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MALTHUSIAN PRINCIPLES: DOES UTOPIA EXIST?

In 1798, Thomas Malthus published a 19-chapter essay called An Essay on Population that shook that world
with its radical view of how the demography of a country affected its economy, and vice versa.

During the late 18th century in England, the Industrial Revolution was underway and technological innovations
were making lives better and more luxurious. Where, these technological advancements brought comfort, the
French Revolution had brought social equality and justice. Philosophers like Rousseau and Godwin had started
imagining the future as a utopia, a world with ‘perfectibility’ of mankind. However, Malthus refuted this claim
within his work, stating that these thinkers had neglected to consider an imperative variable within their visions
of the future: the population growth in any country.

He highlighted how when the populations of any country grew exponentially, the agricultural production
capacities increased only arithmetically. Within his essay, he takes 25 years as the period of doubling the
produce of the country, and through a simple math calculation shows how about three-fourths of the world’s
population would be living in utter scarcity of food resources within 2000 years.

His theory, popularly known as the Malthusian Theory, argued that as populations of countries increased, as is
inevitable over the centuries, food produce also had to be increased to meet the growing demands of the
population. However, due to food produce increasing only in linear terms, and population geometrically, as
population increased, the number of the poor and deprived would also grow.

He stated one more relationship; as any country, tribe or group amassed more land or resources, the population
of that country also grew. This was because as resources of food grew, people became more assured that they
could support and feed their families, and this often led to population bursts within countries.

The most prominent example that comes to mind is of China, a country rich in fertile lands, and with the
largest quantity of food grain exports within the world. Due to their ample production, the people of the
country are assured of their resources. As a result, China remains the most populated country in the world.

A similar parallel can be drawn for India, a country in which the population burst started under the colonial
rule, when machinery and plants were imported from Britain, which greatly lowered the prices of factory-made
goods within the country.

In Britain itself, the effects of the Industrial revolution had led to lowering of prices of various commodities.
Thus, poorer sections of the population were now able to increase their purchasing capacity. However, as
Malthus had suggested, this led to a population surge within the country. As the demography increased in size,
there was excess demand within the markets, which raised the prices of various goods. Again, the proletariat
classes were rendered desperate for financial and food resources.

According to Malthus, this is the continuous “oscillation” that determines prices of various commodities
within the market and ultimately shapes the economy though market forces. He argued that as the agricultural
production capacity of the country was limited to an extent, two very important factors in determining price of
commodities was the population of a country and the general income levels prevailing within the economy.

Even though critics suggest that technological advances like the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s in
India have led to exponential increase in production of crops, thus rendering the Malthusian theory incorrect
within the short run, the theory carries a lot of truth when viewed in the long run. It makes you wonder, of how
we dream of utopia, all the while not knowing that we are heading towards dystopia.

Vishakha Singla
XI E