ABSTRACT
Thomas Robert Malthus's theory of population developed in reaction to the ideas of two popular philosophers of the Enlightenment in the late eighteenth century: distinguished French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet and radical English minister William Godwin. Malthus's classic work came about because of an argument he had with "a friend" over William Godwin's utopian theories. The founder of modern evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, credited Malthus for his theory of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Lester Brown Malthusian theory tends to attribute any deadly famine, extreme poverty, or environmental damage to excess population and economic growth, rather than to underdevelopment or government policy. And most mainstream economists since the late 1900s have also abandoned Malthus's thesis in view of the tremendous rise in food production and economic output. He misunderstood the dynamics of a growing entrepreneurial economy—how a larger population creates its own seeds of prosperity through the creation of new ideas and new technology.
