50 pages • 1 hour read
Thomas MalthusAn Essay on the Principle of Population
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1798A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Index of Terms
Geometrical Versus Arithmetical Ratio
The fundamental premise of Malthus’s essay is that population grows in a geometrical ratio while production of food only follows an arithmetic ratio. In other words, population multiplies exponentially, whereas agricultural yields can only increase in a linear fashion. To justify this point, Malthus uses the example of the United States, where population is seen to double every 25 years due to an abundance of fertile land.
However, given there is a limit to the quantity of land in any country, agricultural production, once all land is used up, can only increase to the extent that technology advances. According to Malthus, even if yields can double with new technology, it is not realistic that this type of growth can be sustained. While the same plot of land may be optimized in 25 years to double its production, it is unfathomable that it would once again double in 50 years, and again in 75 years, yielding eight times the original amount. Unlike population growth, which has been observed to increase exponentially in America, agricultural yields can never increase so fast according to historical data. These two forces considered together means the number of people will always tend to exceed their capacity to sustain themselves.
Population Check
According to Malthus’s model, population will always increase faster than its capacity to produce enough food to sustain itself. However, there are positive and preventive checks to population, which not only prevent it from growing indefinitely but generally keep it to the level of subsistence.
Positive checks are forces, such as famines and epidemics, that keep mortality high. Malthus attributes these great instances of misery to a surplus of population. For example, unsanitary living conditions are the result of overpopulation and encourage the spread of pestilence. Positive checks tend to affect the lower classes the most, but Malthus sees them as a necessary evil in his population growth theory.
Preventive checks result from deliberate human action to control birth rate. For example, someone incapable of providing for a family may abstain from marriage. Educated men may seek intellectual pleasure over carnal pleasure. Although preventive checks are less effective than positive checks, both serve the purpose of preventing overpopulation.
Scarcity
According to Malthus’s population theory, the world exists in a permanent state of scarcity. This is because the amount of fertile land is finite. Once all the land is occupied, the superior power of population will soon outgrow food production, which can no longer keep up. Technological advancement may improve agricultural yields, but it can never grow as fast as the population. Therefore, people are constantly forced to subsist on less than they wish. The concept of scarcity is fundamental to Malthusian theory.
