ABSTRACT
The extraordinary success of Malthusian probings may be gauged by the abject, if long-drawn, David Ricardian surrender, when the vaunted ‘invariable standard’ boiled down – in the last edition – to fixing on gold as the least objectionable standard in question. T. R. Malthus’s contribution to the Ricardian crusade – via his diatribe against the Poor Laws expressed in his pseudo-population theory – would have been quite enough to secure him the role of an original inspirer of the Ricardian project. Via Keynes, Malthus is best remembered – or should be – as an early critic of capitalist complacency about the self-regulating nature of their favourite system. The choice between a Malthus and a Ricardo, apologists for landlords and manufacturers respectively, is, accordingly – for one not enamoured of either property-owning order, in the scheme of capitalism – a futile one.
