Thomas Malthus: Encyclopedia II - Thomas Malthus - The influence of Malthus

Thomas Malthus - The influence of Malthus

The influence of Malthus's theory of population was very great. Michael H. Hart published a book called The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History in 1978 which placed Malthus at number 80 in this worldwide ranking. Ironically, Malthus did not make the top 100 Greatest Britons (nor did he make the 100 Worst Britons).

At Haileybury Malthus developed a theory of demand supply mismatches which he called gluts. Considered ridiculous at the time, his theory was a precursor to later theories about the Great Depression, and to the works of admirer and economist John Maynard Keynes.

Previously, high fertility had been considered an economic plus since it increased the number of workers available to the economy. Malthus, however, looked at fertility from a new perspective and convinced most economists that even though high fertility might increase the gross output it tended to reduce output per capita. Malthus has been widely admired by, and has influenced, a number of other notable economists such as David Ricardo (whom Malthus knew personally) and Alfred Marshall.

A distinguished early convert was British Prime Minister, William Pitt The Younger. In the 1830s Malthus' writings strongly influenced Whig reforms which overturned Tory paternalism and brought in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

Concerns about Malthus's theory also helped promote the idea of a national population Census in the UK. Government official John Rickman was instrumental in the first modern Census being conducted in 1801.

Malthus was proud to include amongst the earliest converts to his population theory the leading creationist and natural theologian, Archdeacon William Paley whose Natural Theology was first published in 1802. Both men regarded Malthus' Principle of Population as additional proof of the existence of a deity.

Ironically, given Malthus's own opposition to contraception, his work was a strong influence on Francis Place (1771–1854), whose Neo-Malthusian movement was the first to advocate contraception. Place published his Proofs on the Principle of Population in 1822.

Malthus's theory was also a key influence on both of the co-founders of modern evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin, in his book The Origin of Species, called his theory an application of the doctrines of Malthus in an area without the complicating factor of human intelligence. Darwin, a life-long admirer of Malthus, referred to Malthus as "that great philospher" (Letter to J.D. Hooker 5th June, 1860) and wrote in his notebook that "Malthus on Man should be studied". Wallace called Malthus' essay "...the most important book I read..." and considered it "the most interesting coincidence" that both he and Darwin were independently led to the theory of evolution through reading Malthus.

Evolutionists such as Ernst Mayr, Carl Zimmer and Elliot Sober directly recognise Malthus' many unintended contributions to evolutionary theory. Mayr referred to population thinking as "...the foundation of modern evolutionary theory...", though he called it "...Darwin's new way of thinking...". Malthus reinforced observations relating to the struggle for existence within limits to growth. Thanks to Malthus, Darwin recognised the significance of intraspecies competition between populations of the same species (eg. the lamb and the lamb), not just interspecies competition between species (eg. the lion and the lamb). Malthusian population thinking also explained how an incipent species could become a full blown species in a very short timeframe.

The significance of Malthus' influence on Darwin was perhaps best highlighted by Robert M. Young (Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture, 1965), Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies at Sheffield University, England.

Founder of UNESCO, evolutionist and Humanist, Julian Huxley wrote of "The Crowded World" in his Evolutionary Humanism (1964), calling for a World Population Policy. Huxley was openly critical of Communist and Catholic attitudes to birth control , population control and overpopulation. Today world organisations such as the United Nations Population Fund acknowledge that the debate over how many people the Earth can support effectively started with Malthus.

Malthus continues to have considerable influence to this day. One famous recent example of this is Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb. Ehrlich predicted, in the late 1960s, that hundreds of millions would die from a coming overpopulation crisis in the 1970s, and that by 1980 life expectancy in the United States would be only 42 years. Other famous examples are the 1972 book The Limits to Growth from the self-styled Club of Rome, and the Global 2000 report to the then President of the United States of America. Science-fiction author Isaac Asimov issued many appeals for population control reflecting the perspective articulated by people from Thomas Malthus through Paul R. Ehrlich.

Malthus is widely regarded as the founder of modern demography. Malthus had proposed his Principle of Population as a universal natural law for all species, not just humans. Instead, today, his theory is widely regarded as only an approximate natural law of population dynamics for all species. This is because it can be proven that nothing can sustain exponential growth at a constant rate indefintely.

Nonetheless, Malthus continues to openly inspire and influence even futuristic visions, such as those of K Eric Drexler relating to space advocacy and molecular nanotechnology. As Drexler put it in Engines of Creation: "In a sense, opening space will burst our limits to growth, since we know of no end to the universe. Nevertheless, Malthus was essentially right."

Malthus has also inspired retired physics professor, Albert Bartlett, to lecture over a 1,500 times on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy", which promotes sustainable living and explains the mathematics of overpopulation.

The Malthusian growth model now bears Malthus' name. The logistic function of Pierre Francois Verhulst results in the well known S-curve. Yet the logistic growth model favoured by so many critics of the Malthusian growth model was created by Verhulst in 1838 only after reading Malthus' essay.

Malthus' arithmetic model of food supply is almost universally rejected as it can be clearly demonstrated that food supply has kept pace with population for the past two centuries (see Criticisms below).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The influence of Malthus", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki