphasis on “moral restraint”. Malthus’ idea behind postponement of marriage was for parents to wait to get married and have children until later in life so that they will be more prepared to provide for children and also encourage the idea of fewer children. This idea also relates to Malthus’ view on how the disproportionality between the growth of population and growth of food supply would increase poverty.

Malthus looked at people already living in poverty and realized the issue of these people having children that they are unable to support financially which made their financial status even worse and also the children are now born into poverty. Malthus believed that the postponement of marriage and having children would help ease the poverty of lower classes by allowing them to prepare more to have a family and also have fewer children to support. Malthus also believed in the idea of slowly abolishing “poor relief”, which was England’s government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Manthus wanted to slowly lower the number of people eligible for the help because he believed in the long term it wasn’t beneficial to prevent poverty but actually intensifies it. His argument was that the relief that is giving to the people eligible is given with no compensation for the goods that are being used so therefore, the compensation needs to be made up elsewhere causing the businesses that supply the goods to increase the prices of their other products and services to make up for the lost. This rise in prices leads to an increase in poverty in the long term because it’s now harder for people to make it out of poverty due to the higher prices. This was a surprising proposal coming from Malthus because he was a religious man and was raised on the idea of helping out others in need.

Being that he was a Christian and was a cleric he also mentioned how religion played a role in his population theory. The big question that was asked in the religious world when Malthus first proposed his theory was, how could God permit this suffering? Malthus’ answer to this question was that the constant threat of poverty and starvation served to teach the importance of hard work to not become fall to that level. In Malthus’ sixth edition he added this idea, “I believe that it is the intention of the Creator that the earth should be replenished; but certainly with a healthy, virtuous and happy population, not an unhealthy, vicious and miserable one” (Malthus 6th ed). With this statement, he is saying that he believes God is allowing this tragedy as a way to eliminate the weak and those unable to work hard enough to withstand the test he is creating. He believed that God is not being terrible and creating misery but rather creating motivation for those that are capable to work hard and create a healthy population.

Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population was filled with ideas and theories that not many other had thought about until he brought them into the spotlight. He not only thought about these ideas of catastrophe, economic change, religious views, and solutions to prevent it all, but he also gave research and evidence behind his ideas and plans. This work done by Malthus was extremely well thought out and truly a fascinating topic.

Works Cited

AAG Center for Global Geography Education, “Population and Natural Resources Module: Conceptual Framework.” Malthusian Theory of Population, 18 Sept. 2011

Hunt, E. K., and Mark Lautzenheiser. History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective 3rd Ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Malthus, Thomas Robert. An Essay on the Principle of Population, or a View of its Past and