Malthus’ Theory

By: Bryan Allnutt and Justice Theodros

What Malthus thought

The earth has a limited supply of resources, therefore after a certain amount of time, the earth will not be able to support human life.

-Human populations grow exponentially

-Food production grows at an arithmetic rate

-The population will eventually outgrow the food supply

-Overpopulation was a large issue

Malthus’s data he believed in

This data is from his time and today refers to his time.

Today: 1 person, 1 unit of food

25 years from now: 2 persons, 2 units of food

50 years from now: 4 persons, 3 units of food

75 years from now: 8 persons, 4 units of food

100 years from now: 16 persons, 5 units of food

Was he right or wrong?

When Thomas Malthus wrote this theory and sent out the data he worked on, he forgot a few of things. Malthus was unaware of the Demographic Transition Model. England, the country he lived in, was in the second stage of the demographic transition model. At this stage, the country goes through a massive growth in Crude Birth Rate and a decrease in Crude Death Rate. The country goes through an significant increase in population, what Malthus saw. This is not a constant state so the population growth changed, making his data inaccurate. Also, he didn’t expect humans to be able to produce more food. He assumed there wouldn’t be someone who came up with ways to produce more food on limited land. The Green Revolution proved him wrong again.

Agricultural Revolutions???Why mention it?

The agricultural revolutions were something that disproved Malthus wrong. In his theory he doesn't expect the human race to adapt and figure out ways to produce more food for the growing and thriving population. Malthus believed we have a limited supply and we would run out.

Demographic transition model

When Malthus wrote his theory the Uk, where he lived, was going through the second stage of the demographic transition model. This stage correlates with an extremely high population growth which malthus experienced and he base his theory of this growth rate which changes in stage 3 but he didnt know that so his growth rate he calculated is wrong.

Neo-Malthusians (new-malthusians)

Current-day people with the same/similar beliefs as Malthus

Neo- Malthusians have the same base belief as Malthus; that the Earth can only sustain a certain amount of people and that it will soon reach its capacity. One difference between neo-malthusians is that they believe that not only will the resources needed for survival run out, but if that doesn’t happen first, the condition of the environment will be so unstable that human life will become impossible. Many others, believe that the biggest possible cause is the lack of value put on sex, most specifically the middle class. Which is causing the birth of too many children, that will make overpopulation approach even faster.

The UN’s chart of population growth, Malthus’ expectation is the black line.

“Solutions”Preventative Checks -Abstinence

-Delayed marriage

-Contraceptives

Positive Checks: -Premature death

-Disease

-Starvation

-War

-Abortion

He also believed the rich should reproduce, and the poor should not.

What you need to know

-He believed we would run out of food

-The people who disagree and add on to his theory are the neo-mlathusians

-His theory isn’t right because of the evolution of agriculture

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