Above: Thomas Robert Malthus
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Malthusianism and Neo-Malthusianism
On Tuesday, I brought up the reference of Malthus in Dickens' Hard Times, and I wanted to give some more information on his work and the consequent theories that were developed. To recap: Malthus was a British demographer who wrote that increases in food supply would never be able to match the exponential growth of the human population. Furthermore, he observed that food surpluses lead to a growth in the population until the lower class faces poverty. He explained that humans tend to simply produce more in times of surplus rather than maintain the population and have a higher standard of life. This concept is known as Malthusianism and has led to many discussions and theories regarding demography -- most notably Neo-Malthusianism. The phrase was first used in 1877 by Dr. Samuel Van Houten and described the need for population control to maintain the state of society at a certain level. The resultant movement advocates for birth control in the form of abstinence and contraception and emphasizes the danger of overpopulation. The topic faces heavy criticism, specifically from religious groups, but has had its influence in modern society as demonstrated by population policies in China and India.
Above: Thomas Robert Malthus
Above: Thomas Robert Malthus
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2 comments:
I would like to comment that while Malthus has been very influential, many of his ideas regarding famines are pretty flawed. At the time Malthus was writing, there was some evidence that population was beginning to increase exponentially while resources and production seemed to only be increasing arithmetically, which would cause the population to grow too quickly and eventually lead to a lack of adequate food. However, the past couple of centuries of economic and population growth have effectively proven Malthus wrong as the population continues to skyrocket. More humans can produce more economic output and food and thus feed themselves due to increasing productivity. In the future, growing populations could be an issue with a lack of resources but not due to a population growing too quickly so much as because of a limited capacity of the earth in general. For this reason, it's kind of problematic when people like Malthus use his theories to explain famines as natural, as he did when he argued that the Irish should not be helped during their famine. Famines are caused not by a lack of resources, but rather by an issue of distribution of resources. When there was famine in Ireland, people had enough food in Britain. During modern famines in poorer nations, there is still more than enough food in developed nations to alleviate such famines. So while Malthus was an interesting and important thinker, his theories do not generally apply to typical famines, which are manmade, not natural.
Wow, I'm glad you brought that up, Bryce. That's an interesting fact, and it really does change my perspective on Hard Times as well as Malthus' views themselves. For one, since a growing population creates a growing workforce, the economy is stimulated and the overall quality of life should increase. This almost ties more into Hard Times than Malthus' actual views as both Gradgrind and Bounderby were self-made men who by the fruit of their own labor were able to transcend societal boundaries. Moreover, this concept relates to Adam Smith's hypotheses regarding capitalist ventures and how they sustained the economy. Your comment makes me question Malthus' inclusion in this piece more.
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