Thomas Malthus

Thomas Robert Malthus
Thomas Robert Malthus
Born	13 February 1766 Westcott, Surrey, England
Died	29 December 1834(1834-12-29) (aged 68) Bath, Somerset, England
Nationality	English
Field	demography, macroeconomics
School or tradition	Classical economics
Alma mater	Jesus College, Cambridge
Influences	David Ricardo, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
Influenced	Charles Darwin, John Maynard Keynes, Alfred Russel Wallace
Contributions	Malthusian growth model

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 February 1766 – 29 December 1834) was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. Malthus himself used only his middle name, Robert.

In his book An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus observed that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the populace, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth, which in turn restored the original per capita production level. In other words, mankind had a propensity to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living, a view that has become known as the "Malthusian trap" or the "Malthusian spectre". Populations had a tendency to grow until the lower class suffered hardship and want and greater susceptibility to famine and disease, a view that is sometimes referred to as a Malthusian catastrophe. Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible. He saw population growth as being inevitable whenever conditions improved, thereby precluding real progress towards a utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". As an Anglican cleric, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour. Malthus wrote:

That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed by moral restraint, vice and misery.

Malthus criticized the Poor Laws for leading to inflation rather than improving the well-being of the poor. He supported taxes on grain imports (the Corn Laws), because food security was more important than maximizing wealth. His views became influential, and controversial, across economic, political, social and scientific thought. Pioneers of evolutionary biology read him, notably Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. He remains a much-debated writer.