THOMAS MALTHUS: BIOGRAPHY, THEORY OF EVOLUTION AND CONTRIBUTIONS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was a British economist, demographer, and Anglican priest who has set the standard in both economics and biology for his theory of evolution, in which he argued that the population increased geometrically and food from arithmetic form.

According to Malthus, this implied that the population grew more than the means of subsistence, which is why different moments of crisis arise in which people have no way to survive. He considered that nature itself would put an end to those critical moments with famines, wars and epidemics, which would imply a decrease in the population.

Thomas Robert Malthus (1834)

To avoid reaching these extreme situations, Malthus proposed to take measures such as late marriage and premarital abstinence. The approach of Malthus influenced and served as support to develop evolutionary theories like those of Charles Darwin, in which natural selection is a determining factor for population control.

Malthus' investigative work has even served to inspire environmental movements, as well as for the research and development of contraceptive methods as a way to maintain birth control and thus better preserve the limited resources that planet Earth has..

Biography

Thomas Robert Malthus was born in the rural Dorking region of Great Britain on February 14, 1766, to a well-off family group. This gave him the possibility of having a broad cultural training.

Thomas' father, Daniel Malthus, insisted on training his offspring following the postulates and principles of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, contained in The Emile.

In addition, the friendship that his father had with David Hume (philosopher), with the Marquis de Condorcet (an outstanding economist) and with his colleague William Godwin, undoubtedly marked the style of education.

Although the educational model was chosen by the father, everything was done under the diligent eye of his mother Henrietta Malthus.

Training

As was to be expected in a young man of his category, at the age of 18 he entered Jesus College in Cambridge. In 1788 he graduated and just a couple of years later he got a Bachelor of Arts; It was the year 1791.

From 1793 he was part of his house of studies and it was in 1797 when he was ordained as an Anglican priest, fulfilling a custom of the time that contemplated that the non-firstborn son could take a path of religious consecration. A few years later, in 1804, he married Harriet Eckersall, with whom he had three children: Henry, Emily, and Lucy.

It was in 1805 that he became a faculty member at East India Company's College in Haileybury. There he served as professor of Political Economy and History; Furthermore, he stood out for being the first to teach what was the pioneering chair of political economy within the United Kingdom.

An influential character

His academic training, and especially the fact of having shared with prominent figures from different branches of knowledge, strengthened his thoughts and allowed him to come up with important findings, theories and discoveries, with which he earned the respect and admiration of those around him..

The entire theoretical body of Malthus made him a man of great influence in various fields of knowledge. This is evidenced by its inclusion in the Royal Society from 1810.

In addition to being one of the 20 founding members of the Club for Economic Policy from 1821, he formed the Statistical Society of London, as well as several similar bodies of great renown in Paris and Berlin.

Death

Thomas Malthus died on December 29, 1834 from a cardiovascular disease that afflicted him.

Theory

In his beginnings, in 1792 he wrote The Crisis. It was a document that was not published and that was part of the trend of "poor laws", in which it was intended to give opportunities to the less favored.

His most famous work is Essay on the Principle of Population, the first edition of which was published under anonymity and arose from the debates that the young man had with his father.

In this sense, Daniel Malthus was convinced that the situation of misery in the world was due to the mismanagement of the administration, since the Earth was fully capable of supporting all the men and women who inhabited it.

Thomas's father argued that to remedy this situation of poverty it was necessary to improve the public health care that was stipulated in these “poor laws”.

More population, fewer resources

Contrary to what his father thought, Thomas was convinced that the increase in population was considerably greater than the resources to survive.

The previous statement implied a mathematical principle: population increases in a geometric progression; instead, foods grow in a progression with arithmetic characteristics.

According to Malthus' postulates, there are more people than resources to care for them, which is why conflicts for survival are generated.

A geometric progression is defined as a series of numbers that grows constantly by multiplying the previous one by a variable. Meanwhile, the arithmetic progression states that growth is achieved by adding a fixed number to the previous one.

In this way, after a while, the first progression will have grown greatly while the second lags behind.

This means that, while the population could double after a short time, the amount of food available to the population would have only a small variation. That same population, by reproducing in an uncontrolled way, would demand more and more food until it generated chaos.

Malthus asserted that the population was growing unchecked, so there would come a time when food shortages would disrupt all order.

With this argument, Malthus explained the situation in Europe in the midst of the Industrial Revolution by giving it a demographic sustenance. At the same time, he argued that crises would always exist because the number of beings would considerably exceed the food available.

Malthus solutions

Because Thomas Malthus considered that the cause of the crises was demographic, he was convinced that the application of reformist policies, such as those supported by his father, would have no effect on the resolution of the problem.

Rather, he considered that these reforms would bring more problems, such as interventionism and socialism. He thought that these “laws of the poor”, by improving the living conditions of the less favored, would cause them to continue to reproduce in an uncontrolled way, thus accelerating the famine that he predicted.

The young Malthus proposed to take completely revolutionary and even controversial measures for his time, mainly focused on reducing the number of settlers.

Basically he was betting on the natural regulation of the population through events such as wars, natural disasters and epidemics. In this way, the number of individuals would be considerably reduced and the survivors would experience the abundance of food.

Natality control

It also suggested taking birth control, delaying marriages and avoiding premarital sex. Because of her religious position, she rejected any other type of contraceptive method and abortion.

Having deepened his knowledge of the means of food production, he made no effort to propose mechanisms to increase the quantity that was produced, since this would immediately translate into a significant increase in the population and, therefore, in the deepening of the problem.

Other contributions

Thanks to the development of his theories on population growth, Malthus is considered one of the first demographers. His thinking has made it have a clear influence on the political, economic, social, scientific and even cultural spheres, even today.

Economy

In the economic sphere, Malthusian ideas have influenced the elaboration of development and resource depletion models.

In addition, it has supported the development of theories about energy generation and consumption, which also predict a collapse if the population continues to grow uncontrollably without new forms of energy being produced in a sustained way.

Principles of political economy

In the world of economics, his book Principles of Political Economy has also taught, despite being one of the least famous of his texts.

During this research he created the concept of “effective demand”, which is that: “If all people were satisfied with the simplest foods, the poorest clothes and the most humble houses, surely there would be no other kinds of food, clothing and households".

Malthus's arguments about the world of economics led Thomas Carlyle to dubbing economics the "grim science" in response to the grim picture that Malthus recounted: the disappearance of humanity due to famine.

Contributions to evolution

Malthus's vision first saw humanity as a whole and not simply as individuals. In this way, he affirmed that groups of human individuals are subject to the same behavioral parameters.

This approach was similar to that used by ecologists to analyze a plant or animal, to the extent that he argued that the principles of growth also acted on fauna and flora, as in human groups.

These parallels between the animal and human world allowed Charles Darwin to adapt Malthusian principles to the theory of evolution, while mankind must also evolve as other beings have done.

Environmental contributions

Malthus' approach has been a breeding ground for all environmental trends, which promote care for the environment as well as the rational use of natural resources.

This is due to the fact that they maintain that the accelerated growth of the population puts the natural habitat of the species at risk, which in the future will translate into an environmental crisis that can jeopardize the survival of the species.

Once again, his theories serve as the basis to foresee that caring for the environment is a way of balancing the balance, but not the only solution since it is somewhat distant from population control.

Contributions to family planning

Because one of its recommended measures to curb rampant population growth was to control sexual relationships, the contraceptive industry found in its thinking a pioneering idea to develop.

Based on the studies of Malthus, important campaigns have been promoted for the control of the world population, which has allowed a slower growth in the progression.

However, there are those who maintain that, because of his religious affinity, Malthus would be completely against these methods.

Main criticisms

Although Malthus has been considered a scholar, his postulates have also generated innumerable criticisms.

A staunch critic of Malthus' work was Karl Marx, who in his text Capital claimed that part of the Malthusian theory was a plagiarism of what was written by other thinkers of various kinds such as Benjamin Franklin, Defoe and Alfred Russel Wallace.

In addition, Marx pointed out that with the progress of science and technology resources could be increased, so that those moments of survival crisis predicted by Malthus could be avoided.

Misconception

In this sense, Malthus was wrong in his predictions. This can be asserted because the development of the contraceptive industry as well as the technology of food production has increased the amount of livelihoods, while controlling the population growth in developed countries.

However, its postulates continue to be the basis of many investigations that are developed in various areas of knowledge, since they are based on the approach of population growth.

References

1. “The surprising predictions of the 18th century economist Thomas Malthus that are still being talked about” (May 5, 2018) on BBC Mundo. Retrieved on October 16, 2018: bbc.com
2. "The theory of Malthus" (October 12, 1999) in Clarín. Retrieved on October 16, 2018 from Clarin Sociedad: clarin.com
3. "Thomas Robert Malthus" in Biographies and Lives. The Biographical Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved on October 16, 2018 from Biographies and Lives: biografiasyvidas.com
4. "Thomas Malthus (1766 - 1834)" in BBC United Kingdom. Retrieved on October 16, 2018: bbc.co.uk
5. "Thomas Malthus" in Economipedia. Retrieved October 16, 2018 from economipedia: economipedia.com.