A proportionate understanding

Abstract

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) was brought up in the ideology of progress, but made a complete break with progressive thought with his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), in which he argued that it is useless, even dangerous, to provide relief for the poor, as this encourages them to reproduce. The success of this work provoked a heated discussion, obliging Malthus to expand and elucidate his ideas on population. This resulted in a second Essay (1803), markedly different from the first. This work established Malthus's lasting reputation; he was appointed to a chair in political economy – the first of its kind in Europe – and elected a member of the Royal Society. In 1820, he published another major work: Principles of Political Economy. Malthus's theory soon became known on the continent, particularly in France and Germany, but not without misconceptions or misinterpretations. Most of his opponents have only taken up a caricatural model according to which population always increases in a geometrical progression, while the means of subsistence only increase in an arithmetical progression. In fact, Malthus referred only to tendencies: demographic growth is always checked, be it preventively or positively. In the first Essay, these checks were identified as misery (in the wider sense) and vice; in the second Essay, Malthus introduced the notion of moral restraint (meaning late marriage). All this was embedded in Malthus's moral and theological reflection on progress and Providence; but the Principle of Population also implied pessimistic views on poverty and state assistance, meaning that Malthus's reputation – among socialists and progressivists at least – was permanently tarnished. This perception was quite unjustified, since Malthus was a liberal member of the Whig Party and in favor of reform. Malthus's intellectual legacy was extremely varied. On the economic level, the theory of effective demand, which he introduced in the Principles, was a lasting success; on the political level, the very term ‘Malthusian’ was coined as early as 1822 by Francis Place, who proposed a much easier and more effective method of checking population growth than moral restraint: the limitation of births within marriage. It is in this form, representing a complete break with Malthus’ theory, that neo-Malthusianism became established in the nineteenth century, gaining wide acceptance after the Second World War, even at the United Nations.