The Dark World of Reverend Malthus

Abstract

Malthus’ very name is associated with pessimism—only somewhat undeservedly so. Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population, first published in 1798, appeared toward the end of a tumultuous decade in Great Britain. Where Adam Smith, in his 1776 book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, had imagined a commercial society harmoniously regulated by the operations of a self-regulating market generating self-sustaining growth, the vision of the economy which Malthus presented some two decades later was rather more grim, at least for the poor majority. Lacking a theoretical rigor on par with his peers, Malthus’ Essay was nevertheless soon recognized as the second foundational work of Political Economy behind Smith’s Inquiry. This paper will seek to situate Malthus in his time and will argue that his popularity with ruling landed elites is can be explained by their need for a champion in the debates on economic theory and by his round condemnation of the poor as the agents of their own suffering by overpopulating.