Food and People; A Second Look at Malthus' Principle of Population

Abstract

In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus published An Essay on Population which went into several editions and was widely discussed by literate people everywhere. His thesis, that . . the increase of is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence, and that population invariably increases when the means of subsistence increase, unless prevented by powerful and obvious checks,1 was widely accepted as descriptive of the actual situation in which the world found itself. It was not long, however, before the people of the western world began to doubt Malthus' principle of population. These doubters, some of whom are still with us, pointed out that was growing rapidly and, that contrary to Malthus, people were living better. Real wages were up. People ate better and were better clothed and housed. Although was growing, production was growing faster. Before the difference of opinion is discussed, we should have a closer look at Malthus' thesis. Malthus concluded from such demographic data as were available to him that man's biological capacity to reproduce himself was sufficient to permit a doubling of every twenty-five years under favorable conditions, that is, in a geometric ratio. With respect to the productions of the earth, however, he says, . . we may be perfectly certain that the ratio of their increase in a limited territory must be of a totally different nature from the ratio of the increase of population. A thousand millions are just as easily doubled every twenty-five years by the power of as a thousand. But the food to support the increase from the greater number will by no means be obtained with the same facility. Using Great Britain as an example, Malthus concluded that it might be possible to double production in twenty-five years, but that it was impossible to suppose that the original production could be quadrupled in fifty years. Although can increase geometrically, production can scarcely exceed an arithmetic increase.