ABSTRACT
Thomas Robert Malthus’ 1798 Essay on the Principle of Population helped change the direction of economics, politics, and the natural sciences with its reasoning and problem solving.
The central topic of the essay was the idea, extremely prevalent in the 18th and 19th centuries, that human society was in some way perfectible. According to many thinkers of the time, mankind was on a course of steady improvement with advances set to continuously improve society and life for all. Malthus was a skeptic on this point, and, in a clear example of the skill of reasoning, set about constructing and marshalling a strong argument for a less optimistic view.
Central to his argument were the laws of population growth and their relationship to growth in agricultural production; in his view the former would always outstrip the latter. This provided a strong argument that society was limited by finite resources – a closely reasoned argument that continues to influence economists, politicians and scientists today, as well as environmental movements. While Malthus’ proposed solutions have been less influential, they remain an excellent example of problem solving, offering a range of answers to the problem of population growth and finite resources.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section 1|17 pages
Influences
module 1|4 pages
The Author and the Historical Context
module 2|4 pages
Academic Context
module 3|4 pages
The Problem
module 4|4 pages
The Author’s Contribution
section 2|18 pages
Ideas
module 5|4 pages
Main Ideas
module 6|5 pages
Secondary Ideas
module 7|4 pages
Achievement
module 8|4 pages
Place in the Author’s Work
section 3|21 pages
Impact
module 9|5 pages
The First Responses
module 10|6 pages
The Evolving Debate
module 11|5 pages
Impact and Influence Today
module 12|4 pages
Where Next?