39 Facts About Malthus

Thomas Robert Malthus was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography.

Malthus wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible.

Malthus criticized the Poor Laws for leading to inflation rather than improving the well-being of the poor.

Malthus's views became influential and controversial across economic, political, social and scientific thought.

Malthus' failure to predict the Industrial Revolution was a frequent criticism of his theories.

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Thomas Robert Malthus was the sixth of seven children of Daniel Malthus and Henrietta Catherine, daughter of Daniel Graham, apothecary to kings George II and George III, and granddaughter of Thomas Graham, apothecary to kings George I and George II.

Malthus had a cleft lip and palate which affected his speech; such birth defects had occurred in previous generations of his family.

Daniel Malthus was son of Sydenham Malthus, who was a clerk of Chancery and director of the South Sea Company; he was "proprietor of several landed properties in the Home Counties and Cambridgeshire".

The young Malthus received his education at the Warrington Academy from 1782, where he was taught by Gilbert Wakefield.

Malthus continued for a period to be tutored by Wakefield at the latter's home in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire.

Malthus took the MA degree in 1791, and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College two years later.

Malthus came to prominence for his 1798 publication, An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Malthus wrote the original text in reaction to the optimism of his father and his father's associates regarding the future improvement of society.

Malthus constructed his case as a specific response to writings of William Godwin and of the Marquis de Condorcet .

Malthus's assertions evoked questions and criticism, and between 1798 and 1826 he published six more versions of An Essay on the Principle of Population, updating each edition to incorporate new material, to address criticism, and to convey changes in his own perspectives on the subject.

In 1799, Malthus made a European tour with William Otter, a close college friend, travelling part of the way with Edward Daniel Clarke and John Marten Cripps, visiting Germany, Scandinavia and Russia.

In 1805, Malthus became Professor of History and Political Economy at the East India Company College in Hertfordshire.

Malthus wrote a pamphlet defending the college, which was reprieved by the East India Company within the same year, 1817.

Malthus laid importance on economic development and the persistence of disequilibrium.

The context was the post-war depression; Malthus had a supporter in William Blake, in denying that capital accumulation was always good in such circumstances, and John Stuart Mill attacked Blake on the fringes of the debate.

Malthus was drawn into considering political economy in a less restricted sense, which might be adapted to legislation and its multiple objectives, by the thought of Malthus.

In Principles of Political Economy and elsewhere, Malthus addressed the tension, amounting to conflict he saw between a narrow view of political economy and the broader moral and political plane.

In terms of public policy, Malthus was a supporter of the protectionist Corn Laws from the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

Malthus emerged as the only economist of note to support duties on imported grain.

Malthus was a founding member in 1821 of the Political Economy Club, where John Cazenove tended to be his ally against Ricardo and Mill.

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Malthus was elected in the beginning of 1824 as one of the ten royal associates of the Royal Society of Literature.

Malthus was one of the first fellows of the Statistical Society, founded in March 1834.

Malthus implied that Malthus wanted to dictate terms and theories to other economists.

The purpose of Malthus's Definitions was terminological clarity, and Malthus discussed appropriate terms, their definitions, and their use by himself and his contemporaries.

Malthus died suddenly of heart disease on 23 December 1834 at his father-in-law's house.

On 13 March 1804, Malthus married Harriet, daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton House, near Bath.

Malthus's first born Henry became vicar of Effingham, Surrey in 1835 and of Donnington, Sussex in 1837; he married Sofia Otter, daughter of Bishop William Otter and died in August 1882, aged 76.

Malthus argued in his Essay that population growth generally expanded in times and in regions of plenty until the size of the population relative to the primary resources caused distress:.

Malthus argued that two types of checks hold population within resource limits: positive checks, which raise the death rate; and preventive ones, which lower the birth rate.

Rapid increase in the global population of the past century exemplifies Malthus's predicted population patterns; it appears to describe socio-demographic dynamics of complex pre-industrial societies.

Malthus wrote that in a period of resource abundance, a population could double in 25 years.

Malthus argued that given the increasing cost of growing British corn, advantages accrued from supplementing it from cheaper foreign sources.

Malthus developed the theory of demand-supply mismatches that he called gluts.

In Ireland where Malthus proposed that "to give full effect to the natural resources of the country a great part of the population should be swept from the soil", a comparatively early contribution was Observations on the population and resources of Ireland by the polymath and physician Whitely Stokes.