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History of economics Classical economics
Thomas Robert Malthus
Name:	Thomas Robert Malthus
Birth:	13 February 1766 (Surrey, Great Britain)
Death:	23 December 1834 (Bath, United Kingdom)
Nationality:	British
Field:	demography, macroeconomics, evolutionary economics
Influences:	Adam Smith, David Ricardo
Opposed:	William Godwin, Marquis de Condorcet, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Ricardo
Influenced:	Charles Darwin, Francis Place, Garrett Hardin, John Maynard Keynes, Pierre Francois Verhulst, Alfred Russel Wallace
Contributions:	Malthusian growth model

The British demographer and political economist Thomas Robert Malthus, FRS (13 February 1766 – 23 December 1834), has become best-known for his influential views on population growth.

Modern commentators generally refer to him as Thomas Malthus, but during his lifetime he went by his middle name, Robert.

Contents 1 Life 2 The Principle of Population 3 Malthus's population predictions 4 Influence 5 Criticism 5.1 Contemporary 5.2 Marxist 5.3 Biological 5.4 Cornucopian 5.5 Anthropological 5.6 Economic 6 Epitaph 7 References in popular culture 8 See also 9 Further reading 10 Footnotes 11 References 12 External links

Thomas Robert Malthus, the second son of eight children (six of them girls) born to Daniel and Henrietta Malthus, came into a prosperous family, with his father a personal friend of the philosopher David Hume and an acquaintance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The young Malthus received his education at home in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire and at the Dissenting Academy, Warrington until his admission to Jesus College, Cambridge in 1784. There he studied many subjects and took prizes in English declamation, Latin and Greek, but he majored in mathematics. He earned a masters degree in 1791 and won election as a fellow of Jesus College two years later. In 1797, he took orders and became an Anglican country parson.

Malthus married his first-cousin once removed, Harriet Eckersall, on April 12, 1804, and had three children: Henry, Emily and Lucy. In 1805 he became Britain's first professor in political economy at the East India Company College (now known as Haileybury) at Hertford Heath, near Hertford in Hertfordshire. His students affectionately referred to him as "Pop" or "Population" Malthus. (One student in particular, Graham Fischer, wrote a responsive essay concerning population growth and criticizing many of the ideas proposed by Thomas Malthus. Dr. Tom Klein, a future professor of his, later publicised Fischer's essay.) In 1818 Malthus became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Malthus refused to have his portrait painted until 1833 because of embarrassment over a cleft lip. After surgical correction, Malthus then became considered "handsome." Malthus also had a cleft palate (inside his mouth) that affected his speech. These cleft-related birth defects occurred relatively commonly in his family.

Malthus lies buried at Bath Abbey in England.

Malthus largely developed his views in reaction to the optimistic opinions of his father and of his father's associates, notably Rousseau. Malthus's essay also constituted a response to the views of the Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794). In An Essay on the Principle of Population, first published in 1798, Malthus made the famous prediction that population would outrun food supply, leading to a decrease in food per person.^[1]

“

The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.

”

This "Principle of Population" depended on the idea that population, if unchecked, increases at a geometric rate (i.e. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.), whereas the food-supply grows at an arithmetic rate (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 etc.).

Malthus suggested that only natural causes (such as accidents and old age), misery (war, pestilence, plague, and above all famine) [Book I, Ch. 2], moral restraint and vice (which for Malthus included infanticide, murder, contraception and homosexuality)^{[citation needed]} could check excessive population-growth. See Malthusian catastrophe for more information.

Malthus favoured moral restraint (including late marriage and sexual abstinence) as a check on the growth of population. Note, however, that Malthus proposed this only for the working and poor classes. The lower social classes took a great deal of responsibility for societal ills, according to his theory. In his work An Essay on the Principle of Population, he proposed the gradual abolition of poor laws. Essentially, this resulted in the promotion of legislation which degenerated the conditions of the poor in England, lowering their population but effectively decreasing poverty.

Malthus himself noted that many people misrepresented his theory; he took pains to point out that he did not just predict future catastrophe. He argued: "...this constantly subsisting cause of periodical misery has existed ever since we have had any histories of mankind, does exist at present, and will for ever continue to exist, unless some decided change takes place in the physical constitution of our nature."

Thus, Malthus regarded his Principle of Population as an explanation of the past and of the present situation of humanity, as well as a prediction of the future.

Some have argued^{[citation needed]} that Malthus did not fully recognise the human capacity to increase food supply. On this subject Malthus wrote "The main peculiarity which distinguishes man from other animals, is the means of his support, is the power which he possesses of very greatly increasing these means."

Malthus, at least in his first edition, predicted continuing famines in Europe; a prediction not yet fulfilled.^[2]

Elwell states that Malthus made no specific prediction regarding the future; and that what some interpret as prediction merely constituted Malthus's illustration of the power of geometric (or exponential) population growth compared to the arithmetic growth of food-production.^[3] Rather than predicting the future, the Essay offers an evolutionary social theory. Eight major points regarding evolution appear in the 1798 Essay:^[4]

1. subsistence severely limits population-level
2. when the means of subsistence increases, population increases
3. population-pressures stimulate increases in productivity
4. increases in productivity stimulate further population-growth
5. since this productivity can not keep up with the potential of population growth for long, population requires strong checks to keep it in line with carrying-capacity
6. individual cost/benefit decisions regarding sex, work, and children determine the expansion or contraction of population and production
7. checks will come into operation as population exceeds subsistence-level
8. the nature of these checks will have significant effect on the rest of the sociocultural system — Malthus points specifically to misery, vice, and poverty

Malthusian theory has had great influence on evolutionary theory, both in biology (as acknowledged by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace) and in the social sciences (compare Herbert Spencer). Malthus's population theory has also profoundly affected the modern-day ecological-evolutionary social theory of Gerhard Lenski and Marvin Harris. He can thus rank as a key contributing element of the canon of socioeconomic theory.

Malthus's theory of population has proven very influential. In 1978 Michael H. Hart published a book called The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, which placed Malthus at number 80 in this worldwide ranking.

At Haileybury, Malthus developed a theory of demand-supply mismatches which he called gluts. Considered ridiculous at the time, his theory foreshadowed later theories about the Great Depression, and the works of admirer and economist John Maynard Keynes.

Before Malthus, commentators had regarded high fertility as an economic advantage, since it increased the number of workers available to the economy. Malthus, however, looked at fertility from a new perspective and convinced most economists that even though high fertility might increase the gross output, it tended to reduce output per capita. A number of other notable economists, such as David Ricardo (whom Malthus knew personally) and Alfred Marshall admired Malthus and/or came under his influence.

A distinguished early convert to Malthusianism, British Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger (in office: 1783 - 1801 and 1804 - 1806), after reading the work of Malthus promptly withdrew a bill he had introduced that called for the extension of Poor Relief. Pitt also launched the first modern census in the UK (conducted in 1801). In the 1830s Malthus's writings strongly influenced Whig reforms which overturned Tory paternalism and brought in the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

Concerns about Malthus's theory helped promote the idea of a national population census in the UK. Government official John Rickman became instrumental in the carrying out of the first modern British census in 1801.

Malthus took pride in the fact that some of the earliest converts to his population theory included the leading creationist and natural theologian, Archdeacon William Paley, whose Natural Theology first appeared in 1802. Both men regarded Malthus's Principle of Population as additional proof of the existence of a deity.

Ironically, given Malthus's own opposition to contraception, his work exercised a strong influence on Francis Place (1771–1854), whose Neo-Malthusian movement became the first to advocate contraception. Place published his Illustrations and Proofs of the Principles of Population in 1822.

Malthus's idea of man's "struggle for existence" had an influence on Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. Other scientists related this idea to plants and animals, which helped to define a piece of the evolutionary puzzle. This struggle for existence of all creatures provides the catalyst by which natural selection produces the "survival of the fittest", a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer.^[5] Darwin, in his book The Origin of Species, called his theory an application of the doctrines of Malthus in an area without the complicating factor of human intelligence. Darwin, a life-long admirer of Malthus, referred to Malthus as "that great philosopher"^[6] and wrote in his notebook that "Malthus on Man should be studied". Wallace called Malthus's essay "...the most important book I read..." and considered it "the most interesting coincidence" that reading Malthus led both himself and Darwin, independently, towards the idea of evolution.

Thanks to Malthus, Darwin recognized the significance of competition between populations of the same species, as well as the importance of competition between species. Malthusian thinking on population also explained how an incipient species could become a full-blown species in a very short time-frame. Robert M. Young, Professor of Psychotherapy and Psychoanalytic Studies at Sheffield University in England, perhaps best highlighted the significance of Malthus's influence on Darwin in Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture in 1965.

The first Director-General of UNESCO, evolutionist and humanist Julian Huxley, wrote of "The Crowded World" in his Evolutionary Humanism (1964), calling for a "World Population Policy". Huxley openly criticised Communist and Roman Catholic attitudes to birth control , population control and overpopulation. Today world organizations such as the United Nations Population Fund acknowledge that the debate over how many people the Earth can support effectively started with Malthus.

Julian Huxley's brother, the author Aldous Huxley, in his book Brave New World, refers to Malthusian theories on population. The inhabitants of his novel use a popular form of birth control known as the "Malthusian Belt". The females in the novel, including the female protagonist Lenina Crowne, mention it frequently.

Malthus continues to have considerable influence to this day. Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb(1968), furnishes a recent example of this. (Ehrlich predicted, in the late 1960s, that hundreds of millions would die from a coming overpopulation-crisis in the 1970s, and that by 1980 inhabitants of the United States would have a life-expectancy of only 42 years.) Other examples of applied Malthusianism include the 1972 book The Limits to Growth published by the Club of Rome, and the Global 2000 report to the then President of the United States of America Jimmy Carter. Science-fiction author Isaac Asimov issued many appeals for population-control reflecting the perspective articulated by people from Thomas Malthus through Paul R. Ehrlich.

More recently, a school of "neo-Malthusian" scholars has begun to link population and economics to a third variable, political change and political violence, and to show how the variables interact. In the early 1980s, James Goldstone linked population variables to the English Revolution and David Lempert devised a model of demographics, economics, and political change in the multi-ethnic country of Mauritius. Goldstone has since modeled other revolutions by looking at demographics and economics and Lempert has explained Stalin's purges and the Russian Revolution of 1917 in terms of demographic factors that drive political economy. Ted Robert Gurr has also modeled political violence, such as in the Palestinian territories and in Rwanda/Congo (two of the world's regions of most rapidly-growing population) using similar variables in several comparative cases. These approaches compete with explanations of events as a result of political ideology and suggest that political ideology as a construct follows demographic forces.

Many regard^{[citation needed]} Malthus as the founder of modern demography. Malthus proposed his Principle of Population as a universal natural law for all species, not just humans. Instead, today, commentators widely regard^{[citation needed]} his theory as only an approximate natural law of population dynamics for all species: this because scientists have proven^{[citation needed]} that nothing can sustain exponential growth at a constant rate indefinitely.

Nonetheless, Malthus continues to openly inspire and influence futuristic visions, such as those of K Eric Drexler relating to space advocacy and molecular nanotechnology. As Drexler put it in Engines of Creation (1986): "In a sense, opening space will burst our limits to growth, since we know of no end to the universe. Nevertheless, Malthus was essentially right."

Malthus has also inspired retired physics professor, Albert Bartlett, to lecture over 1,500 times on "Arithmetic, Population, and Energy", promoting sustainable living and explaining the mathematics of overpopulation.

The Malthusian growth model now bears Malthus's name. The logistic function of Pierre Francois Verhulst (1804-1849) results in the well-known S-curve. Verhulst developed the logistic growth model favored by so many critics of the Malthusian growth model in 1838 only after reading Malthus's essay.

Some commentators^{[citation needed]} have disputed the efficacy of Malthus's arithmetic model of food-supply, noting that food supply has kept pace with population for the past two centuries.

Malthus's position as professor at the British East India Company training college, which he held until his death in 1834, gave his theories considerable influence over Britain's administration of India through most of the 19th century, continuing even under the Raj after the Company's dissolution in 1858. In a major result of this influence, the official response to India's periodic famines (which had occurred every decade or two for centuries) became one of not entirely benign neglect: the authorities regarded the famines as necessary to keep the "excess" population in check. In some cases administrators even banned private efforts to transport food into famine-stricken areas. However, this "Malthusian" policy did not take account of the enormous economic damage done by such famines through loss of human capital, collapse of credit structures and financial institutions, and the destruction of physical capital (especially in the form of livestock), social infrastructure and commercial relationships. As a (presumably unintended) consequence, production often did not recover to pre-famine levels in the affected areas for a decade or more after each disaster, well after the replacement of the lost population.

Malthusian theory also influenced British policies in Ireland during the 1840s: the government neglected relief-measures during the Irish Potato Famine (1845-1849), seeing mass starvation as a natural and inevitable consequence of the island's supposed over-population.

Although many people assume^{[citation needed]} that Malthus's pessimistic views gave economics the nickname "the Dismal Science", the historian Thomas Carlyle actually coined the phrase in 1849 in reference to laissez-faire economic theories in general.

William Godwin responded to Malthus's criticisms of his own arguments with On Population (1820).

Other theoretical and political critiques of Malthus and Malthusian thinking emerged soon after the publication of the first Essay on Population, most notably in the work of the reformist industrialist Robert Owen, of the essayist William Hazlitt^[7] and of the economists John Stuart Mill and Nassau William Senior,^[8] and moralist William Cobbett. Note also True Law of Population (1845) by politician Thomas Doubleday, an adherent of Cobbett's views.

Much opposition to Malthus's ideas came in the middle of the nineteenth century with the writings of Karl Marx (Capital, 1867) and Friedrich Engels (Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, 1844), who argued that what Malthus saw as the problem of the pressure of population on the means of production actually represented the pressure of the means of production on population. They thus viewed it in terms of their concept of the labor reserve army. In other words, the seeming excess of population that Malthus attributed to the seemingly innate disposition of the poor to reproduce beyond their means actually emerged as a product of the very dynamic of capitalist economy.

Engels called Malthus's hypothesis "...the crudest, most barbarous theory that ever existed, a system of despair which struck down all those beautiful phrases about love thy neighbour and world citizenship."

Biologist Ronald Fisher expressed criticism of the use of Malthus's theory as a basis for the theory of natural selection.^[9] John Maynard Smith criticised Malthus's hypothesis, doubting that famine functioned as the great leveler that Malthus saw it as.^{[citation needed]}

Some 19th-century economists believed that improvements in the division and specialization of labor, increased capital investment, and other factors had rendered some of Malthus's warnings implausible. In the absence of any improvement in technology or increase of capital equipment, an increased supply of labor may have a synergistic effect on productivity that overcomes the law of diminishing returns. As American land-economist Henry George observed with characteristic piquancy in dismissing Malthus: "Both the jayhawk and the man eat chickens; but the more jayhawks, the fewer chickens, while the more men, the more chickens."

Many 20th-century economists, such as Julian Lincoln Simon, have also criticised Malthus's conclusions. They note that despite the predictions of Malthus and the Neo-Malthusians, massive geometric population growth in the 20th century has not resulted in a Malthusian catastrophe, largely due to the influence of technological advances and the expansion of the market economy, division of labor, and stock of capital goods. The skeptical environmentalist, Bjørn Lomborg, echoes such arguments. Some^{[citation needed]}, such as British physicist John Maddox, thus regard Malthus as a failed prophet of doom.^{[citation needed]}

In The Malthus Factor: Population, Poverty, and Politics in Capitalist Development, anthropologist Eric Ross depicts Malthus's work as a rationalization of the social inequities produced by the Industrial Revolution, anti-immigration movements, the eugenics movement and the various international development movements.

Malthus argued that as wages increase within an economy, the birth-rate increases while the death-rate decreases. He reasoned that high incomes allowed people to have sufficient means to raise their children, thus resulting in greater desire to have more children which increases the population. In addition, high incomes also allowed people to afford proper medication to fight off potentially harmful diseases, thus decreasing the death-rate. As a result, wage-increases caused population to grow as the birth-rate increases and the death-rate decreases. He further argued that as the supply of labor increases with the increased population-growth at a constant labor demand, the wages earned would decrease eventually to subsistence, where the birth-rate equals the death-rate, resulting in no growth in population. However, the world generally has experienced quite a different result than the one Malthus predicted. During the late 19th and early 20th century, the population (and wages) increased as the industrial revolution gathered pace. However, birth rates in highly-developed nations have dropped to bare replacement-levels, such that many Western nations like the US and Canada only grow due to immigration, and Japan faces a declining population when the post-World War II generation dies off.

Malthus assumed a constant labor-demand in his assessment of England^{[citation needed]}, and in doing so he ignored the effects of industrialization. As the world became more industrialized, the level of technology and production grew, causing an increase in labor-demand. Thus, even though labor-supply increased, so did the demand for labor. In fact, the labor-demand arguably increased more than the supply, as measured by the historically observed increase in real wages globally with population growth.

Sacred to the memory of the Rev Thomas Robert Malthus, long known to the lettered world by his admirable writings on the social branches of political economy, particularly by his essay on population.

One of the best men and truest philosophers of any age or country, raised by native dignity of mind above the misrepresentation of the ignorant and the neglect of the great, he lived a serene and happy life devoted to the pursuit and communication of truth.

Supported by a calm but firm conviction of the usefulness of his labors.

Content with the approbation of the wise and good.

His writings will be a lasting monument of the extent and correctness of his understanding.

The spotless integrity of his principles, the equity and candour of his nature, his sweetness of temper, urbanity of manners and tenderness of heart, his benevolence and his piety are still dearer recollections of his family and friends.

Born Feb 14 1766 Died 29 Dec 1834.

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, supposedly^{[original research?]} represents the (perceived) ideas of Malthus, famously illustrated by his explanation as to why he refuses to donate to the poor and destitute: "If they would rather die they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population".
• The final spoken line of Urinetown, the Musical proclaims "Hail Malthus!" before the final sung line ("That was our show!") and the curtain-call.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's novel, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, the character Bernardo de la Paz says to Mannie: "This planet isn't crowded; it is just mismanaged ... and the unkindest thing you can do for a hungry man is to give him food. 'Give.' Read Malthus. It is never safe to laugh at Dr. Malthus; he always has the last laugh."
• In Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World, people generally regard fertility as a nuisance, as cloning has enabled the society to maintain the population in precisely the way the controllers want. The women, therefore, must take excessive amounts of contraceptives, which they carry with them at all times in a "Malthusian belt".
• In the Sliders "Luck of the Draw" episode, the parallel world reflects Thomas Malthus's views on over-population.
• In John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman Dr. Grogan' says of Malthus: "For him the tragedy of homo sapiens is that the least fit to survive breed the most".
• George R. R. Martin's novel Tuf Voyaging features a planet called S'uthlam (an anagram for "Malthus") which constantly faces the danger of mass famine because of its rapidly expanding population.
• An issue of the Anarky series includes a brief scene in which Anarky (aka Lonnie Machin) uses the Internet to hold an instant messaging session with the public in which he debates the need for war, arguing the advantages of diverting money and time currently used on military research towards agriculture in order to solve the global overpopulation crisis. The scene recaps and criticises Malthusian theory. "Malthus failed to see that man's knowledge also increases at a geometrical rate. No matter how many people there are, we can always use ever-developing technology to feed them."^[10]

• Cornucopianism: the opposite of the Malthusian school of thought
• List of scientific phenomena named after people
• Food Race, a related idea from Daniel Quinn
• Limits to growth, from the Club of Rome
• Hypothetical future disasters
• Black death
• List of Bubonic plague outbreaks
• List of countries by birth rate
• List of countries by death rate
• List of countries by fertility rate
• List of coupled cousins
• List of epidemics
• List of famines - incomplete
• Lists of people by cause of death
• List of wars
• Malthus (in demonology)
• Malthusian Catastrophe
• Malthusian Growth Model
• Malthusianism
• Medieval demography
• NSSM 200
• Overpopulation
• Social Darwinism - a related idea
• World population
• Giovanni Botero - a sixteenth century thinker whose work foreshadows Malthus's ideas on population catastrophe
• Urinetown, the Musical: the last spoken line of the 2001 Tony-Award winning Broadway musical proclaims: "Hail Malthus!" The musical tells the story of a society that cannot sustain itself because of a scarcity of water, due to overconsumption. As a result the citizens have to pay to urinate.

• The Social Contract Press Vol. 8, No. 3; Spring, 1998 Malthus Bicentenary issue devoted entirely to Malthus
• Negative Population Growth organization: a collection of essays for the Malthus Bicentenary
• National Academics Forum, Australia: a collection of essays for the Malthus Bicentenary Conference, 1998
• Rohe, John F., A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay: Conservation, Population and the Indifference to Limits, Rhodes & Easton, Traverse City, MI. 1997

• Case, Karl E. & Fair, Ray C. (1999). Principles of Economics (5th ed.). Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-961905-4.
• Elwell, Frank W. (2001), A Commentary on Malthus's 1798 Essay on Population as Social Theory, The Edwin Mellon Press.
• Hollander, Samuel (1997). The Economics of Thomas Robert Malthus. University of Toronto Press.
• Evans, L.T. (1998). Feeding the Ten Billion - Plants and Population Growth. Cambridge University Press. Paperback, 247 pages. Dedicated to Malthus by the author. ISBN 0-521-64685-5.
• James, Patricia (1979). Population Malthus: his Life and Times. London : Routledge and Kegan Paul
• Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth. Moscow: URSS, 2006. ISBN 5-484-00414-4 [1].
• Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends. Moscow: URSS, 2006. ISBN 5-484-00559-0 [2].
• Korotayev A. & Khaltourina D. Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Secular Cycles and Millennial Trends in Africa. Moscow: URSS, 2006. ISBN 5-484-00560-4 [3].
• Lempert, David, A Demographic-Economic Explanation of Political Stability: Mauritius as a Microcosm,Eastern Africa Economic Review, Vol. 3 No. 1, 1987; and Daily Life in a Crumbling Empire, Columbia University Press/ Eastern European Monographs, 1996.
• Maddox, John, The Doomsday Syndrome - An Assault on Pessimism (1972).
• Maynard Smith, John The Theory of Evolution (1958, 1966, 1975). Canto (Cambridge University Press) - (1993, 1995, 1997, 2000). ISBN 0-521-45128-0
• Mayr, Ernst What evolution is (2001). Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-60741-3
• Peterson, William (1999). Malthus, Founder Of Modern Demography (2nd ed.) Transaction. ISBN 0-7658-0481-6.
• Ross, Eric B: The Malthus factor : population, poverty, and politics in capitalist development. Zed Books, London, 1998 ISBN 1-85649-564-7
• Sober, Elliot The Nature Of Selection (1984). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-76748-5. Also for the quote from Ronald Fisher.
• Spiegel, Henry William. 1992. The Growth of Economic Thought. Durham: Duke University Press
• Carl Zimmer Evolution - The Triumph of an Idea (2001). Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-019906-7

• EconLib-1798: An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1st edition, 1798. Library of Economics and Liberty. Free online, full-text searchable.
• EconLib-1826: An Essay on the Principle of Population, 6th edition, 1826. Library of Economics and Liberty. Free online, full-text searchable. Malthus published a major revision to his first edition--his second edition--in 1803. His 6th edition, published 1826, and revising his various 2nd-5th editions, became his widely cited 6th and final revision.
• Works by Thomas Robert Malthus at Project Gutenberg
• Malthus profile and extensive links
• Theories of Overpopulation - refer section entitled Criticism of the Malthusian Theory. Catholic Encyclopedia website
• More Food for More People But Not For All, and Not Forever United Nations Population Fund website
• Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity by William Paley (1802). 12th edition (1809) Text published by University of Michigan (Humanities Text Initiative)
• The Feast of Malthus by Garrett Hardin in The Social Contract (1998)
• Online copies of several of Malthus's works
• Malthus bibliography
• Malthus biography by Nigel Malthus, a direct descendant of Malthus's brother Sydenham Malthus
• The International Society of Malthus
• Publications of the United Nations Population Division
• An Essay on the Principle of Population by Malthus
• Thomas Malthus at UCMP
• The Massive Movement to Marginalise the Modern Malthusian Message article by Professor Albert Bartlett
• Online chapter MALTHUS AND THE EVOLUTIONISTS:THE COMMON CONTEXT OF BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL THEORY from Darwin's Metaphor: Nature's Place in Victorian Culture by Professor Robert M. Young (1985, 1988, 1994). Cambridge University Press.
• MALTHUS ON MAN - IN ANIMALS NO MORAL RESTRAINT article about Malthus's influence on Darwin, by Professor Robert M. Young
• A Better Earth
• Exponentialist website dedicated to Malthus
• Gwynne Dyer: Population bomb still ticking away - 20 Mar 2007 - NZ Herald
• The population bomb is ticking again | EnergyBulletin.net
• T. Robert Malthus's Homepage

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Related	History of economic thought

Persondata
NAME	Malthus, Thomas Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	English demographer and political economist
DATE OF BIRTH	February 13, 1766
PLACE OF BIRTH	Surrey, England
DATE OF DEATH	December 23, 1834
PLACE OF DEATH	Haileybury, Hertford, England