Talk:Thomas Malthus
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[edit] vandalism
Has anyone looked closely at this article recently? In the second and third paragraphs it states malthus married a turkey and that he had a "tiny cock". I think the editors should examine these statements for their veracity....
[edit] Malthus' justification for the genocide of the middle and lower classes
The book, The Hidden Heritage by John Howard Lawson (copyright 1950, Citidel Press, Inc.), has a chapter dedicated to Malthus and his influence on western civilization titled "Malthus and the Midland Riots". The following are excerpts from that excellent history:
. . . "When Thomas R. Malthus published an Essay on the Principles of Population in 1798, he responded to an historic change in the relationship of social and economic forces. By the end of the century, the demand for industrial labor lagged behind the growth of a dispossessed and unemployed population. Under these circumstances, it was necessary to take the most brutal measures to prevent popular organization and compel the acceptance of starvation. The Trial of Tom Paine in absentia was part of a series of prosecutions designed to outlaw feedom of speech and assembly, and to illegalize the mildest protest. . . . "The [Malthusian] argument embodied, in the simplest and most effective form, that the exploiting classes had no responsibility for the suffering of those whom they employed--and consigned to total starvation when there was not enough work to go round [sic]. The responsibility, said the pious parson, rested with God. Malthus rejoiced that the population is reduced by poverty and hunger, which demostrate that it is against God's will for the lower classes to multiply so incontinently. The fear that the meek may inherit the earth made it desirable that a considerable number of them be removed from it. In answer to Paine's Rights of Man, Malthus said: there is one right which man had generally been thought to possess, which I am confident he neither does nor can possess--a right to subsistence when his labour will not fairly purchase it. He proposed that the people be told that, in marrying and having children whom they cannot support, they are plunging themselves into distress, and that they are acting directly contrary to the will of God, and bringing down upon themselves various diseases.. . . "The people of the world are again stirred by the old dream of freedom, peace and creative labor for the welfare of the whole society. But today, the dream is realizable. The forces which seek to perpetuate war and misery must call again upon the Malthusian God of wrath, the God of blood and disaster, to justify the continuance of their destructive power. Malthusian theory has the double value of providing both a religious and a 'scientific' basis for the eternal necessity of wage-slavery, unemployment and perennial starvation. The United States is no longer an exception to "the law of overpopulation."
I find it interesting that there are so many comparisons which can be made between the ideology of "Neo-Conservativism" and Malthusianism. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, for instance, didn't someone from the "religious right" say that New Orleans was smited by God for their promiscuous behavior and homosexuality? Could Malthus have been the force behind the delay in assistance to the lower class victims of that disaster? Apparently, Malthus--the upperclass justifier of the oppression of the masses--is still alive and well. Could it be that the works of Malthus reside on the bookshelves of the elite classes adjacent to those of Machiavelli?
TroyMichaels 05:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] more
Good article, people. Curious about "Both men regarded Malthus' Principle of Population as additional proof of the existence of a deity." More explanation please!
[edit] name
Hi, I'm new to the wiki, so I don't feel comfortable changing it, but a couple of things: one, there is a webpage by a Malthus family member that notes the birthday is actually Feb 13th, and that he went by his middle name, Robert (so "Thomas Malthus" is not an appropriate shortening). See http://homepages.caverock.net.nz/~kh/bobperson.html.
- Thomas Malthus is an appropriate shortening for the title for the reason that Wikipedia goes by the most-common-name convention. We can give his full name in the introductory sentence to the article. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 03:22, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, but in that case the page should be "Robert Malthus", which is how his family and college (cf, Jesus College history) refer to him. The fact that a large number of people are ignorant and call him by the wrong name (it's Robert's right to choose how he is called, isn't it?) does not mean the Wikipedia should perpetuate that ignorance. It seems to me that the best compromise is to leave the page as Thomas Robert Malthus. GJeffery 07:53, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- That's what google says: 51,400 for "thomas malthus", about 21,900 for "robert malthus", about 17,800 for "thomas robert malthus"; a wikipedia search shows 58 for "thomas malthus", and less than ten for the other two variants. So Thomas Malthus is definetly the most common name. But the 'it's his choice' argument isn't void. So I'd say we should move this article to the full name Thomas Robert Malthus and make the other two (or more, think Malthus, Robert...) versions redirects... Huerlisi 20:58, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] book
I found an interesting book in a used book shop written by Malthus, pity I didn't buy it. It was a travel description of his journey to Norway. Very interesting read! The preface in that book speculates that Malthus may have been inspired in his larger ideas by seeing scandinavian peasants, although very poor and living off much poorer land than the english, had a better standard of living - and explaining this with the low population.
It's also possible that he made his journey after writing his most influential book. Sorry if I mix this up, I should have bought that book!
It's good to see that Malthus' contributions to demography, population modelling, economics, and political science are ALL acknowledged here.
[edit] concern
I have a concern about this page, concerning this passage: "Here, he developed a theory of demand supply mismatches which he called gluts. Considered ridiculous at the time, his theory was later confirmed by the Great Depression and works of John Maynard Keynes." Hasn't Keynes' work been seriously debunked? How can he be cited as "proving" Malthus' gluts theory (of which I am unfamiliar, by the way). Also, isn't Malthus sort of a laughing-stock for his false prediction of catastrophe? Why is this noted on the Malthusian Catastrophe page, and not in his biography?
[edit] opposition
According to fr article, thomas malthus was opposed to the Speenhamland system. If anyone is willing to give more details about that ... :) Hashar 11:38, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Biography
I'm currently crawling the web to check some biography facts. There doesn't seem to be consensus on when and where he was born, respectivly when and where he died :-( Huerlisi 20:58, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Here are some sources:
[edit] Wikipedia article before my changes
I didn't find any sources for the February 14 birthday...
- Born: February 14, 1766
- Died: December 23, 1834
[edit] atheism.about.com
Very brief, but the only source I found stating all the facts... The 'February 2' (possibly 12, forgotten a '1') doesn't make it very thrustworthy though...
- Born: February 2, 1766 in Dorking, Surrey (south of London)
- Died: December 23, 1834 in Haileybury, Hertfordshire
[edit] Family Malthus Homepage
This Page has a quite extensive biography and contains references to its sources. Seems trustworthy... But the dates just don't fit with what everybody else says...
- Born: February 13, 1766
- Died: December 29, 1834
[edit] BBC Historic Figures
Well, I normaly trust BBC :-)
- Born: February 1766 in Rookery, Surrey
- Died: December 23, 1834
[edit] BookRags Premium Biographies
They about themselves: BookRags Premium Biographies are the most complete biographical resource available. Each biography is written by a biographical expert, professional educator, or scholar of the individual...
- Born: 1766
- Died: December 23, 1834, in Haileybury
[edit] Microsoft Encarta
- Born: 1766, near Guildford, Surrey
- Died: 1834
So I'm using the following for now. Just change if you find other, more trusted sources (don't forget to mention them here :-)
- Born: February, 1766 in Surrey
- Died: December 23, 1834 in Haileybury
[edit] Malthusian Drill
I just wanted to post a side note: In Huxley's "Brave New World" the women of the new world practice their 'Mathusian Drill' - their form of contraception. It's an interesting note to see the economist's name in such a novel.
Does anyone know cause of death?
[edit] Inappropriate Comment?
"And yet, the world population continues to grow exponentially, and a child dies of starvation every fifteen seconds."
This seems inappropriate to have in the article, because it has been shown that the population grows more linearly than exponentially. Malthusian Catastrophe (which this article links to) explians this. At any rate, it's not very encyclopaedic. syphonbyte 14:19, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] In pop culture?
I don't have the full references handy & wasn't sure how it would be appropriate to add the topic but during the 70's in one of the classic Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics that had them roaming & exploring serious societal isses such as drug abuse, they went on an interstellar jaunt to a planet where it was so crowded that people couldn't move and there was never enough food. The planet was called "Malthus."
The plot is very similar to the Star Trek:TOS episode "The Mark of Gideon," which was also clearly influenced by Malthus' theories. (this last is a statement of opinion)
[edit] South Park reference
In one episode Cartman quotes A Christmas Carol's Scrooge's quote of Malthus.
[edit] Cultural depictions of Thomas Malthus
I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 17:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The real father of the internet?
Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus, FRS (February 13, 1766 – December 23, 1834)
and on eksternal links:
- [1] T. Robert Malthus's Homepage
And I who was soo sure that people stated with homepages in the 20th century.. Røed 20:14, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] introduction's attitude
malthus, although proven wrong with regards to his population principle, was still perhaps the most influential economist of his time. it is wrong to say in the introduction that he was best known for false and negligent views, because this misrepresents his true legacy, which is still profoundly felt today. save the specifics of the criticism for later in the article.
[edit] quick question
What about Boserup as a critic? bliz 19:07, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Marx versus Malthus
I believe the article in the form I read it seriously misrepresents the relationship between Malthus's population theory and Marx's theories.
The encyclopedia artice currently states:
Karl Marx's social determinism has its roots in Malthus’s theory as well. Marx however rejected Darwin’s biological determinism and instead embraced social determinism (in other words one’s decisions are made as a direct reaction to one’s circumstances).
There are at least two reasons for believing this to be wrong. First, Malthus published a number of different essays on population, but the first one, the "Essay on the Principle of Population" published in 1798, was explicitly anti-revolution.
Its full title was "An Essay on the Principle of Population, As It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, With Remarks on the Speculation of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet and Other Writers," and about half of the work was dedicated to demolishing the utopian anarchist theories of William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet, a revolutionary nobleman who died in the French Revolution.
In the 1798 Essay, Malthus not argued that the idyllic society proposed by Godwin and de Condorcet would fail because it would only encourage the poor to have more children; he also stated that the population issue seemed to make impossible "any very marked and striking change for the better, in the form and structure of general society; by which I mean any great and decided amelioration of the condition of the lower classes of mankind." [Thomas Malthus, "An Essay on the Principle of Population," Penguin Classics edition, p. 172.]
This conclusion, of course, is almost opposite to Marx's idea that revolution could, in fact, bring about a "striking change for the better" in society and an amelioration of the lives of the poor.
The counter-revolutionary thrust of Malthus's ideas can also be seen pretty clearly in an 1824 Encyclopedia Britannica article on population that Malthus wrote, that was reprinted in 1830 as the "Summary View on the Principle of Population." In this work, Malthus toned down some of his bleak pessimism about the poor ever improving their lot, but he emphasized that the institution of private property was essential in inspiring the poor to limit their families. Private property basically forced individuals to accept limits on their incomes, which forced them to be prudent, Malthus argued; hence it would help to prevent over-breeding.
Marx was an enemy of private property, of course, so again it's impossible to see who his "determinism" (which was somewhat partial, as Thomas Sowell has noted) could have been based on Malthus's works.
Secondly, both Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels bitterly attacked Malthus in articles published in the 1840s, in a radical publication called the Deutche-Franszosiche Jahrbuch.
Marx called Malthus a "sycophant of the upper classes" (quote here is approximate) while Engels called the population theory a "revolting blasphemy against nature" because of its implication that the earth was too limited to support a large increase in population. For most of the last century and a half, therefore, Marxist socialists have generally opposed of "Malthusian" ideas about population.
A caveat: One way in which Malthus may have indirectly influenced Marx is through Malthus's influence on political economist David Ricardo, who adopted Malthus's population predictions and concluded that over time, excessive population growth would lead to land values rising to the point where landlords would collect enormous rents, so much so that capitalist profits and workers' wages would both be driven down to a minimal level. Marx when he studied political economy adopted many of Ricardo's ideas, so perhaps there was some indirect Malthusian influence on his work through Ricardo. Generally speaking, though, Marx got his ideas about "determinism" from Hegel, not Malthus. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by John Fernbach (talk • contribs) 18:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC).
[edit] Needs cleaning up
This article is in serious need of some cleaning up. Part of the references are totally irrelevant, and there is lack of balance between the different parts. In brief, a person of TRM's stature deserves better. Anyone else any thoughts on this? Robertsch55 07:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
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