home Treatment and prevention What are the positive and negative aspects of the teachings of Malthus. The problem of overpopulation of the Earth

What are the positive and negative aspects of the teachings of Malthus. The problem of overpopulation of the Earth

Apology for Malthus

A.N. Sholudko, V.A. Shuper

The man in whose defense we consider it our duty to speak out died 174 years ago. Even in the encyclopedic dictionary “Demography”, published by the publishing house “Big Russian Encyclopedia” in 1994, in the huge article “Malthusianism” there is a statement that is far from true that “he [Malthus] saw a remedy for overpopulation in spreading the norms of Christian asceticism among the people, in “moral restraint” (voluntary refusal to marry and have children).” One can only thank God that Malthus himself, a zealous Christian, priest and theologian, did not have a chance to read this. On the contrary, a very brief (and very dry) article is devoted to Malthus as a person and thinker in this venerable publication, in which it is not even mentioned that he was a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1826). An indication of this circumstance, which is absolutely mandatory for any encyclopedic publication, is strangely absent in the article “Malthus” in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which, unlike the Great Russian Encyclopedia, was prepared with excellent care. Well, the article “Malthusianism” in the TSB ends like this: “The provisions of Malthusianism and neo-Malthusianism are a clear confirmation of the reactionary nature of bourgeois ideology, therefore the classics of Marxism-Leninism have repeatedly emphasized the need for a decisive, uncompromising and merciless struggle against Malthusianism, neo-Malthusianism in all its varieties, “... against attempts to impose this reactionary and cowardly teaching on the most advanced, the strongest, the most ready for great transformations class of modern society" (Lenin V.I., Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 23, p. 257)."

Thomas Robert Malthus (17.2.1766 – 23.12.1834) was not only a zealous Christian, he also devotedly and talentedly served the ideals of the Enlightenment. He brilliantly showed how faith in Reason can be combined in the most organic way with faith in God. In our time, when some do not believe in God, others - in Reason, and still others - and there are more and more of them - do not believe in anything at all, it will hardly be easy to attract attention to the ideas of the good old rationalist, but perhaps fate Will the outrageously distorted ideas of this slandered and slandered man be of interest to us, living in an era of gradual fading of the “natural light of reason”?

Since contemporaries were no more fair to Malthus than his descendants, he managed to respond to many attacks against him: “They say that I wrote a large essay only to prove that the population is multiplying in geometric progression, and the means of subsistence are increasing in arithmetic. It's not fair. The first of these points seemed to me beyond doubt as soon as the degree of reproduction in America was proven, but the second did not require proof at all. The main purpose of my essay is to explore the consequences that must inevitably flow and did flow among human societies from these laws set out in the first pages.

It would be deeply wrong to drag a social thinker who lived and worked two centuries ago into the court of modern times and reproach him for making a mistake. Of course, the population does not grow exponentially, unless you take certain not very long periods in the history of individual countries. Of course, the physiocrats were mistaken in believing that national income is created only in agriculture, and Malthus followed them and believed that it was harmful for the economy to help the needy not with food, but with money - he considered it to be an extremely noble act to cultivate a piece of land and give the harvest to the needy, but monetary assistance, in his opinion, would only lead to an increase in aggregate demand for the same amount of food and, accordingly, to an increase in prices. Malthus thought in terms of his time and he is interesting to us precisely as its leading representative. Doesn’t his insightful remark command respect: “After the appearance of the wonderful work Hell. Smith, it is difficult to understand how the opinion can still exist that the omnipotence of the government determines the change in the economic conditions in which the country finds itself, and that supply and demand can be equalized by decree or regulation? Should we not sympathize with Malthus in his struggle against the most dangerous prejudice that underlies, if not all, then most social upheavals: “The misfortunes of the lower classes of the population and the habit of blaming the government for these misfortunes seem to me to be the true support of despotism. These disasters and this habit create grounds for the abuse of power." It was the need to keep the lower classes of society in obedience, from the point of view of Malthus, that served as a justification for despotic rule and represented the main threat to democracy.

Malthus further develops this idea: “Thus, the responsibility for national disasters assigned by Paine and his associates to the government is obviously erroneous. Although free public institutions and good government contribute to some extent to the alleviation of poverty, yet their effect in this respect is only indirect and extremely slow. In terms of its consequences, this influence does not at all correspond to the immediate and rapid relief that the people expect to achieve through revolutions. These exaggerated hopes and the excitement caused by their failure to fulfill them give a false direction to the efforts of the people to achieve freedom and prevent the introduction of possible reforms, although slow and gradual, but at the same time sure and undoubtedly leading to an improvement in the lot of the people." Obviously, Malthus was an evolutionist and a democrat. Below we will try to show that he was even partly a social democrat, anticipating some of his very important positions long before the emergence of this trend itself. However, first we will show that, despite his bad reputation, Malthus was a genuine humanist, and the idea of subordinating the interests of man to the interests of the state was completely unacceptable to him.

Malthus's approach to emigration is quite typical in this regard: “It must therefore be recognized beyond doubt that eviction is certainly not enough to eliminate the disasters caused by excessive population growth. But if we look at it as a temporary and private measure taken to spread culture, then eviction turns out to be suitable and useful[Malthus' italics] . It may not be possible to prove that governments are obliged to actively encourage it, but there is no doubt that prohibiting evictions is not only unjust, but also an extremely erroneous measure. It is difficult to think of anything more groundless than fears that evictions could cause depopulation of the country. Love for the homeland and attachment to the family hearth is so essential and strong that people will never decide to evict, unless political displeasure or hopeless poverty forces them to this extreme resort, and in this case, their removal is only useful for the fatherland itself. The assumption that evictions increase wages is also unfounded. If in any country it enables the lower classes to live without extreme hardship and suffering, then one can be sure that the people of these classes will not think of eviction; if it is so insufficient that it gives rise to hardship and suffering, then it would be cruel and unfair on our part to oppose the evictions.”

The common misconception that Malthus considered wars and epidemics to be natural regulators of population numbers is again best refuted by giving the floor to Malthus himself. Malthus considered such regulators deeply unnatural. He wrote: “One of the main reasons for wars between ancient peoples was the lack of space and food; Although some changes took place in the conditions of existence of modern peoples, nevertheless, the same reason did not cease to operate, changing only the degree of its tension. The ambition of rulers would lack an instrument for destruction if disasters did not induce the lower classes of society to join their banners. Recruiters dream of a bad harvest; It is to their advantage that as many hands as possible remain unemployed—in other words, it is to their advantage to have a surplus in population. In earlier times, when war was the main occupation of people and when the decrease in population caused by it was incomparably greater than in our days, legislators and statesmen, constantly concerned with finding means of attack and defense, considered it their duty to encourage by all means the multiplication of the population; To achieve this, they tried to disgrace celibacy and infertility and, on the contrary, to honor marriage. Popular beliefs were formed under the influence of these rules. In many countries, fertility was a subject of worship. The religion of Mohammed, founded by the sword and by considerable extermination of its faithful followers, established for them as the most important duty the desire to produce as many children as possible for the glorification of their God. Such rules served as a powerful encouragement to marriage, and the rapid increase in population caused by them was both the consequence and the cause of the constant wars that characterized this period of mankind. Localities devastated by the previous war were populated with new inhabitants, who were destined for the formation of new armies, and the rapidity with which recruitment was made was the cause and means of new devastation. Given the dominance of such prejudices, it is difficult to foresee the end of wars.”

The “misanthrope” Malthus formulated his attitude towards epidemics just as unequivocally: “... I argued, and continue to believe this now, that if the means of subsistence of a country do not allow a rapid increase in population (and this does not depend on smallpox vaccination), then it will inevitably happen one of two things: either an increase in mortality from some other cause, or a decrease in the relative number of births. But at the same time I expressed a desire for the latter to happen; therefore, on the principles which I have always proclaimed, I must be recognized, as in fact I am, as the most zealous supporter of smallpox vaccination. By doing everything that depends on me to improve the well-being of the poor and reduce mortality among them, I act completely in accordance with my principles.” Offended by his contemporaries, Malthus said with his heart: “ You have to completely not understand my teaching in order to consider me an enemy of population reproduction. The enemies I fight are vice and poverty[Malthus' italics]."

Let's digress for a moment from the actual demographic problems and look at Malthus as a social thinker. Let's try to figure out whether he treated people from the lower classes as an end or as a means. For those familiar with Malthus's book, the answer is obvious - his position was truly humanistic and was expressed in a consistent rejection of everything that entails a reduction in the cost of labor, be it the introduction of potatoes and milk as the main food for workers or the provision of cows to them in order to encourage hard work and improve nutrition. Only the relatively high cost of labor could leave at the worker's disposal at least some means that would allow him to rise above the level of poverty. "Because the consumption of milk, potatoes and stew, as the main food of the people, will cause a decrease in wages[Malthus' italics] , then, perhaps, there will be a heartless politician who will advise taking such a measure in order to be able to produce in England and supply goods to European markets at the lowest price that does not allow competition. I cannot approve of such motives. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a more disgusting act than condemning the working classes of their fatherland to extreme poverty due to the desire to sell a shipment of cloth and paper materials more profitably. The wealth and power of nations are of any significance only if they tend to increase the happiness of all the people composing that nation. By saying this, I do not mean to reduce them [wealth and power] meaning; on the contrary, I look upon them as a necessary means to achieve such an end. But if in some particular case such a goal and similar means for achieving it turned out to be in complete contradiction, then reason does not allow doubts about what choice needs to be made.

Malthus, who believed in reason, considered it necessary to have a responsible attitude towards marriage, which is possible only when it is possible to support one’s offspring without shifting this sacred responsibility to society. He saw a solution in late marriages, and not in “voluntary refusal to marry and have children.” At the same time, he strongly opposed the tradition that encourages women to marry at a young age, even to a man who is much older, so as not to be left without a family. Old men, according to Malthus, should certainly marry, but with women who are much closer to them in age. Such a proposal, of course, was in the interests of women, but not in the interests of Malthus himself. However, this was not what earned him the greatest antipathy of his contemporaries, which, unfortunately, was passed on to his descendants.

True to the ideals of the Enlightenment, Malthus considered a responsible attitude towards family to be the duty of every person. Therefore, from his point of view, it would be completely irresponsible to encourage the poor to marry early, giving them the opportunity to support their offspring at the expense of society, i.e. parishes For this reason, he considered it extremely harmful to recognize the poor rights for food. In case of crop failures and other critical situations, helping those in need is absolutely necessary, but cannot be assumed to be people’s responsibility. right to receive help, as this leads to irresponsibility and dependent attitudes. Has this problem lost its relevance over two centuries? Has Malthus's approach become less unpopular?

Malthus argued decisively with his contemporaries who defended this right: “In fact, whatever vain eloquence may be put forth on this subject, our conduct, in essence, proves that this imaginary right [the right of the poor to food] does not exist at all. If the poor had the right to be supported at the expense of society, no man could, without violation of justice, wear a dress of good cloth and satisfy his hunger with meat. Those who defend this right and at the same time ride in carriages, live in abundance, even feed horses on land that could serve to feed people, in my opinion, are in conflict with their own principles.” The rationalist Malthus thought about the long-term consequences of his social policy to a much greater extent than his contemporaries, or, especially our contemporaries: “Isn’t it more useful to give a piece of mutton intended for my dinner to a poor worker who has not eaten meat for a whole week? Isn't it better to give it to a family that has nothing to satisfy their hunger? If these needs did not naturally arise as they were satisfied, then, without a doubt, it would be very useful to satisfy them, and I would not hesitate to recognize the right of those who experience these needs. But since experience and speculation irresistibly prove that the recognition of right would increase needs to such an extent that there would be no possibilities[emphasis added] to satisfy them, and since the attempt to carry out such a course of action would inevitably plunge the human race into the most appalling misery, it is obvious that our behavior, silently denying such a right, is more in accordance with the laws of our nature than the sterile eloquence defending it existence" . Can we then say that Malthus was deeply wrong? Or at least that it is hopelessly outdated?

Malthus wrote: “... it is necessary to take one, in my opinion, inevitable step, before undertaking any important changes in the existing system, whether it concerns the question of reducing benefits or completely abolishing them. This is required by honor and justice. Necessary openly refuse recognition for the imaginary poor rights be maintained at public expense[italics and bold font by the author]. To achieve this goal, I would propose to pass a law by which parish trustees would deny benefits to children born from marriages contracted within a year after the promulgation of the law, and to all illegitimate children born two years after its promulgation. In order for the law to become known to everyone and deeply imprinted in the consciousness of the people, I would propose that the priests, immediately after the announcement of the upcoming marriage, be required to pronounce a short injunction, which would insistently point out the simple duty of every person to take care of the existence of his children and would remind him of the folly and the immorality of those who marry without any hope of fulfilling this sacred duty; of the calamities to which the poor have been subjected whenever they have endeavored in the fruitless attempt to replace the cares laid by nature upon parents by the cares of public institutions; and, finally, of the insistent necessity abandon these attempts, which led to consequences completely opposite to those expected from them.”

Malthus considered voluntary assistance necessary and desirable, preferable both morally and politically, since it helps to establish solidarity between different classes of society, while compulsory assistance corrupts some and does not bring satisfaction to others. However, he clearly distinguished between ends and means. Recognizing the right of the poor to receive assistance is possible and even useful if it does not entail extremely negative consequences for society as a whole. Malthus' position was that a man should marry only when his earnings and savings were sufficient to support his wife and six children. Wasn't such a position justified in the complete absence of family planning? Didn’t Malthus act wisely and humanely when he offered to unconditionally pay benefits to those workers who would have more than six children: “It may be objected that all this is prudence [restraining from marriage until such time as it becomes possible to support a wife and six children ] may turn out to be useless, since the person entering into marriage cannot foresee how many children he will have and whether there will be more than six of them. This is just, and in that case, I believe, there would be no inconvenience in giving an allowance for each child beyond this number, not as a reward for a large family, but to relieve a burden which he could not foresee in his marriage. Consequently, the amount of the benefit should be such as to put him in the same position as someone who has six children. Regarding the decree of Louis XIV, which provided certain advantages to those who would have ten or twelve children, Montesquieu notes that such regulations are powerless to encourage an increase in population. The same reason that prompts him to condemn the law of Louis XIV prompts me to assert that it could have been adopted without any danger"?

Malthus was a son of his time and could not foresee family planning, especially on a modern technical basis, but should his descendants, who made childbearing almost the main source of income for a large part of the population of European countries, reproach the old rationalist for his lack of foresight? Malthus was up to the task of his time; he was very concerned about the growth of cities, considering the conditions of existence in them extremely harmful to humans, and took a consistently humanistic position, without falling into conservatism: “... it must be admitted that the increase in population was delayed by successes civilization. The number of cities and factories is increasing, and it is difficult to count on changes in the living conditions in them. Of course, we are obliged to try, as far as it depends on us, so that they do not shorten life expectancy, but it is unlikely that we will ever be able to achieve that living in cities and working in factories is as healthy as life in villages and rural activities. Acting as destructive forces, cities and factories thereby reduce the need for obstacles to prevent the proliferation of the population."

The successes of civilization, according to Malthus, cannot in themselves lead to a decrease in the rate of population growth, so significant that there is no need for moral curbing of passions: “Are the cities and factories of Switzerland, Norway, Sweden the graves of the human race and prevent any possibility of excess population? In Sweden the ratio of the rural population to the urban population is 13:1, and in England it is 2:1, and yet the population is growing faster in the latter. How can such a fact be reconciled with the statement that the successes of civilization are constantly accompanied by a corresponding weakening of the natural desire to reproduce? Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have been governed quite satisfactorily, and yet we do not notice in them those “precautionary changes” which, according to Weyland, are found in every society as the soil becomes exhausted, and which “turn many people away from marriage and do everything more people are unable to replenish the declining population." What discourages people from getting married in these countries if not the lack of funds to support a family? What makes married people incapable of replenishing the declining population, if not illnesses resulting from poverty and lack of means of subsistence? If reflection on the condition of these and many other countries proves that the free arrangement of early marriages inevitably entails an increase in the mortality rate resulting from poverty, are we justified in asserting that there is no moral reason for restraining such early marriages? When we know that in many, and perhaps even in all European countries, wages are insufficient to support a large family in a healthy state, how can we assert that the population has not yet reached its extreme limits and that “the disasters caused by an excess population may appear only in a country populated to that extreme degree beyond which its means of subsistence cannot increase"? .

An important and interesting feature of Malthus’s worldview should be considered the combination of the social democratic motives mentioned above with downright Stolypin hopes for the middle class. True, in industrial England the middle class did not at all appear in the image of strong rural owners. Continuing his polemic with Weyland, Malthus writes: “This actual reproduction, that is, the true limits of population, must constantly be much lower than the greatest limit of the productive power of the earth, which provides the means for food. This last condition follows, firstly, from the fact that we have no right to assume that the art and hard work of people in modern society can receive Maybe the best application to meet this performance; secondly, from the fact that greatest[Malthus' italics] nutrient production cannot be achieved under a private property system [emphasis added - A.Sh., V.Sh.], as I explained earlier."

Probably, the bridge between a completely social-democratic attitude towards the system of private ownership of land and a completely bourgeois attitude towards the middle class can be formed by Malthus’s rejection of luxury, both for moral and economic reasons: “There is no need for the rich to indulge in excessive luxury to support factories and that the poor deprive themselves of all amenities to support the population. The most useful factories in all respects are those which serve to satisfy the needs of the entire mass of the population. On the contrary, those which satisfy the needs of the rich are not only of less importance due to the limited demand for their products, but also represent the inconvenience that they often cause great disasters due to the variability of fashion by which they are controlled. Moderate luxury, evenly distributed among all classes of society, and not excessive luxury of a small group of people, is necessary for the happiness and well-being of the people.” It is from these provisions that Malthus smoothly moves on to hopes for the middle class as the support of morality in society and the source of its economic prosperity: “In general, it has been noted that the middle position in society is most favorable for the development of virtue, industry and all kinds of talents. But obviously, all people cannot belong to the middle class. Higher and lower classes are inevitable and, at the same time, very useful. If in society there were no hope for promotion and fear of demotion, if hard work were not followed by reward, and laziness by punishment, then there would not be that activity and zeal that encourages every person to improve his position and which are the main engine of social life. well-being."

Malthus cannot be denied not only insight, but also insight. Pointing out that the welfare of states increases as the size of the middle class increases, he, as always, remains a true humanistic principle and places hopes on technological progress precisely as the most important factor in the growth of the middle class: “With such a replacement of the lower classes by the middle classes [thanks to technological progress], every the worker would have the right to hope to improve his situation through his own efforts and diligence. Industry and virtue would be more often rewarded. There would be more winnings and fewer empty tickets in a huge public lottery. In a word, the total amount of happiness would obviously increase.”

Contrary to popular belief, Malthus's writings are imbued with a spirit of social optimism, and not at all with a premonition of disaster. True to the principles of rationalism, he urged his contemporaries to face the truth, to be courageous and to work hard for a better future: “If the picture of the past gave me the right to hope that a significant improvement in the social order is not only possible, but at least probable, then the destruction of these hopes would no doubt sadden me. But if, on the contrary, the experience of the past does not allow me to count on such an improvement, then without any sadness I will look at the difficulty inextricably linked with our nature, with which we have to wage a constant struggle, since this struggle excites the energy of a person, develops his abilities, tempers the soul , improves it in many respects, in a word, is eminently suitable for its testing. It is much better to establish such a view of the state of society than to assure ourselves that all disasters could easily be eliminated from our lives if the corruption of people influencing public institutions did not distort all useful undertakings.”

How can one not recall the polemics of A.V. Lunacharsky (1875-1933) and A.I. Vvedensky (1888-1946) regarding the origin of man. Having exhausted his arguments, Vvedensky said that he was ready to admit that Lunacharsky came from a monkey, but he, Vvedensky, came from God. Lunacharsky, in response, expressed his readiness to admit that he descended from a monkey, while Vvedensky descended from God, but noted that anyone who looked at him, Lunacharsky, would say, “What progress!”, and whoever looked at Vvedensky, “What squalor!” " More than a century earlier, the son of the Enlightenment, who thought in a similar way, himself a priest and theologian, resolutely remained devoted to Reason: “If ignorance is good, then there is no need for enlightenment. But if, as in this case, it is dangerous, if false views of social order not only retard progress, but also cruelly deceive our hopes, then it seems to me that the feelings and expectations inspired by a sound view of the future are a source of consolation and that people Those who have this sound view are happier and more involved in the improvement and strengthening of the welfare of society than if they turned away from the truth."

Malthus combined social optimism, based on rationalism and courageous acceptance of objective realities, with subtle methodological intuition, which placed him far ahead of his time. Now, when the intellectual level in society is declining catastrophically, when the social sciences are dominated by empiricism, and the most authoritative sociologists without any trembling in their voices speak about the exhaustion of sociological theory, does it not make sense to listen to what was said two centuries ago: “Our ears were buzzing with empty accusations against theories and their authors. People who argue against theories pride themselves on their commitment to practice and experience. It is necessary to agree that a bad theory is a very bad thing and that the authors of such theories not only do not bring any benefit, but often even cause harm to society. However, the extreme defenders of practical methods do not notice that they themselves fall into the trap from which they try to warn others, and most of them can be counted among the authors of the most harmful theories. When a person conveys what he had the opportunity to observe, he thereby increases the total mass of information and benefits society. But when he draws general conclusions or constructs a theory from a limited observation of the facts that took place on his farm or in his workshop, he is the more dangerous of a theorist for relying on observation, since in such cases it is often overlooked that a reasonable theory should be based on general, and not on particular facts"? Have we moved far from the views of Malthus and, most importantly, have we moved forward?

Finally, the question that obliges us to consider respect for the personality of Malthus is the question of the relationship between his views on the development of society and his faith. “Without going into unnecessary details here that would distract us far,” writes Malthus, “we can establish on the basis of the teachings of St. Paul the following general rule of the Christian religion: marriage, if it does not contradict higher duties, deserves our approval, but if it contradicts them, it is worthy of blame. This rule also completely coincides with the indisputable requirements of the highest morality: “In order to know the will of God with reason, it is necessary to evaluate the significance of an action in relation to the general good.” Malthus further develops this idea: “I believe that the purpose of the Creator is that the earth should be peopled; but I think that He wants it to be populated with a healthy, virtuous and happy breed, and not with a sick, vicious and unhappy one. If, under the pretext of obeying the command to be fruitful and multiply, we populate the earth with the latter breed and thus voluntarily expose ourselves to all kinds of disasters, then we will lose the right blame the divine commandment for injustice and we will have to explain our suffering by the reckless execution of the sacred law.”

To understand the origins of Malthus’s worldview, it is necessary to remember that modern science did not become a continuation of ancient science, although it took a lot from it. It grew out of medieval philosophical scholasticism, when at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. An exceptionally fruitful idea arose that God created not one, but two books - Holy Scripture and Nature. The founder of modern philosophy, Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an ardent defender of the empirical (experimental) method of knowledge, who died of a cold contracted while conducting experiments on freezing chickens, wrote about God: “And so that we do not fall into error, He gave us two books: the book of Scripture, in which the will of God is revealed, and then the book of Nature, which reveals His power. Of these two books, the second is, as it were, the key to the first, not only preparing our minds to perceive, on the basis of the general laws of thought and speech, the true meaning of Scripture, but also mainly developing further our faith, forcing us to turn to serious reflection on the divine omnipotence, signs which is clearly imprinted on the stone of his creations."

Consequently, the second book can and should also be studied by rational, i.e. logical methods, which in this case should be considered the experiment and the interpretation of its results, and these results should be described in the form of mathematical formalisms. The possibility of the latter was based not only on the success of mathematics, but also on an unshakable faith in the perfection of God's plan. Hence the famous Newtonian saying that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. At the same time, I. Newton (1643-1727) was a deeply religious person and interpreted space as God’s sense. Malthus was equally religious, most likely seeing his duty as a Christian in his scientific research.

Let's try to take a general look at Malthus's concept from the enormous distance that separates us from him. The situation in Black Africa, where for three decades there has been virtually no progress in per capita food production, unfortunately, forces us to admit that old Malthus was not so far from the truth, and without reducing the rate of population growth, solve the food problem (and with it and environmental, since exceeding any and all permissible loads on farmland and deforestation lead to desertification, which progresses very quickly) will clearly not succeed. What is happening on other continents also hardly refutes Malthus’s positions. Setting aside some rich oil-producing countries, no one has yet managed to escape poverty without reducing the birth rate in a very significant way, and China, where the birth rate is now lower than in France, is the most striking example of this. It is difficult to overestimate the role of family planning, but raising the age of marriage and, especially, the age at which the first child is born, which, in fact, is what Malthus had in mind, is also of great importance.

Malthus would have been pleasantly surprised by how much living conditions have improved in cities, where life expectancy is often higher than in rural areas. However, it is precisely the rapid, one might say avalanche-like, urbanization in developing countries that makes a huge contribution to the decline in the birth rate. Finally, when we say that there is an optimal number of humanity, which has long been exceeded, that the population of the Earth will grow for several more decades, and then begin to gradually decline, and that this is not evil, but good, are we not following in the footsteps of the old rationalist?

If anyone really refuted Malthus, it was S.P. Kapitsa, who showed, using the phenomenological theory of population growth on Earth, that the size of humanity has always been subject not to external, but to internal restrictions. Such a conclusion grossly contradicts common sense, but all the most interesting things in science begin precisely where we can no longer make do with them. This is exactly what happened when creating the theory of relativity, gravitational theories or quantum mechanics, and in our time - the theory of superstrings. However, Malthus, who unshakably believed in external limitations, would hardly have been upset by Kapitsa’s results - he sought the truth, and did not arrogantly possess it, and humility before the truth was inherent in him, probably to the same extent as humility before God.

Perhaps we were too carried away with quotes, but our goal - to restore the good name of Malthus - required that we give the floor to him himself. This is all he needs to defend his views, and the silencing of his works and their very limited availability is hardly an unfortunate accident. 174 years ago, a wonderful man, a thinker and a humanist, who was infinitely devoted to the ideals of the Enlightenment and deeply believed in God, left us. We can do nothing for this man, who suffered much from injustice for his fearless search for the truth. By restoring the truth, we strive to provide a feasible service to modern society, which is often struggling with the same problems that Malthus tried to solve, and not always more successfully. Paying tribute to the blessed memory of Malthus, we want to end the article with the words with which he ended his book: “... practical purpose, which the author of this work pursued, consisted of improving the lot and increasing the happiness of the lower classes of society. Ibid., p. 126.
There, p. 94.
There, p. 53.
There, p. 112.
Petrov M.K. Before the "Book of Nature". Spiritual forests and prerequisites for the scientific revolution of the 17th century. // Nature, 1978, No. 8. P. 118.
Kapitsa S.P. General theory of human growth. How many people have lived, are living and will live on Earth. M.: Nauka, 1999.
Malthus T. Experience on the law of population. Fifth edition (1817) // Anthology of economic classics. – M.: “Ekonov”, “Klyuch”, 1993. P. 116.

18th-19th centuries. His main works were published in 1798 and 1820. Malthus and his “population theory” made a huge contribution to the development of science.

Biography

Malthus was born in 1766, on February 14th. His father was a very extraordinary person. He was interested in science and maintained friendly relations with Hume and Rousseau. In 1788, Malthus graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge University. According to the existing custom, as the youngest son, he was supposed to begin a spiritual career. After college, Malthus was ordained. In 1793 he received a theological degree. From 1797 to 1803 Malthus was vicar of a Surrey parish. However, from his youth he was fascinated by science. Therefore, at the same time, Malthus began to teach. All his free time was spent studying problems of interrelation with natural processes. In 1805, he accepted an offer to become a professor in the department of modern history and political economy at the East India Company College. Here he also served as a priest.

Malthus' theory (briefly)

It became the main work of his life. The first edition was published anonymously in 1798. Malthus and his theory of population caused numerous attacks at the time. This was mainly the reason that from 1799 to 1802 he began traveling to some European countries. During his trips, he collected information and statistical data. He used all this information to adjust his work. After this tour in 1803, under his own name, he published a new, updated edition of the book. Subsequent works were also significantly expanded and updated. Malthus's theory, in short, became an extensive treatise that included historical excursions from the works of other authors.

Specifics of compilation

In the very first edition, Malthus's theory of population briefly outlined his theses concerning the demographic state of a number of countries. However, when compiling the essay, the author was not aware of even simple statistical data not only from other states, but also from England itself. For example, he believed that the population of Britain was 7 million people. According to the census conducted in 1801, this number was almost 11 million. When preparing the second edition, he took into account not only the statistical information received, but also church registration data. In addition, Malthus' theory was supplemented with information from other countries. During his lifetime, 6 editions were published. Each time, Malthus's theory was published in ever larger numbers.

The nature and increase of land rent

This is another extensive work that Malthus created. It was published in 1815. In this work, the author, based on the natural nature of income from land, tried to reveal the mechanisms of its formation and increase, and substantiate the importance of rent in the sale of the total product produced by society. But his final judgments were made a little later. In 1820, his second main work was published, which reflected the economic theory of Malthus.

The essence of the 1798 concept

Thomas Malthus and his theory have as their primary goal the improvement of human life. In his work, the author uses various categories and concepts. His work contains not only economic, but also natural philosophical, sociological, aesthetic, and religious concepts. In his work he considered without regard to any one as a whole. T. Malthus' theory of population was expressed as an eternal, unshakable, natural and inevitable law of nature. The author argued that the number of people increases in geometric progression, and the means of subsistence in arithmetic progression. According to T. Malthus' theory of population, after two centuries the ratio between the number of people and means would be 256:9, and after three - 4096:13. In 2000 years, the gap between categories would be incalculable and limitless. This theory of T. Malthus will subsequently be called the law of decreasing fertility of the earth. Doubling the number of inhabitants of the planet, according to the author, will be equivalent to the fact that the size of the Earth will decrease by half. The more people there are, the less cultivable land will remain for each person. In this regard, there is a tendency for the expansion of food resources to lag behind the increase in the number of people on the planet. Malthus's theory was not substantiated by any real facts. The author proceeded only from assumptions that were not confirmed by reliable evidence or materials that had any significant practical significance.

Contradiction

Malthus's theory, however, contains one fact. But he not only does not substantiate his assumptions, but, on the contrary, speaks of his dishonesty as a scientist. The author mentions in his reflections the doubling of the population of North America in a quarter of a century. He believes that this fact confirms his assumption that the number of people is increasing exponentially. But in reality, as the thinker himself notes, the growth in the number of residents does not occur unhindered. The author notes that the thesis regarding doubling does not hold. It is easy to calculate that otherwise, in a thousand years, the number of people would have increased 240 times. This means that if in 1001 AD. e. If there were 2 people living, then in 2001 there would be 2 x 1012 (or 2 trillion people). This amount is approximately 300 times less than the actual value today.

Concept problems

Moral restraint. The author believed that the duty of every person is that before deciding to marry, he needs to achieve a state in which he will be able to provide a means of subsistence for his offspring. At the same time, the inclination towards family life must retain its strength to maintain energy and awaken in a celibate individual the desire to achieve the required level of well-being through work.
Vices. Malthus included unnatural relationships, promiscuity, desecration of the family bed, and various tricks that are taken to hide vicious relationships.
Misfortune. The author considered them to be hunger, war, plague, epidemics, various excesses, poor nutrition of children, excessive, hard work, harmful activities, and so on.

It should be said, however, that the doubling of numbers actually took place at a certain stage in the development of society. But it happened as a result of migration, and not due to natural growth.

Poverty of people

According to Malthus's theory, the main causes of poverty are not problems of social organization in society. The poor have no right to demand anything from the rich. According to the author, the latter are not to blame for the failure of the former. Malthus's theory of poverty is based on the fact that poverty has little or no influence on the form of government or the unequal distribution of goods. The rich are unable to provide food and work to the poor. In this regard, the poor, in essence, have no right to demand food or employment. Thus, according to Malthus' theory of population, the main causes of poverty are inevitable natural laws.

Purpose of the concept

It is revealed directly in the author’s reasoning itself. Malthus's theory is aimed at paralyzing the class struggle of workers, proving the futility and groundlessness of the demands that the proletariat makes on the bourgeoisie. The author especially emphasized that the introduction and dissemination of his ideas among the poor would have a beneficial effect on the working masses, which, of course, was beneficial to the ruling class. Malthus made every effort to deprive the struggle of the proletariat of ground. At the same time, he himself cynically and openly opposed the fulfillment of the elementary demands of justice and the vital rights of workers. The author suggested that the proletariat itself is to blame for its failure. The proletariat can reduce its poverty only by reducing the birth rate. He considered moral curbing, misfortune, abstinence from beggarly marriages, exhausting labor, illness, war, epidemics, and famine as measures to combat the increase in the number of people. In this he saw the only effective and natural means by which one could destroy “extra people.”

Malthus' "third party" theory

Effect

Almost immediately after its publication, Malthus’s theory of reproduction became the subject of discussion among public figures, researchers and non-professionals. In addition to followers of the concept, opponents of the provisions also appeared. Some of the critics put forward quite constructive arguments. Malthus's work was subsequently referred to by specialists from various scientific fields. His work had a key influence on the development of Darwin's concept.

Criticism of Marxists

Representatives of the classical school revealed the reactionary role of population theory. Marx proved that the essence of the concept is based on the replacement of the specific socio-economic laws of capitalism with “immutable and eternal” natural postulates. Marx proved that there is no theory of population at all. Each social formation has its own specific law. There is no and cannot be absolute overpopulation. Population growth is a relative phenomenon. It acts as a specific feature of the capitalist system, arising under the influence of the law of accumulation. It is precisely this, and not natural laws, that determines the poverty of the proletariat. Malthus used the unscientific law of diminishing returns as his main “argument.” Marxists sharply criticized this concept. They argued that the author and his supporters do not take into account the increase in productive forces and the progress of technology. Lenin, criticizing the theory, said that there is not a difficulty in obtaining food in general, but a problem with food only for a specific class of society - the proletariat. This difficulty is determined by specific capitalist, rather than natural, laws.

Mises's opinion

This author attached particular importance to the influence of Malthus's concept on the theory of liberalism. Mises believed that the assumptions put forward act as a social doctrine of liberalism. He called the theory of division of labor as the core of this idea. Only with a close relationship with this concept can the social conditions of Malthus’ theory be correctly interpreted. Society appears as a union of people for the better use of natural factors of existence. In essence, society is a ban on the mutual extermination of people. In society, instead of struggle, mutual assistance is used. This forms the main motivation for the behavior of its members. There should be no struggle within society; there is only peace. Any confrontation, by its very nature, slows down social cooperation. Mises gives his explanation of Malthus's conclusions. He says that private ownership of the means of production is a regulative principle. It provides a balance between an increasing number of consumers and a decreasing amount of resources. This principle creates a dependence for each individual on a quota for an economic product, which is reserved from the coefficient of labor and property. It finds its expression in a decrease in the birth rate under the influence of society, the elimination of unnecessary members of society by analogy with the plant or animal world. In the human population, the function of the struggle for existence is realized by a “moral brake that limits offspring.”

Protection concept

Mises, among other things, rejects the accusations of cruelty and misanthropy brought against Malthus. The author warns readers against making incorrect conclusions. He says that there is not and cannot be a struggle for survival in society. Mises believes that making such barbaric conclusions based on Malthus's theory is a grave mistake. He argued: statements taken out of context and used for misinterpretation are explained by the insufficiency and incompleteness of the first edition of the work. The original edition was compiled before the idea of classical political economy was formed.

Using the concept

Despite the general scientific inconsistency of population theory, it had great success in bourgeois circles. This was due to the fact that the class demands of this part of society were highly satisfied with ideas. The most ominous role of the concept is being noted today. The active dissemination of the ideas of neo-Malthusianism in various interpretations is due to the accelerated increase in population (to a greater extent in developing countries). This trend is accompanied by worsening environmental problems and a widening gap in the level of progress between countries.

Roman Club

It is a non-governmental organization of international level. It brings together public, political, and scientific figures from many countries around the world. The Club of Rome put forward the thesis that by the mid-20th century, humanity had reached the limits of exponential growth within a limited space. This idea was presented at the first report in 1972. In 1974, one of the models for solving global problems was justified, the concept of improving the world system in the plane of limited growth. The latter is understood as a procedure of structural differentiation, which has significant differences from an exclusively quantitative undifferentiated increase. The authors use this concept in relation to the growth of the world system, similar to the development of an organism, within which both the specialization of different elements and their functional mutual dependence are noted. The need to use exactly this approach, according to the participants, is determined by the interdependence of crisis phenomena. These include, in particular, demographic, raw materials, energy, food, natural and other problems.

Conclusion

If, by the onset of the next century, family planning will spread to almost all inhabitants of the planet, and if such a limit will exist at the level of 2.2-2.5 children for each marriage, then there is reason to believe that by the end of the 21st century the number of people on Earth will stabilize to 11-12 billion people. The most important prerequisites for solving the problem of regulating the increase in human population are deep spiritual and social transformations, an increase in the cultural and material level of the peoples living on the planet. In this case, we are not talking about forced birth control, according to the theory put forward by Malthus. The essence of solving problems is to develop and implement a number of well-thought-out measures. Only thanks to this approach, in some states and regions the increase in population should accelerate, and in others it should begin to slow down. The need for an objective, conscious limitation of population growth, dictated by the ecological imperative, necessitates turning to the neo-Malthusian concept. The interrelation of factors in it is two-way. Malthus's works laid the basis for the subsequent improvement of the demographic direction in the science of economic development.

Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Law of Population

What was, what is and what will be...

The main work of Thomas Malthus is an essay outlining the theory of population. The publication of the book entitled “An Essay on the Law of Population, and How It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Ideas of M. Godwin, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Other Authors,” was published anonymously in 1798. The above authors believed that either science would be able to find unlimited resources to provide the population with food, or the human mind would be able to limit and curb the increasing population growth. But still, their main postulate was the sacred belief that no matter what problems humanity faces, be it overpopulation or depletion of resources, people will always find a solution and the key to endless prosperity.

According to the usual course of affairs, both in the field of history of doctrines and in the field of facts, such ardent optimism was bound to provoke a reaction. It was not long in coming and appeared in the form of Malthus's Essay on the Law of Population.

Regarding the above statements that the progress of the human race towards wealth and happiness is endless and that the danger, lest the time come when there will be too many people on earth, is chimerical or, in any case, is being pushed into such a distant future that it is hardly worth it to worry - regarding all these statements, Malthus replies that, on the contrary, this is precisely the almost insurmountable obstacle, and not in the distant future, but at the present time, now, and at all times it hangs over one’s head, hindering progress of the human race is the rock of Sisyphus, which constantly threatened to fall and destruction. Nature has put into man an instinct which, left to its own devices, condemns him to be a victim of hunger, death and vices. People suffer from this instinct without knowing the cause of their suffering, which would give them the key to the history of societies and their disasters.

Everyone, even those completely unfamiliar with sociological research, knows the unforgettable formulas of Malthus, according to which, on the one hand, the population left to its own devices grows with terrifying speed, and on the other, the means of subsistence multiply relatively slowly. Therefore, Malthus represents population growth as a geometric progression. And he represents production growth as an arithmetic progression. Thus, he gets:

Rather, the period of twenty-five years, the gap between the two members, may be questionable. The period of time between the average age of parents and the average age of children, when they in turn become capable of reproducing, cannot be less than 33 years. This is called the period of one generation, and there have always been about three such periods in one century.

But these are minor quibbles. What will happen if the interval between the two members is extended from 25 to 33 years and the progression multiplier is reduced from 2 to 11/2, 11/4 or 11/10? The progression will slow down a little, but once a geometric progression is accepted, no matter how slowly it develops at first, it very soon begins to make extraordinary leaps and goes beyond all limits. These amendments do not detract from the force of Malthus' reasoning, nor from the significance of the physiological law.

The second progression seems more untenable, because it is clearly arbitrary, and it is not even known whether, like the first, it represents only a tendency or is it intended to represent reality? It does not correspond to any known and true law, like the biological law of reproduction. Rather, it seems to refute this very law. Indeed, what are “means of existence” if not animal and plant species that reproduce according to the same laws, and, like humans, and even much faster, according to geometric progression. Does not the power of reproduction of grain or potatoes, chickens or herrings, and even cattle or sheep infinitely exceed the power of reproduction of man? To this objection, Malthus would undoubtedly have responded that the hidden power of reproduction of animal and plant species is in fact bound by very narrow boundaries: climate, the food they need, the struggle for existence, etc. So be it. But if these obstacles count in the second progression, why are they not taken into account in the first? There seems to be some inconsistency here. One of two things: either it is a question of expressing tendencies, and in this case the tendency in the reproduction of means of subsistence is not only not the same, but is much stronger than the tendency in the reproduction of people; or the point is to object to what is, and in this case the obstacles to the endless reproduction of people are no less than the obstacles to the endless reproduction of animals and plants, or, better said, the latter is obviously a function of the former.

It is obvious that in a given place there cannot in fact be more living beings than how many of them can permeate there - this is a truism. For if there are any surplus there, they are, according to the accepted principle, condemned to death by starvation. Thus, the matter occurs throughout the entire animal and vegetable kingdom: the insane fertility of the embryos is mercilessly brought by death to the desired proportion, and the level determined by necessity does not rise higher or fall lower, as in a well-regulated reserve, for the terrible devastation caused by death among them is constantly replenished the pressure of life. But among savage peoples, as well as among the animals they approach, most of the population literally starves to death. Malthus spends a long time describing the state of these primitive societies, and in this respect he was one of the forerunners of prehistoric sociology, which after him moved far forward.

He shows very well how a lack of food entails a thousand evils: not only mortality, epidemics, but also anthropophagy, infanticide, murder of the elderly, and especially war, which, even when its goal is not to eat the vanquished, is, in any case, waged , to deprive the vanquished of his land and the bread it produces. He calls these obstacles positive, or repressive.

However, this lack of food in wild animals, as well as in animals, is not a consequence of their inability to produce, and not a consequence of overpopulation?

To this Malthus objects, pointing out that many of these wild customs continue to exist among such civilized peoples as the Greeks. Even modern peoples have such cruel, although to a lesser extent, methods of reducing population. Although famine in the form of shortages in the proper sense does not occur anywhere else except in Russia and India, it does not cease to rage among the most civilized societies in the form of a physiological disaster, the most deadly manifestation of which is tuberculosis, causing terrible infant mortality and premature mortality among the adult worker population. As for war, it never stops killing people. Malthus was a contemporary of the wars of the French Revolution and the First Empire, which between 1791 and 1815 killed up to ten million people in Europe in adulthood.

Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Law of Population

What was, what is and what will be...

Thomas Robert Malthus was born on February 13, 1766 near Dorking (Surrey). His father was an extraordinary person: he studied science, was friends and corresponded with the most prominent thinkers of that time, David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The latter advocated, among other things, home schooling, and Daniel Malthus, being a passionate admirer of it, decided to hire a private teacher for his son - the rector of a small college located nearby. Then, fortunately the famous Cambridge was just a stone's throw away, Thomas entered one of the institutions there - Jesus College.

The main work of Thomas Malthus is an essay outlining the theory of population. Biographers claim that it was written after a heated argument between the scientist and his father. Daniel Malthus defended the idea of a “perfect society”, drawn from Rousseau, which was supposed to consist of “improved” people, and Thomas Malthus, who respected facts most of all, destroyed all his polemical constructions, focusing on numbers (one might say, he spoke from the position of sociology). This argument seemed so vivid and convincing to the father that he advised his son to put it all on paper.

The first edition of the book, entitled “An Essay on the Law of Population, and How It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Ideas of M. Godwin, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Other Authors,” was published anonymously in 1798. And five years later, a second and, as they say, expanded one, was released - twice as large in volume.

The above authors believed that either science would be able to find unlimited resources to provide the population with food, or the human mind would be able to limit and curb the increasing population growth. But still, their main postulate was the sacred belief that no matter what problems humanity faces, be it overpopulation or depletion of resources, people will always find a solution and the key to endless prosperity. According to the usual course of affairs, both in the field of history of doctrines and in the field of facts, such ardent optimism was bound to provoke a reaction. It was not long in coming and appeared in the form of Malthus's Essay on the Law of Population. Regarding the above statements that the progress of the human race towards wealth and happiness is endless and that the danger, lest the time come when there will be too many people on earth, is chimerical or, in any case, is being pushed into such a distant future that it is hardly worth it to worry - regarding all these statements, Malthus replies that, on the contrary, this is precisely the almost insurmountable obstacle, and not in the distant future, but at the present time, now, and at all times it hangs over one’s head, hindering progress of the human race is the rock of Sisyphus, which constantly threatened to fall and destruction. Nature has put into man an instinct which, left to its own devices, condemns him to be a victim of hunger, death and vices. People suffer from this instinct without knowing the cause of their suffering, which would give them the key to the history of societies and their disasters. Everyone, even those completely unfamiliar with sociological research, knows the unforgettable formulas of Malthus, according to which, on the one hand, the population left to its own devices grows with terrifying speed, and on the other, the means of subsistence multiply relatively slowly. Therefore, Malthus represents population growth as a geometric progression, i.e. a series of numbers, successively increasing from multiplication by any one number, and he takes the simplest series, each member of which is twice as large as the previous one. And he represents production growth as an arithmetic progression, i.e. a series of numbers, successively increasing from the application of one digit, and he takes the simplest series, namely a series of whole numbers.

Thus, he gets:

1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9...

Malthus assumes that each term of the progression corresponds to a period of twenty-five years. It is evident at first glance that if the population doubles every twenty-five years, and the means of subsistence at each such period increase by only the same amount, the divergence between the two series occurs in appalling proportions. In our table containing only nine members, i.e. a relatively short period of two hundred years, we see that the last figure indicating the number of population is already twenty-eight times larger than the figure expressing the mass of means of subsistence, and if we continued the progression to the hundredth term, it would be impossible to represent it in numbers. The first of these progressions may be considered obvious, since it represents the biological law of descent. It is not for nothing that in colloquial language the expressions generation (origin) and multiplication (reproduction) are considered synonyms. It is true that doubling involves four children born during the childbearing period, and therefore about 5-6 births with the inevitable loss due to infant mortality. This figure may seem exaggerated to us living in a society where the limitation of births is a general phenomenon, but there is no doubt that in all living beings, and even in man who is less fertile, the number of births would be significantly higher if the reproduction of the race were left to its own. natural flow. A woman of reproductive age can, in known cases, be pregnant twenty times, and sometimes more. By virtue of this reproduction the earth has been peopled to the present day, and there is no sign that this reproductive power in both sexes is now less than ever before. Therefore, by taking the number 2 as a factor in his progression, Malthus did not make any excessive assumption. Rather, the period of twenty-five years, the gap between the two members, may be questionable. The period of time between the average age of parents and the average age of children, when they in turn become capable of reproducing, cannot be less than 33 years. This is called the period of one generation, and there have always been about three such periods in one century. But these are minor quibbles. What will happen if the interval between the two members is extended from 25 to 33 years and the progression multiplier is reduced from 2 to 11/2, 11/4 or 11/10? The progression will slow down a little, but once a geometric progression is accepted, no matter how slowly it develops at first, it very soon begins to make extraordinary leaps and goes beyond all limits. These amendments do not detract from the force of Malthus' reasoning, nor from the significance of the physiological law. The second progression seems more untenable, because it is clearly arbitrary, and it is not even known whether, like the first, it represents only a tendency or is it intended to represent reality? It does not correspond to any known and true law, like the biological law of reproduction. Rather, it seems to refute this very law. Indeed, what are “means of existence” if not animal and plant species that reproduce according to the same laws, and, like humans, and even much faster, according to geometric progression. Does not the power of reproduction of grain or potatoes, chickens or herrings, and even cattle or sheep infinitely exceed the power of reproduction of man? To this objection, Malthus would undoubtedly have responded that the hidden power of reproduction of animal and plant species is in fact bound by very narrow boundaries: climate, the food they need, the struggle for existence, etc.

So be it. But if these obstacles count in the second progression, why are they not taken into account in the first? There seems to be some inconsistency here. One of two things: either it is a question of expressing tendencies, and in this case the tendency in the reproduction of means of subsistence is not only not the same, but is much stronger than the tendency in the reproduction of people; or the point is to object to what is, and in this case the obstacles to the endless reproduction of people are no less than the obstacles to the endless reproduction of animals and plants, or, better said, the latter is obviously a function of the former.

To give meaning to the second formula, it should be transferred from the field of biology to the field of economics. According to Malthus, the matter is obviously about the product of a given land, say about bread, since English economists always have it in mind in their theories. What he means is that if we assume that from a given piece of land the same increment of crop can be obtained at the end of any given period, say two hectolitres more every twenty-five years, that is all that can be hoped to be obtained from the land. And in this hypothesis, apparently, there is still some exaggeration compared to reality. In 1789, Lavoisier estimated the growth of grain in France at 7 3/4 hectoliters per hectare. In recent years, it has averaged slightly more than 17 hectoliters. If we assume that the increment has been correct for 120 years, we will find approximately two hectolitres of increment for every twenty-five years. Given the weak growth of the French population, this was enough to raise the average measure per head to 2-3 hectoliters. But will this be enough for fast-growing populations like those in England and Germany? Probably not, as can be seen from the fact that England and Germany, despite the greater increase in grain, are forced to import from outside a significant part of the grain products they consume. And in France, can the same thing continue endlessly throughout the present and future centuries? It's incredible; the increase in the product of any land must have a physical limit due to the limitations of the elements contained in it, and, above all, an economic limit due to the increase in the costs necessary for the exploitation of a given area when they want to develop its productivity to the utmost limits. And thus, the law of “diminishing returns,” to which we will return later, is already the true basis of Malthus’s laws, although Malthus himself does not yet definitely speak about it. It is obvious that in a given place there cannot in fact be more living beings than how many of them can permeate there - this is a truism. For if there are any surplus there, they are, according to the accepted principle, condemned to death by starvation. Thus, the matter occurs throughout the entire animal and vegetable kingdom: the insane fertility of the embryos is mercilessly brought by death to the desired proportion, and the level determined by necessity does not rise higher or fall lower, as in a well-regulated reserve, for the terrible devastation caused by death among them is constantly replenished the pressure of life. But among savage peoples, as well as among the animals they approach, most of the population literally starves to death. Malthus spends a long time describing the state of these primitive societies, and in this respect he was one of the forerunners of prehistoric sociology, which after him moved far forward. He shows very well how a lack of food entails a thousand evils: not only mortality, epidemics, but also anthropophagy, infanticide, murder of the elderly, and especially war, which, even when its goal is not to eat the vanquished, is, in any case, waged , to deprive the vanquished of his land and the bread it produces. He calls these obstacles positive, or repressive. However, this lack of food in wild animals, as well as in animals, is not a consequence of their inability to produce, and not a consequence of overpopulation?

How to avoid a universal catastrophe?

Still, the balance between population and means of subsistence among civilized peoples can be restored by more humane means, i.e. the repressive obstacle, consisting of an increase in mortality, can be replaced by a preventive (cautionary) obstacle, consisting of a reduction in the birth rate. Of all animals, only man, gifted with reason and the ability of foresight, is given such a means. If he knows that his children are doomed to die, he may refrain from producing them. One might even say that this is the only true, but effective means, since the repressive obstacle only further causes population growth, like turf, which grows more and more the more it is mowed. The war provides a striking example of population growth: in France, the year following the terrible war of 1870-1871 is the only one in its demographic annals for the unexpected jump that marked its already descending fertility curve. In the second edition of his book, Malthus focused mainly on preventive means and thereby brightened up the ominous prospects that had opened up in the first edition. But it is important to know what he means by them. We make numerous extracts on this subject because it is very important and because on this very subject the thoughts of the Reverend Father of Haileybury were so strangely perverted. The preventive obstacle, according to Malthus, is moral restraint. But what should we understand by this? Is this abstinence from sexual intercourse in marriage, once the number of children sufficient to maintain the population in a stationary or moderately progressive state reaches, say, three? No, Malthus never preached abstinence from sexual intercourse in marriage. We have already said that he recognizes a family with six children (this, at least, is assumed by the doubling of the population in each generation) as a normal family. And he does not consider this number to be the maximum, for he adds: “Perhaps they will say that a person entering into marriage cannot foresee what number of children he will have and whether it will be more than six? This is indisputable.” But then, how does moral restraint manifest itself? This is how he defines it: “Abstinence from marriage, associated with chastity, is what I call moral restraint.” And in order to avoid any misunderstandings, he adds in a note: “I understand by moral restraint such a restraint to which a person submits for reasons of prudence, so as not to enter into marriage, provided that his behavior during all premarital times is strictly moral.

I will try throughout this entire work never to deviate from this meaning." It is clear: the matter is, first of all, about abstinence from all sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and then about postponing marriage itself until the age when a person is able to take upon himself responsibility for caring for the family, and even a complete renunciation of marriage, if such a time never comes.It is obvious that Malthus has completely excluded such means as are now being advocated in his name: he definitely condemns those who preach free sexual intercourse outside of marriage or within marriage, as long as measures are taken to ensure that this relationship remains fruitless. He places all such preventive measures under the shameful heading of vices and contrasts them with moral restraint. Malthus is very categorical on this matter: “I will reject everything artificial and inconsistent with the laws of nature, a means to which one would want to resort in order to retard the growth of population. The obstacles that I recommend are consistent with the demands of reason and sanctified by religion." And he adds the following truly prophetic words: "It would be too easy and convenient to even completely stop the growth of population, and then we would be exposed to the opposite danger."

It is useless to say that if Malthus rejected adultery, then even more so did he reject the preventive measure that is the institution of a special class of women doomed to prostitution; and he would have condemned even more measures that had not yet been talked about in his time, such as abortion - a scourge that seeks to replace in our modern society, only on a more extensive scale, infanticide or child abandonment in ancient times, but with which the criminal law powerless to fight, while the new morality begins to find justification for him. But, having eliminated all means contrary to morality, did Malthus think that moral restraint in the form he imagined could put a really strong check on the desire for overpopulation? No doubt this is what he wanted, for he is endeavoring to arm the people for this holy crusade against the worst of public dangers: “To those who are Christians, I say that the Holy Scriptures are clear and certainly instruct us that it is our duty to restrain our passions in boundaries of reason... A Christian cannot consider the difficulties of bearing moral restraint as a legitimate excuse for getting rid of his duty." And for those who want to obey only reason and not religion, he makes the remark that “this virtue (chastity), when accurately studied, is necessary in order to avoid the evils that without it are the inevitable consequence of the laws of nature.” But, in essence, Malthus did not believe in universal distribution. Moral restraint to overcome and regulate love. That is why he did not feel much confidence in his abilities, and the hydra seemed more and more threatening to him, despite the shield of pure and fragile crystal that he put up against it. On the other hand, he well felt that his remedy (celibacy) could not only be unsuccessful, but also dangerous if it caused precisely those vices that he feared. Prolonged or, what is still worse, permanent celibacy is obviously a remedy unfavorable to good morals. Malthus suffered severe grief; and this man, who might have just been taken for an implacable ascetic, will soon turn out to be a utilitarian moralist like Bentham. He, apparently, is reconciled to the idea of allowing ordinary methods of satisfying the sexual instinct with the indispensable condition of avoiding conception, and even about admitting those that he stigmatizes with the name “vices”. Of the two evils, the latter seems to him lesser in comparison with that which stems from overpopulation, especially since overpopulation in itself is a very active cause of immorality due to poverty and the habits of mixing and unbridledness that are its consequences - a remark, however , very thorough. In the end, Malthus's solution is not entirely pure; it is only, as he himself says, “the great rule of utility” - we are talking about the imperceptible acquisition of the habit of satisfying one’s passions without harm to others. Such concessions prepared the bed for neo-Malthusianism. As a result, a person appears to Malthus as finding himself at a crossroads in front of three roads, in front of which there is the following inscription: the road directly opposite him leads to Poverty, to the right - to Virtue, to the left - to Vice. He sees that blind instinct pushes a person onto the first path, and conjures him not to give in and to elude him along one of the two side paths, preferably the right one. But he is afraid that the number of those people who will follow his advice, those who, according to the Gospel, will choose the right path of salvation, is very small. On the other hand, he does not want in his bright soul to admit that all other people will choose the path of vice; so that, in the end, he is afraid that the mass of the people will go along the natural inclined plane to the edge of the abyss, and thus none of the warning obstacles gives him confidence about the future fate of mankind.

There was no doctrine more disgraced than that of Malthus. Curses did not cease to rain down on the head of the one whom his contemporary, Godwin, called “this gloomy and terrible genius, ready to extinguish all hope of the human race.” From an economic point of view, it was said that all his predictions were refuted by facts; from a moral point of view, his teaching introduced the most disgusting practices, and many French people consider him responsible for the decline in population in our country. What should we think about this criticism? Of course, history did not justify Malthus's fears: since that time it has not indicated a single country that would suffer from overpopulation. In some countries, in France, for example, the population increased only very slightly, in others it increased greatly, but did not outpace the growth of wealth. If we take the very country where Malthus looked for data for his calculations - S.-A. United States. In half a century, the share of wealth of every person in the United States has more than quadrupled, even as the population nearly quadrupled over the same period of time (rising from 23 million to 92 million). Great Britain (England and Scotland) at the time of Malthus (1800-1805) had 10 million inhabitants, and now it has 40 million. If he could have predicted such a figure, he would have been horrified. However, Britain's wealth and prosperity were also likely to quadruple. Can it therefore be said, as is often repeated, that Malthus's laws have been refuted by facts? No, it was not the laws that were refuted - they remain inviolable - but the predictions based on them. I do not think that it can be disputed that the reproduction of every living being, including man, occurs (this, in truth, is a tautology) by multiplication and that, left to its own devices, without encountering any obstacles, it would cross all boundaries; on the other hand, I do not think that the growth of industrial products would not necessarily be limited by the numerous conditions in which all production is placed (premises, raw materials, capital, manual labor, etc.). But if, nevertheless, the growth of population did not outpace the growth of means of subsistence and even, as the above figures show, remained far behind, then this happened because it was limited by the will of the people, not only in France, where preventive measures were in full swing, but more or less in all countries where actual fertility remains far behind the intended nature of fertility. And this voluntary restriction, which worried Malthus so much, occurs in the most natural way. Malthus's fears are based on a confusion of concepts of the biological order. The sexual instinct is not the same as the reproductive instinct, and it follows completely different stimuli. Only the first can be attributed that property of indestructible strength that Malthus erroneously attributes to the second. The first is an instinct of animal origin, it ignites with the power of the most violent passion and governs all people equally. The source of the second is predominantly of a social and religious nature: the second instinct takes on various forms, depending on time and place. Among the religious peoples who followed the law of Moses, Manu or Confucius, birth was the means of salvation, the true realization of immortality. For a Brahmin, a Chinese or a Jew, not having a son is more than a misfortune - it is a crime against God. Among peoples of Greco-Latin origin, birth was a sacred duty to the state and fatherland. In the aristocratic caste, the pride of the name should not perish. For the poor and, perhaps, workers who exist by charity, the expectation is associated with birth that the more children there are, the more earnings there will be or the means of invoking public charity. In a newly discovered country, birth is necessary to multiply hands to clear the land and people to create a new population. And, conversely, many forces that are antagonistic to it can arise before the instinct of reproduction: the selfishness of parents who do not want to take responsibility; the selfishness of mothers who are afraid of the suffering and danger associated with pregnancy; the love of a stingy father who does not want to have younger children in order to better endow the older one; feminism seeking independence outside of marriage; premature emancipation of children, which leaves parents only the hardships of fatherhood, without providing them with either benefit or consolation; insufficient premises, burden of taxes and thousands of others. Thus, the incentives for reproduction vary endlessly, but precisely because they are of social and not physiological origin, they do not have the character of unconditionality, permanentness, universality and can very well be suppressed by the opposite incentives of the social order; this is exactly what happens. And one can very easily imagine that where religious faith would dry up, where patriotism would die, where family life would be enough for only one generation, where all lands would be privately owned, where factory work would be prohibited for children, where people would live like nomads, where all physical suffering would become unbearable, where marriage, thanks to divorce, would approach more and more to a free union, in a word, where all the incentives to reproduction that I have just enumerated would cease to operate, and all their antagonists would be in full force - there the reproduction would stop completely. But although the peoples have not reached such a state, we must still admit that they are approaching it. True, in a new social environment new incentives for reproduction may arise, I know this, but they are still unknown to us. Paradoxical as such a statement may seem, the sexual instinct plays only a very minor role in the reproduction of the race - the human race, of course. Having given these two instincts the same organs, nature has undoubtedly united them, and those who believe in final causes can here marvel at the cunning which she has employed to ensure the preservation of the species by uniting its production with an act of the greatest pleasure. But the man turned out to be more cunning than she, he easily managed to separate both functions, so that, continuing to blindly obey the law of love and lust, and all the more carefree because he was not saddened by the consequences, he managed to almost completely free himself from the law of reproduction. Thanks to this, Malthus’s fears scattered like smoke, and instead of them, another, opposite danger appeared on the horizon - the danger of the slow suicide of peoples. This separation of both instincts occurs all the more easily because there is not the slightest moral obstacle in its way, which the honest pastor thought to oppose to it, when he relegated these tricks against generation to the level of vices. Practice has treated them more leniently than the teaching of moralists, who take the trouble to prove that it meets a double duty: first, to give the sexual instinct and love the complete freedom required by the physiological and psychological laws of the human race; the second, consisting in not trusting to the chance of such an important matter as the matter of birth, and not entrusting to a woman such an exhausting task as that of motherhood, except in those cases when she herself wants and deliberately takes it upon herself. And vice versa, the neo-Malthusians declare the teacher’s doctrine of “moral restraint” to be very immoral, firstly, because it contradicts the laws of physiology, is infected with Christian asceticism, an evil worse than that from which she wants to get rid of, because, they say, refusal love causes worse suffering than the refusal of bread, and secondly, because, thanks to its rule of compulsory celibacy or late marriage, it tends to promote the development of prostitution, encroaches on morals, creates unnatural vices, out-of-wedlock births. Despite this, the neo-Malthusians appropriated to themselves as disciples of Malthus and retain his name, since they are grateful to him for indicating that the blind instinct of reproduction must of necessity produce a humanity doomed to disease, poverty, death and even vice, and that, therefore, regulate this instinct is the only means to avoid this disastrous outcome. One must think, however, that if Malthus had been resurrected, he would not have been a neo-Malthusian. Least of all would he excuse his disciples for their intention to use adultery not in order to prevent the danger of overpopulation, but in order to patronize debauchery, freeing love from the responsibility assigned to it by nature. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that by the concessions we have already spoken of, Malthus prepared the way for them. Malthus, apparently, also did not notice one of the most dangerous points of his teaching, which most contributed to discrediting him, namely, that the duty of celibacy, inseparable from the duty of chastity - this refusal of the joy of family life - he placed only on the poor man , and not on the rich man, for the latter is always in the conditions required by Malthus in order to have children. I know well that in the interests of the poor themselves, Malthus prescribed for them this harsh law “not to give birth to children whom they will not be able to feed,” but this does not prevent this law from emphasizing in the most cruel way the inequality of their position in comparison with other classes, because they are brought to the necessity of making a choice between bread and love. Malthus silenced the old song that said that all it takes to be happy is “a hut and love in the heart.” However, justice requires that we note that Malthus does not go so far as to legally prohibit them from marrying - the liberal economist turns out to be true to himself here. He clearly sees that, not to mention considerations of humanity, this remedy may turn out to be worse than evil, because the prohibition of marriage, by reducing the number of legitimate children, will lead to an increase in the number of illegitimate children. Finally, telling the poor that they themselves are responsible for their poverty because they have been improvident, married too early and have too many children, and adding that no written law, no institution, no charity can help them, Malthus, according to - apparently did not realize that he was giving the propertied classes a convenient excuse not to care about the fate of the working classes. Throughout the nineteenth century, his doctrine will put an obstacle to every project of socialist or communist organization, and even to every reform tending to improve the condition of the poor, because it will be said that the consequence of this will be that the increase in the mass of products to be distributed will entail reproduction accomplices of distribution and, therefore, these measures will lead to nothing. Nevertheless, although the doctrine of Malthus has generated so much hatred, it has served to give a thorough introduction to economic problems: sometimes, as we have just said, to eliminate legitimate claims, and often also to give support to the great classical laws of political economy, such as , like the law of land rent or wage fund. It served, on the other hand, to justify the existence of the family and private property, because it represented both as a powerful guard against reckless reproduction for reasons of responsibility associated with it. Today, the great problem of population has not lost any of its significance, but it has turned, so to speak, the other way. What Malthus called a preventive obstacle has assumed such proportions in all countries that sociologists and economists are concerned not with the danger of limitless reproduction, but with the danger of a regularly and everywhere decreasing birth rate. The task is to find the reasons for this phenomenon. Everyone, however, agrees that these reasons are of a social nature. It is not enough to point to the conscious will of the parents not to have children or to limit their number as a reason; this explanation obviously does not explain anything, because that is exactly what we are talking about, to find out why they do not want to have children, and as for, for example, our country, why is there such a desire to abstain from having children, which does not exist to such an extent in other countries and which, apparently, did not exist before, two or three generations ago, among the French, so intensely today? To explain this phenomenon, it is necessary to discover what are its causes, special to our country and our generation, causes that, therefore, will not be found in other countries to the same extent; whether this is because, as Paul Leroy-Beaulieu admits, the birth rate is falling due to the progress of civilization, which creates needs, desires and expenses incompatible with the responsibilities and burdens of fatherhood; or because, as Dumont thinks, the birth rate falls as democracy grows, for democracy gives an incentive to the desire to achieve one's goals as quickly as possible and rise as high as possible (which is wittily called the law of capillarity)," or for other, more specific reasons, varying depending on the school, such as the hereditary law of equal division, as taught by the school of Le Play, or such as the weakening of moral rules and religious beliefs, as Paul Bureau thinks, or such as intemperance in all forms - in the form of debauchery , alcoholism, etc. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that any of the explanations given so far were completely satisfactory, and therefore a new Malthus was useful in order to open new horizons for demographic science.

March 9, 2017

Thomas Robert Malthus is a major researcher of economic science in England. His works were published at the beginning of the 19th century, and caused a lot of controversy in scientific circles. However, to some extent, his views have not lost their relevance to this day.

Beginning of Malthus' research

Thomas Robert Malthus was born into a wealthy landowner family near London. His father was a very intelligent and educated man who communicated with many philosophers and economists of his time. Since Thomas was the youngest child in the family, according to tradition he had to embark on the path of a spiritual career. After studying at college at Cambridge University, he took holy orders and became a local priest.

Despite this, Thomas Malthus, who has always been partial to scientific research, begins to simultaneously work as a college teacher. He spends almost all his leisure time in conversations with his father, which are devoted to the relationship between natural conditions and the economy.

What did Malthus study?

Like other past researchers in the field of economics, Malthus saw the mechanisms of increasing wealth and methods of developing material production as the subject of his study. He tries to connect the issues of economics and population growth.

Thomas Malthus's law of population became the basis for the works of such scientists as Charles Darwin, D. Ricardo and others. The concept itself was later outlined by Malthus in his book. The main idea of his theory is that population size has a direct impact on the welfare of society.

The number of the species Homo Sapiens, says Malthus, began to increase only about 8 thousand years ago, when hunting and gathering were replaced by a sedentary lifestyle. At that time, there were about 10 million people on the entire earth. Then the world population begins to grow rapidly. Already in 1820 this figure reached a billion people. By 1959, the number of inhabitants of the Earth was already about three billion. Just 13 years later, the five billionth person was born.

Brief statement of the concept

Thomas Malthus's law states that the instinct that exists in all living beings forces them to multiply rapidly - faster than can be allowed by the amount of food and material goods available to society. His work is devoted to the consequences of this law.

Malthus notes that, despite instinctive impulses, a person also has a voice of reason. After all, he may not be able to feed all his children. If a person listens to this rational grain, then this, as Thomas Malthus puts it, will happen “to the detriment of virtue.” If he listens to the voice of instinct and produces offspring, the population will increase faster than is allowed by the available means, and, therefore, will begin to decrease. The scientist notes that the lack of food should regulate the number of people.

The first book that Thomas Malthus published was anonymous. It was published in 1798, and caused a lot of criticism and attacks. In order to improve his creation, Malthus goes on a trip to the cities of Europe. After five years, he again publishes this publication - but under his own name. In total, during Malthus’s lifetime, his book was published five times, and each time the circulation was larger.

The simplicity of Malthusianism

His concepts received great resonance for the very reason that they were simple and did not require the processing of complex facts or the comparison of theories. All that Malthus did was observe the realities of life. His conclusions seemed obvious: isn’t it true that a person can reproduce only insofar as he is able to feed his offspring? Thomas Malthus noted that population growth is usually expressed in geometric progression, while the increase in economic benefits is arithmetic.

Malthus identified resources for subsistence with food. According to the logic of his era, it was not possible to rapidly increase production capacity. After all, the improvement of technology was still happening at a too slow pace, and natural resources are always limited.

Disadvantages of the theory

At the same time, Malthus was sure that even capital gains could not, under any circumstances, compensate for the ever-decreasing coefficient of soil fertility. Fear of hunger is the only condition that restrains a person from uncontrolled reproduction, says Thomas Malthus. At the same time, the population theory had many shortcomings and mutually exclusive points. For example, the researcher considered contraceptives “immoral” and called their use “inadmissible under any circumstances.” Many scientists believe that the statistical calculations of his theory did not withstand any clash with the empirical indicators of those times.

Malthus' theory today

It is believed that the concept of Thomas Malthus can be useful for general development. However, unfortunately, it is practically useless for solving pressing social issues. As modern researchers believe, the problem of overpopulation today is not to eliminate the gap between the actual and optimal population size. Necessary steps in social policy must address the regulation of the fertility trajectory. In addition, modern research shows that population growth is a necessary condition for the growth of material wealth.

Diagnostics and diseases. Medicines from A to Z

What are the positive and negative aspects of the teachings of Malthus. The problem of overpopulation of the Earth

Biography

Malthus' theory (briefly)

Specifics of compilation

The nature and increase of land rent

The essence of the 1798 concept

Contradiction

Concept problems

Poverty of people

Purpose of the concept

Malthus' "third party" theory

Effect

Criticism of Marxists

Mises's opinion

Protection concept

Using the concept

Roman Club

Conclusion

Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Law of Population

Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Law of Population

Beginning of Malthus' research

What did Malthus study?

Brief statement of the concept

The simplicity of Malthusianism

Disadvantages of the theory

Malthus' theory today