Outline the main elements of Malthus's theory of population. Why was the theory unsuccessful in accounting for economic and population growth in Britain over the last 200 years?
Outline the main elements of Malthus's theory of population. Why was the theory unsuccessful in accounting for economic and population growth in Britain over the last 200 years? Do you think the Malthusian approach has any relevance to world problems of population and resources?
"I say that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". (Malthus, cited in Sloman, J. Essentials of Economics. 2nd Ed. Harvester Wheatsheaf 2001)
This is a particularly interesting quote from Thomas Robert Malthus, an English political economist, born in Surrey. Malthus is most famous for his published pamphlet known as the "Essay on Population" (1978), which he decided to write in order to dispute notions of perfectibility which were still present as a result of the French revolution. His inspiration came from intellectual debates with his father on the perfectibility of society which prompted him to collate and write down his own ideas.
In his famous essay, Malthus presented his hypothesis that population growth always has a tendency to push above the food supply. "If the population of the world grows rapidly, then food output may not keep pace with it. There will be diminishing returns to labour as more and more people crowd onto the limited amount of land available". (Sloman, J, Essentials of Economics, 2nd Ed, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2001).
In many areas of the world, some of the poorest countries, particularly sub - Saharan Africa are suffering as a result of this. The land is hardly coping with the current population levels, therefore all that is required is a few bad harvests and the effects could be devastating. There would be again mass starvation which has previously been the case in both Sudan and Ethiopia in recent years.
In his essay on population Malthus stated that, "population when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the power in comparison with the second". Sloman, J, Essentials of economics, 2nd Ed, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2001.
Malthus tried to explain this by claiming that if the present population is one billion, humans would increase by 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64,128,256 and so on. On the other hand, however food would grow only by 1, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 whereas each individual owned one basket of food at the beginning and 200 years later, 256 people would have to share nine baskets of food. Even more extraordinary was that in one hundred years after that, 4,096 people would have to share13 baskets.
Basically, what Thomas Malthus was trying to explain was that the population of ...
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Malthus tried to explain this by claiming that if the present population is one billion, humans would increase by 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64,128,256 and so on. On the other hand, however food would grow only by 1, 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 whereas each individual owned one basket of food at the beginning and 200 years later, 256 people would have to share nine baskets of food. Even more extraordinary was that in one hundred years after that, 4,096 people would have to share13 baskets.
Basically, what Thomas Malthus was trying to explain was that the population of the world roughly every 25 years tends to double if it remains unchecked. Output of food is not able to keep up with the population growth and therefore results in a shortage. Evidently, if population is unchecked then it will inevitably exceed the supply of food.
By the population being "checked", Malthus was referring to "positive" and "preventative" checks. The "Positive" checks, Malthus was referring to, were the checks that raise the death rate i.e. war, famine and plagues. According to Malthus, for example, the check on population growth is starvation. Malthus states that, "As population grows, so food output per head will fall until, with more and more people starving, the death rate will rise. Only then will the population growth stabilise at the rate of growth of food output".
Malthus talks about the "preventative checks"; it is the preventative checks which lower birth rate. He also mentions the 'Poor laws'. Poor laws were introduced to administrate relief to poor and attempt to put them to work. Malthus suggested, "If only people would bridle their passion and delay marriage, they would be better off". (Buchholz,TG , New Ideas From Dead Economists, 1999).
Malthus is of the opinion that having a child reduces the standard of living of a family because they are so expensive to look after. Malthus illustrated a recurring cycle in which growth of population was regulated by "grim natural checks would keep wages at only a bare subsistence level. If wages rose higher, workers would have more children, leading to food shortages and an inescapable decline in the standard of living". (Buchholz, TG , New Ideas From Dead Economists, 1999).
Basically, Malthus believed that preventative checks were to be the move towards later marriages, which in turn would lead to fewer children and therefore lower the birth rate, hence a better standard of living.
Both positive and preventive checks, according to Malthus, keep human population from actually growing at a geometric rate.
At the time of writing his essay, Malthus thought Britain was almost close to its agricultural production threshold and that a doubling of Great Britain's population to 22 million was probably a greater increase than could be expected. To assume that Britain could feed a population double this size again (or 44 million people), "would be impossible to suppose," said Malthus, and this impossibility "must be evident to those who have the slightest acquaintance with agricultural subjects".
(Online, http://audibonpoulation.org/sections/news/12.28.02.01.cfm)
Malthus was wrong about agriculture. He failed to anticipate the degree to which outputs could be increased in Great Britain and the rest of the world thanks to machinery, fertilizer, modern farming practices, genetic improvements, and irrigation, basically modern technology. Today Great Britain has a population of over 60 million people who are definitely not starving. In fact, all over the world food production has risen faster than population growth, and this has been true for most of the last 200 years.
Below is a table of how well Malthus's theory performed
Year (1781-1951)
British population (millions)
Irish population (millions)
781
3
4
801
6
5
841
-
8
851
27
6.5
901
42
4.5
951
49
4
Rapid population growth pressurises food supply.
Although Malthus was correct, in theory on a logical basis, his propositions however were wrong. Technology was introduced and the industrial revolution unleashed a sequence of technological and institutional changes that revolutionised the way humans went about his business. The first of the key innovations happened in the textiles sector roughly about the 1720s. One result was that output per hour in cotton weaving, for example, rose 705 per cent between 1830 and 1860. The steam engine became, literally, the engine of growth for the industry from sometime in the 1780s.
The biggest revolution of all was still to come. Transporting manufactured goods was still very difficult. Only goods with a high value to weight ratio, were considered for selling in other markets, which meant that the market for goods was very limited. Rail networks and steam ships changed all this, however, as there was a massive expansion of rail networks worldwide, between machine tools sector, between 1770 and 1840. This vastly improved the efficiency with which iron was used and by this time, the efficiency of industrial production had improved immensely.
Incomes were growing annually between 2 and 3 per cent. And the steam driven Trans-Atlantic liners were introduced sometime in the 1840s. The Liverpool to New York journey, which, on average, took around 48 days by sailing ship, now, took only 14 days by steamer.
This was most definitely the beginning of global capitalism., There was a rise in demand for goods, and a rise in supply as the cost of raw material fell , largely because of the fall in transport costs, which were a significant part of costs. This led to large flows of capital from Britain and Europe to the younger economies of the US, Argentina, and Australia.
Most of this money was directed as straight investments into rail and road networks and in natural resources-based industries in these economies. Furthermore, most of this money was in the form of long-term flows rather than the short-term. This helped the younger economies to catch up on the older, richer economies.
Malthus missed some of the most important trends in history he missed the advanced in medicine as well as the agricultural revolution and the start of an industrial revolution, all of these would dramatically affect his hypotheses.
Malthus was clearly wrong in Britain in regards to his hypothesis, the last famine struck in Britain struck almost a century before Malthus's essay. He did not see that urbanization and education would persuade many people to have fewer children, therefore, the death rate continues to fall and takes with it the birth rate and, this would, as a result, flatten the population curve. He also did not foresee a mature change in society, whereby, successful birth control and careers would see couples having only one to three children and as a result the population stabilises.
In modern however the Malthusian report does have some relevance The State department and the Council on the Environmental quality released Global 2000 report. The report proclaimed "if present trends continue, the world in 2000 will be more crowded, more polluted less stable ecologically, and more vulnerable to disruption than the world we live in now..." (Buchholz, TG. New Ideas from Dead Economists, 1999) this is certainly the case as the world is about to witness another war and is vulnerable to disruption as a result of the present Iraqi crisis.
Famine also still exist in many countries such as Ethiopia, so Malthus was not completely wrong, there are parts of the world today who do have to share food and where population exceeds supply of food .
In conclusion, it is clear that Malthus while writing his essay overlooked many things such as advances in medicine, agriculture and industry and this was most definitely his downfall. In spite of this, the Malthusian theory does however have some relevance in the modern world today. The subject of the Malthusian approach still remains widely debated.
Word count: 1,588.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Malthus cited in Sloman, J. Essentials of Economics. 2nd Ed. Harvester Wheatsheaf 2001)
(Sloman, J, Essentials of Economics, 2nd Ed, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 2001).
Online, http://audibonpoulation.org/sections/news/12.28.02.01.cfm)
Buchholz, TG. New Ideas from Dead Economists, 1999)
