MALTHUS, THOMAS ROBERT. - English economist, b. at Roockery (Surrey) on 17 Feb. 1766, d. at S. Caterina (Both) on 29 Dec. 1834. Following long travels and observations, convinced that the economic distress of his time required remedies other than changes in social organization, he published a work entitled *An Essay on the Principle of Population*, in which he set forth his economic system based on the principle that population, in its development, increases in geometric progression from period to period (every 25 years), while the means of subsistence increase only in arithmetic proportion; that is, while men increase as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., the means of subsistence increase as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. From this there follows a disproportion that will grow ever greater with the passage of time, bringing increasing suffering to the population and, in the end, its ruin.
To restrain such a course of events, M. considered the existence of “limiting factors,” which he divided into two classes: the repressive (wars, epidemics, famines), which violently drain the overabundant human race, and the preventive, which tend to reduce the number of births. The latter may be involuntary (sterility, disease, etc.) and voluntary, which he recommended in the form of *moral restraint*, consisting in abstaining from sexual relations before marriage; in refraining from marriage by those who, being ill, could not beget healthy children, or by those who could not raise them healthily and usefully or lacked the means to support a family. He further advocated the necessity of legislatively providing for a just proportion between the food supply of the State and the increase in population. As can be seen, therefore, apart from the questionability of his scientific and economic arguments, the means proposed by M. did not contain propositions contrary to morality, being based essentially on sexual continence. The theory, however, becomes condemnable in its immorality when it takes the form known as neo-Malthusianism (v. BIRTH CONTROL).
From the economic and social standpoint, the system, replete with numbers and calculations often supported by specious reasoning, found many supporters in England, but also not a few notable opponents, among them Godwin and Booth, whose writings, however, being based solely on complex reasoning, were less well known.
Setting aside the moral question and considering the matter only from the social point of view, M.’s system has been shown to be untrue when subjected to the test of more than a century and a half. Indeed, in these 150 years, contrary to the progression envisaged by M., the world’s population has merely doubled, while the average economic level of mankind has certainly improved, 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 at the slower rate admitted by M., given the more intensive exploitation of the earth’s resources, their better utilization, and a more facile equalization among different regions of the globe, in connection with advances in agriculture, industry, and transportation. According to the calculations of Fischer and those of Penck, the earth, even with present methods of exploitation, would be capable of supporting up to 6–8 billion individuals, that is, 3–4 times the number of those now living.