VIDEO: An Introduction to Thomas Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population- Macat Economics Analysis

SPlett: Thomas Malthus notes on the video

• Robert Malthus, the 18^th century English economist believes food fundamentally constrained population growth;
• His Essay on the Principle of Population argue that the Planet’s population will always persist at a level simply adequate to support life. It is the subsistence level;
• More food means more births and longer life, and the population can only grow, but not according to Malthus;
• Example: imagine a school of fish and algae are essential food source. Assume the school is in equilibrium. The population is constant because there is the ideal food to fish ratio. This is the subsistence level. For some reasons extra algae have increased. Increased food means more fish will survive and school population will increase. This population will increase exponentially, but the algae won’t increase in the same way. Algae production will remain constant or at best grow linearly, but not exponentially like fishes. Many fish die of hunger and the school returns to equilibrium. Land availability is outside human and fish control just like famine and disease. Malthus called them positive checks and acknowledged the positive checks in critiquing the Elizabethan poor laws. He believed that social welfare in food redistribution to the poor would unravel in the long run;
• Population will always tend to grow faster than the resources available to feed it;
• Malthus had in mind preventive checks;
• Malthus’s theory on population has been acknowledged as the most influential work of his era.