Malthusianism: what is this political and economic theory?

Population growth does not have to go hand in hand with the availability of resources.

Malthusianism is a political and economic theory that proposes that population is growing at a rate that is incompatible with the availability of resources. which proposes that population is growing at a rate that is incompatible with the food resources available to us. Although it is a theory that emerged more than two centuries ago, its concepts are still being discussed and are still relevant.

Here we explain what Malthusianism is, what its main concepts are and how it has been transformed to the present day.

What is Malthusianism?

Malthusianism is based on the proposition that the world population tends to increase faster than the food supply, which means that scarce food resources will be exhausted.Thus, scarce resources will have to be shared among more and more individuals.

It was developed by Thomas Malthus in a text of 1798 called An Essay on the Principle of Populationin which he studied the dynamics of population, its exacerbated growth, and its relation to the availability of resources that would have to satisfy basic needs. that would have to satisfy basic needs.

Malthus was skeptical of the positivist theories that were very popular in his time, which sought the perfectibility of human beings, praising the advances and diffusion of knowledge as a source of well-being and freedom for the future.

In the face of this trend, Malthus argued that the development of mankind was limited by the pressures exerted by accelerated population growth as opposed to the limited availability of food.

Therefore, according to Malthus, it is necessary to create According to Malthus, it is necessary to create consistent controls on population growth.The most important of these controls are those that offer an alternative to the population explosion and counteract the lack of resources. For Malthus, these controls can be of two types, preventive or positive.

Malthusianism is a perspective that had an important impact on the policies of England at the beginning of the 19th century, especially from a legislative debate where protectionist policies were generated towards agriculture; a sector that had been affected after the Napoleonic wars.

Preventive control and positive control

Preventive control, according to Malthus, consists of deciding individually in favor of stopping population growth. In other words, it is about voluntarily limiting oneself and making rational decisions, for example, before creating a family..

Such decisions should be based on the monthly income received and the real possibilities of ensuring a good quality of life for the new members of a family.

On the other hand, exercising positive population control means acting on the direct consequences of the lack of preventive control. That is, once a society has not voluntarily limited its population growth, the balance is inevitably established through disease, war and famine.

According to Mathus, positive control act more intensely toward lower-income population groups, where the percentage of infant death is higher than in the lower-income groups.where the percentage of infant death is higher, as well as unhealthy living conditions.

Preventive control and positive control eventually close the imbalance between the high population level and the low availability of resources, but this is at the cost of creating conditions of marginalization and poverty that, according to Malthus, are inevitable.

Technology and population in poverty

Other alternatives related to this are technological development that can increase, for example, agricultural development, and also migration, understood as the distribution of the population in different cities, and also migration, understood as the distribution of the population in different cities..

However, according to Malthus, technology provides only momentary relief and a temporary improvement in living standards. Migration, on the other hand, would not end up redistributing the population, since the general conditions of the places of destination were very severe.

In the same vein, Malthus was against the idea that the rich have to distribute their wealth to the poor, and he was against the idea that the rich have to distribute their wealth to the poor.This could cause poor people to remain in a passive position.

It could also make people in poverty have the feeling that they have the real possibility of supporting a family economically, so that families could grow even more.

Neo-Malthusianism: changes in population control

Malthusianism has evolved as population needs have changed. Thus, a new perspective called neo-Malthusianism has emerged, which has has focused especially on economic policy and England's population history..

The demographic historian E. A. Wrigley is considered one of the intellectuals who has taken up Malthusianism most forcefully. He has proposed that before the industrial revolution, England had an "organic economic system," characterized by diminishing returns where subsistence levels were characterized by the use of wood and other organic materials as a source of energy.

In modern England, the cost of living and population were related, but as the population began to increase, price indexes increased as well.

Likewise, he proposes that fertility was the main determinant of population growth, families were very large until the first half of the 19th century and although the fertility rate began to fall, an exacerbated growth is still expected, is still expected to grow at an exacerbated rate..

To study this relationship between fertility, the neo-Malthusian literature involves comparative studies, especially between the English and French experiences. At least until the French Revolution, the latter was characterized by a high-pressure system, while England adjusted through nuptiality and preventive control.

Thus, in neo-Malthusianism and other issues of economic policy, positive and preventive control measures and how they have been transformed over time continue to be discussed.

Bibliographical references:

• Abramitzky, R. and Braggion, F. (S/A). Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian Theories. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved May 25, 2018. Available at https://people.stanford.edu/ranabr/sites/default/files/malthusian_and_neo_malthusian1_for_webpage_040731.pdf.