1. Introduction
This essay deals with Thomas Malthus and the first two chapters of his “Essay on the Principle of Population”. At first I will provide a short biographical note on Malthus and I will also mention his main achievements. Then, a summary of Malthus' main ideas of the first two chapters of mentioned work follows. Afterward, the essay concludes with a personal note.
2. A short biography
Thomas Robert Malthus was born in 1766 (course textbook, n. d.) in Surrey, England, as the sixth son of a wealthy intellectual family and he died in 1834 (Weikard, n. d.).
He was mainly concerned with population growth and poverty in the English society of his time. It was an answer to the precarious human situation back then. Malthus identified that the ratio of population growth differs from the ratio of growth of food supply. He also explained two kinds of checks on population: preventive and positive checks (course textbook, n. d.).
Malthus’ main achievement is his population theory. In 1798 he published his most important work, namely the “Essay on the Principle of Population”. Another, revised, edition on the topic was launched in 1803 (course textbook, n. d.). He was also concerned with the concept of rent (course textbook, n. d.). Ricardo’s theory of growth is largely based on Malthus’ population theory (Weikard, n. d.).
3. Summary of the “Essay on the principle of population”
In his text, Malthus provides an explanation for the population growth of human societies. He explains why population growth occurs, which behaviour distinguishes human beings from animals and which remedies exist concerning population growth.
Malthus begins his argument mentioning that all living creatures, no matter which, strive to “[...] increa...
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...ve to decrease before an increase of the living standard is possible, but today’s society shows that a higher number of human beings and an increase of food supply per head do not exclude each other necessarily (Maddison, 2003). This development is mainly due to the technological progress to which also Malthus refers shortly in his text. In the time he lived, these developments were still not observable as clearly as today. Therefore it remains to say that his text is an outstanding contribution to the knowledge of his time, but readjustment to today’s context is necessary.
Works Cited
Course Textbook (n. d.) Chapter 5: Ricardo and Malthus
Maddison, A. (2003) The World Economy: Historical Statistics, Paris, OECD
Malthus, T. R. (1798) Essay on the Principle of Population, Chapters 1 and 2, pp. 1-13
Weikard, H.-P. (n. d.) Lecture Notes III: Malthus and Ricardo
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Parfit, Derek (2004). “Overpopulation and the Quality of Life.” In J. Ryberg & T. Tännsjö (eds.), The Repugnant Conclusion. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 7-22.
The analysis of the Irish economic problem, the Great Famine, was a remarkable topic to study by several classical authors such as, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, David Ricardo or William Senior. A contextualization skim of the economic characteristics of the country is required in order to know about their main ideas with respect to the topic, taking into account the aspects like the land property, the political power and the relation between Ireland and England.
Oded Galor and David N. Weil’s work, From Malthusian Stagnation to Modern Growth describes three different regimes on society including population, GDP per capita, family, and lifespan. They are the Malthusian model, the Post Malthusian model, and the Modern Growth Era model. The first of these three was the Malthusian model, developed by Malthus in the late 18th century, the Modern Growth is what we have today, and the post Malthusian model is the transition between the two ends of the spectrum.
46. Indicate the factors that contributed to population growth in the American colonies during the eighteenth century, and discuss the characteristics and consequences of that growth.
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Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population, he states “I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, that food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state.” He came up with the Population Principle in which he argued that population, when unregulated, increases geometrically, whereas subsistence increases arithmetically. This then becomes an issue when the population outweigh the amount of food available. Malthus then said that once this level was surpassed, that famine would be the main source of the limit to population growth and that premature death was the most natural way to control the
Alfred Marshall was born in Bermondsey, a London suburb, on 26 July 1842. He died at Balliol Croft, his Cambridge home of many years, on 13 July 1924 at the age of 81. Professor of Political Economy at the University of Cambridge from 1885 to 1908, he was the founder of the Cambridge School of Economics which rose to great eminence in the 1920s and 1930s: A.C. Pigou and J.M. Keynes, the most important figures in this development, were among his pupils. Marshall's magnum opus, the Principles of Economics was published in 1890 and went through eight editions in his lifetime. It was the most influential treatise of its era and was for many years the Bible of British economics, introducing many still-familiar concepts. Alfred Marshall is one of the most outstanding figures in the development of contemporary economics and his influence has been enormous. His most famous student, J. M. Keynes, wrote that;
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One of the major effects of the huge population increase has been the depletion of natural resources and the destruction of ecosystems. In the 1960's, theorist Paul Ehrlich predicted that, given the skyrocketing figures of human population, the amount of food produced would not grow at a fast enough rate for human survival (Professor Carr Everbach, personal communication). He predicted mass starvation and death by the year 2000 as the result of uncontrolled population growth. Clearly, this did not occur. Ehrlich did not foresee the advancements ma...
One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will almost double in size. This means that we will need more food to support us. A study in 1986 by Peter Vitonesk, a Stanford biologist, showed that the humans are already consuming about 38.8 of what is possible for us to eat. Thus, if the population keeps increasing, the percentage will increase also, making us closer and closer to the biophysical limits. By studying the earth's capacity, Dr. Cornell, another biologist, believes that we are already crowded for this would. He believes that our world can only support two million people. Not only this, but population can cause complicated problems to the countries with very high population. These countries will need more schools to educate its people, they will need more hospitals and public health to take care of their people, and they will need more water and more soil for farming to feed all the people. In order to solve the population growth problem, the people should be educated. Once the people are educated they will be aware of the problems they ca...