Malthus's Essay On The Principle Of Population

Malthus’s Essay on the Principle of Population was an influential essay that proposed a systematic theoretical approach to population. Malthus had collected empirical data and proposed that human population growth increases at an exponential rate. Whereas, the production of food increases at an arithmetic rate. This means that in the long run arithmetic food growth coupled with an exponential growth of human population would lead to a future where humans have little to no resources to survive on. To avoid this Malthusian catastrophe, Malthus argued for controls on population through preventative and positive checks. Preventative checks consist of efforts to lower the birth rate and positive checks are checks used to raise the death rate. Positive

Regardless of possibilities to alleviate these limits. Malthus argued against several imaginable solutions. For example, he satirized the notion of limitless agricultural improvement.
I disagree with Malthus’s notions on population growth and food production on several levels. First, Malthus’s theory provides a framework for fear of new people by arguing that mass starvation is inevitable if population grows. So why support immigration then under this model? His ideas also provided insights into Darwin’s models that would argue for the value of a mass human extinction. Eugenics also can give thanks to Malthus for providing a bedrock for their frameworks due to his zero-sustainable growth model. In a way, Malthus’s predictions of episodes of mass death has taken place not because it was naturally so but because it was believed to be so. Malthus’s work can be described as a rationalization of social inequality created through the Industrial Revolution and as a justification for nativism. The assumptions of growth of food supply and population from Malthus are used as the explanation for environmental degradation and poverty. His conclusions provide a tool to prevent social and