MALTHUS, THOMAS ROBERT. - English economist, b. at Rookery (Surrey) on 17 February 1766, d. at St. Catherine's (Bath) on 29 December 1834. As a result of long journeys and observations, persuaded that the economic distress of his times required a remedy other than the transformation of social organization, he published a work entitled An essay on the principle of population, in which he set out an economic system of his own based on the principle that population in its development grows in geometric progression, period by period (every 25 years), while the means of subsistence grow in arithmetic proportion; that is, while men grow as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., the means of subsistence grow as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. From this there follows a disproportion that will increase ever more with the passage of time, bringing growing suffering to the population and finally its ruin.
To check such a course of events, M. examined the existence of "limiting factors," which he divided into two classes: the repressive (wars, epidemics, famines), which violently drain the human race, and the preventive, which tend to reduce the number of births. The latter can be involuntary (sterility, diseases, etc.) and voluntary, which he recommended in the form of moral restraint, consisting in abstention from sexual relations before marriage; renunciation of marriage on the part of those who, being ill, could not procreate healthy children, or of those who could not educate them healthily and usefully or did not have the means to support them; and postponement of marriage for all. He further advocated the necessity of providing by legislation for a just proportion between the State's food budget and the increase in the birth rate. As can be seen, therefore, apart from the question of its scientific and economic soundness, the means proposed by M. did not in themselves contain propositions contrary to morality, being based essentially on sexual continence. The theory is oriented in a condemnable manner, however, on account of its immorality, in the so-called form of neo-Malthusianism (v. NASCITE, CONTROLLO delle).
From the economic and social standpoint, the system, full of figures and calculations supported by often specious reasoning, had several supporters in England, but also not a few opponents of worth, among them Godwin and Booth, whose writings, however, being founded only on complicated reasoning, were less well known.
Setting aside the moral question and observing the argument only from the social point of view, the system of M. has proved not to correspond to the truth, when subjected to the test of more than a century and a half. In fact, in these 150 years, contrary to the progression posited by M., the world population has only doubled, while the average economic level of men has certainly improved, even despite the forms of impoverishment that have occurred, particularly because of wars. On the other hand, it is not true that the means of subsistence increase with the slower progression admitted by M., given the more intensive exploitation of the goods of the earth, their better utilization, and an easier equalization among the different points of the globe, in relation to the progress of agriculture, of industries, and of the means of transport. From the calculations of Fischer and those of Penck it would appear that the earth, even with only the present methods of exploitation, would be capable of feeding up to 6-8 billion individuals, that is, 3-4 times the number of those now living.