Malthus, Thomas Robert (măl`thəs), 1766–1834, English economist, sociologist, and pioneer in modern population population, the inhabitants of a given area, but perhaps most importantly, the human inhabitants of the earth (numbering about 6.2 billion in 2002), who by their increasing numbers and corresponding increasing needs can seriously affect the global ecosystem.
..... Click the link for more information. study. In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798, rev. ed. 1803), he contended that poverty and distress are unavoidable, since population increases by geometrical ratio and the means of subsistence by arithmetical ratio. As checks on population growth, Malthus first accepted only war, famine, and disease, but in his revised work he admitted also the preventive check of "moral restraint." Although his theory caused general controversy, it was later adapted by neo-Malthusians, and its implications influenced classical economists, especially David Ricardo. However, unlike Ricardo, Malthus did not agree with Jean Baptiste Say Léon Say, 1826–96, was also an economist. As minister of finance under several governments he accomplished the payment of war debts to Germany ahead of schedule. He edited and wrote several works on finance.

Bibliography

See study of J. B. Say by T.
..... Click the link for more information. 's law of markets, which held that overproduction and unemployment were impossible since supply creates its own demand. Malthus believed that unemployment could occur when there was a surplus of unwanted products. He wrote Principles of Political Economy (1820) and other books.

Bibliography

See biography by J. Bonar (2d ed. 1924, repr. 1966); study by D. V. Glass (1953); M. Paglin, Malthus and Lauderdale; the Anti-Ricardian Tradition (1956, repr. 1973); M. Turner, ed., Malthus and His Time (1986).

Malthus, Thomas Robert

(born Feb. 14/17, 1766, Rookery, near Dorking, Surrey, Eng.—died Dec. 23, 1834, St. Catherine, near Bath, Somerset) British economist and demographer. Born into a prosperous family, he studied at the University of Cambridge and was elected a fellow of Jesus College in 1793. In 1798 he published An Essay on the Principle of Population, in which he argued that population will always tend to outrun the food supply—that the increase of population will take place, if unchecked, in a geometrical progression, while the means of subsistence will increase only in an arithmetical progression. He believed population would expand to the limit of subsistence and would be held there by famine, war, and ill health. He enlarged on his ideas in later editions of his work (to 1826). He argued that relief measures for the poor should be strictly limited since they tended to encourage the growth of excess population. His theories, though largely disproven, had great influence on contemporary social policy and on such economists as David Ricardo.