Population outstrips food supply

Thomas Malthus, was a famous economist, demographer and theorist from England born in 1766 and who died in 1834. He is best known for his theory that population growth will inevitably outstrip food production, and in turn necessitates limits on reproduction.

Malthus was a professor of history and political economy from 1805 at the East India Company’s Hertfordshire college. His status as a political economist reflects the birth of this discipline at the same time as contemporaries like Adam Smith and David Ricardo rose to prominence.

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In 1798, he published his famous ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers’. His main argument was that human population will tend to grow, if left unchecked, at an exponential rate. This will outpace production, which only increase at an arithmetic rate.

Of course, Malthus acknowledges that technology and growth could very much lead to production increases. Yet, this would be cancelled out by an eventual increase in population. The key idea was that food production could only increase in a linear fashion while the population grows exponentially. Population will always expand to the point of mere subsistence. This means that economic growth is not necessarily sustainable, and humanity’s good future, not guaranteed.

His arguments at the time led to much controversy. While some heavily criticised this perspective, others have followed in his footsteps and advocated positions that are now known as ‘Malthusianism’. His ideas also gained a resurgence in later years through the writings of Charles Darwin, John Maynard Keynes and Paul Ehrlich.