Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an English clergyman and political economist -  the originator of Malthusian population theory. Broadly stated, Malthusian theory holds that human and other populations will increase until checked by natural limitations, principally to do with food supply.

That's not all there is to it, of course; his theories hold enough permutations and implications to rouse objectors and supporters on all sides.

By the late 19th Century, the "Neomalthusians" were advocating artificial contraception - which probably would have offended the good Reverend; his preference was "moral restraint." (And those Neomalthusians are not to be confused with the modern activists of the same name, who seem to have rediscovered Malthus in the current backlash against free-market economics.)

To put Malthus in context, it must be remembered that his concerns were less with predictions of some gloomy future than with the problems of the English economy of the time. In "An Essay on the Principle of Population" he advocated the abolition of a system of poor relief then in force, because he thought it ultimately worked against the interests of the poor. The reaction was, of course, vitriolic, although contemporary testimony paints him as a true gentleman and gentle man, who genuinely had the interests of the poor at heart. (See the biography page.)

So Marx thought him an enemy of the proletariat for his supposed approval of their fate as famine victims, and the new right consider him a killjoy for implying that growth need have limits at all.

Certainly it is easy, at the start of the 21st Century, to debunk his starting point: that populations grow "geometrically," food supply only "arithmetically," leading to a widening gap between the two. In that, he was mistaken; improving technology has meant that food supply has also increased geometrically.

But, to take a mathematical approach, if population, food production, energy use, industrial production, waste production, etc, are all increasing under mechanisms that can be modelled by an exponential curve, then all are approaching vertical asymptotes, where they will theoretically increase at an infinite rate - a decidedly difficult state of affairs to visualise, and obviously a condition the planet cannot actually achieve.

So Malthus' bigger mistake may have been to look at the wrong end of the graph, where it was still close to horizontal. The vertical bit is coming.

However, recent studies suggest world population is now levelling off, apparently due to a more-or-less voluntary trend towards smaller families. I call that moral restraint. Well done, TRM!

In the cornucopian corner, check out the National Centre for Policy Analysis, which I had not heard of before but I suppose is well-known, among those whose business it is to know these things, as a right-wing think tank. Their site includes this article on environmental matters which gives Malthus a passing but dismissive mention.

On the other hand - the left, obviously - the Institute for Global Communications (motto: internet for people, not profit) hosts a vast number of member groups and links to supporters, including the  International Society of Malthus

And for the truly uncompromising, try dieoff for the point of view that we humans owe it to the planet to ... well, die off. And if we don't pay our dues voluntarily, Earth has the means to collect...

Or... We can look to the stars. David A. Coutts, of Victoria, Australia, is so convinced of two things - that the underlying mathematics of population dynamics is too little realised, and that mankind's future lies in the colonisation of space - that he has encapsulated both in a board game, entitled Six Billion.

He writes: "Mathematics knows nothing of vice or virtue, good or evil - these are all human inventions. The Principle Of Population stated by Malthus works on simple mathematical principles. Life, including human life, will always strive towards exponential growth. Whilst it is noble and commendable to stabilise the rate of human growth on Earth, and nurture and protect life on Earth as much as possible, we must also encourage all efforts to advance life into the solar system and beyond."

Last update May 28, 2001.

When I was young all references to Thomas Robert Malthus seemed to be exactly that - his full name - in apparent recognition of the fact that he went by his middle name, Robert. But these days, every second reference seems to be to some bloke called Thomas Malthus.

If you have found this page, presumably you've got some interest in the man, so may I make one small request - not to give him a label he would not have recognised. Like King Canute, I don't really expect to turn the tide, but I'll be interested to see what happens.

(His family called him Bob.)

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