ABSTRACT
The Essay on Population supports greater equality on the grounds of the ‘greater happiness’ to be attained by ‘an increase in the relative proportions of the middle parts’, and this by improved real wages assured by appropriate adjustment of labour supply, and by transfer of labour into the middle classes. In the Principles the utilitarian case for higher wages emphasizes the quantitative superiority of the labouring class in standard classical fashion. But from the perspective of positive economics the primary case for greater equality turns on the importance of a strong middle class with an eye to the propensity to spend, with some potential for increased aggregate demand emanating from a wealthier working class. The case for significant income redistributions was subject to resolution of the population problem, Malthus fearing that the ‘greatest happiness’ rule broke down with a promise of open-ended population increase notwithstanding the depressing effects on per capita wages. We witness in the early 1820s a transformation in Malthus’s hitherto apologetic attitude towards landlords; and ‘fair income distribution’ is implied by a contention that ‘the representative system … [secures] to the lower classes … a more equal and liberal mode of treatment from their superiors’.
