MALTHUS, THOMAS ROBERT. — English economist, born at Roockerry (Surrey) on 17 February 1766, died at S. Caterina (Both) on 29 December 1834. Following lengthy journeys and observations, convinced that the economic distress of his time required a remedy other than a change in social organization, he published a work entitled An essay on the principle of population, in which he set forth an economic system based on the principle that, in its development, population grows in geometric progression from one period to the next (each period being 25 years), whereas the means of subsistence grow in arithmetic proportion; that is, while human beings increase as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., the means of subsistence increase as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. A disproportion therefore results, which will grow ever greater as time passes, causing increasing suffering among the population and ultimately its ruin.
To check such a development of affairs, M. considered the existence of “limiting factors,” which he divided into two classes: repressive factors (wars, epidemics, famines), which violently bleed humanity, and preventive factors, which tend to reduce the number of births. The latter may be involuntary (sterility, illness, etc.) or voluntary, recommended by him in the form of moral restreint, consisting in abstention from sexual relations before marriage; renunciation of marriage by those who, being ill, could not procreate healthy children, or by those who could not educate them in a healthy and useful manner or lacked the means to support them; and postponement of marriage for everyone. He also advocated the necessity of providing legislatively for a just proportion between the State’s food budget and the increase in the birth rate. As can therefore be seen, apart from the debatable nature of his proposals on the scientific and economic level, the means put forward by M. contained no propositions contrary to morality, being based essentially on sexual continence. The theory, however, takes a condemnable direction on account of its immorality in the so-called form of neo-Malthusianism (v. CONTROLLO delle).
From the economic and social standpoint, the system, full of numbers and calculations supported by reasoning that was often specious, had several adherents in England, but also quite a few distinguished opponents, including Godwin and Booth; their writings, however, being based solely on complicated arguments, were less well known.
Setting aside the moral question and considering the matter solely from the social point of view, M.’s system has proved not to correspond to the truth when tested over more than a century and a half. Indeed, during these 150 years, contrary to the progression posited by M., the world’s population has merely doubled, while the average economic level of human beings has certainly improved, even despite the forms of impoverishment that have occurred, particularly as a result of wars. On the other hand, it is not true that the means of subsistence increase according to the slower progression admitted by M., given the more intensive exploitation of the earth’s resources, their better utilization, and the easier equalization among the various regions of the globe, in relation to the progress of agriculture, industry, and means of transport. From the calculations of Fischer and those of Penck, it would appear that the earth, even using only present methods of exploitation, would be capable of feeding up to 6–8 billion individuals, that is, three to four times the number of people currently living.