Malthusianism  

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Malthusianism is a school of ideas derived from the political/economic thought of the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus, as laid out in his 1798 writings, An Essay on the Principle of Population, which describes how unchecked population growth is exponential (1→2→4→16) while the growth of the food supply was expected to be arithmetical (1→2→3→4). Malthus believed there were two types of "checks" that could then reduce the population, returning it to a more sustainable level. He believed there were "preventive" checks such as moral restraints (abstinence, delayed marriage until finances become balanced), and restricting marriage against persons suffering poverty and/or defects. Malthus believed in "positive checks", which lead to 'premature' death: disease, starvation, war, resulting in what is called a Malthusian catastrophe. The catastrophe would return population to a lower, more "sustainable", level.

Malthusian catastrophe

A Malthusian catastrophe (also known as Malthusian check) is a prediction of a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth has outpaced agricultural production.

Thomas Malthus

In 1779, Thomas Malthus wrote:

"Famine seems to be the last, the most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world." --Thomas Malthus, 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population. Chapter VII, p61

Notwithstanding the apocalyptic image conveyed by this particular paragraph, Malthus himself did not subscribe to the notion that mankind was fated for a "catastrophe" due to population overshooting resources. Rather, he believed that population growth was generally restricted by available resources:

"The passion between the sexes has appeared in every age to be so nearly the same that it may always be considered, in algebraic language, as a given quantity. The great law of necessity which prevents population from increasing in any country beyond the food which it can either produce or acquire, is a law so open to our view...that we cannot for a moment doubt it. The different modes which nature takes to prevent or repress a redundant population do not appear, indeed, to us so certain and regular, but though we cannot always predict the mode we may with certainty predict the fact."--Thomas Malthus, 1798. An Essay on the Principle of Population

See also

• Demographic trap
• The dismal science
• Food security
• Human overpopulation
• Malthusian trap
• Overshoot (ecology)
• Olduvai theory
• Pledge two or fewer (campaign for smaller families)
• r/K selection theory

See also

• Cornucopianism: a counter-Malthusian school of thought
• Food Race
• Garrett Hardin
• Law of Rent
• Malthusian trap
• NSSM 200: a National Security Council Study advocating population reduction in selected countries for U.S. security and interests
• Overpopulation
• Peak Oil
• Political demography
• Population ecology
• Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
• Subsistence theory of wages
• "The dismal science"
• Tragedy of the Commons