Is Malthus returning?

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an English economist whose name is associated with an influential theory. He argued that if there are no limitations on resources, the population increases in geometric progression. The doubling period is 25 years. Over the same period, the means of subsistence increase in arithmetic progression. This results in a serious contradiction - the number of people is growing much faster than the possibilities for their sustenance. The solution, according to Malthus, lies in limiting the birth rate. If this does not happen, wars, diseases and natural disasters reduce the population.

The conclusions of this theory are paradoxical and pessimistic. If we assume that Malthus is right, then any improvement in the standard of living – technical or organizational innovation, scientific discovery, good harvests or simply consecutive years of peace – is dangerous. It leads to a sharp increase in population. A moment is reached when the available means of subsistence are insufficient and then wars, disasters and/or diseases follow, which lead to the natural elimination of the “surplus”. Malthus’ theory makes any help for the poor and needy meaningless. The logic is as follows: helping them leads to the poor giving birth to more children, these children survive. The increased population cannot feed itself and the familiar brakes on the growth of the number of people come into play…

The world in Malthus' "trap"

Malthus's theory explains relatively well the historical development from the emergence of settled agriculture, approximately, until 1800. Then the effect of any technical improvement or other circumstance that makes life more bearable is neutralized by the factors predicted by Malthus - diseases, wars and natural disasters. Probably the most famous manifestation of the so-called Malthusian trap is the European history from the 11th to the 14th centuries. From the 11th century onwards, as a result of technical improvements in agriculture and other sectors, the population of Europe grows, new lands are absorbed, cities and trade develop, etc. At the beginning of the 14th century, however, the European medieval economy reaches its limit in its ability to feed the population. In 1315-1317, large parts of the Old Continent are covered by famine, which takes the lives of thousands. Then only the plague of 1347-1352, which kills at least 1/3 of Europeans.

The action of such a mechanism seems universal. It stops the "excessive" increase in the number of people. The available data show that, over millennia, no significant difference, much less a tendency towards improvement, can be found in the main indicators of the standard of living of people, regardless of whether we are talking about ancient Egypt of the pharaohs, Bulgaria during the time of Tsar Simeon (893-927) or England on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. The average height of men in Europe for the first 1800 years after Christ, measured from skeletons discovered during archaeological excavations, does not show any visible changes. And it is well known that an increase in the standard of living makes people taller. The same lack of improvement is shown by the known data on calorie intake in various societies before 1800.

Even in wealthy societies before 1800, the chances of a child at birth living to their 30th birthday were 50/50. Diseases are a constant companion of human development and their mortality is terrifying. After the plague settled in Europe in the mid-14th century, it did not disappear from its western part until at least the end of the 17th century. Periodic epidemics devastated individual parts of the continent. In 1665-1666, the last recorded plague epidemic in London was in 1665-1666. Its victims were between 70 and 80,000, out of a population of about half a million. A fierce plague epidemic swept northern Italy in 1629-1630. About 30-35% of the region's population, or approximately 2 million people, died. The disease was fatal for between 60 and 90% of those infected. In this sense, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was right when, although in a different context, he wrote in the 17th century that life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Escape from the trap

After 1800, a change occurred. It consisted in the fact that the population of the earth increased from approximately one billion at the beginning of the 19th century to over seven billion today. Even more unexpected, if we proceed from the Malthusian model, is the fact that at the same time all the main measurable indicators of the standard of living improved. It is important to specify that the change was not uniform and smooth. It did not happen within a year or two, sometimes there were severe deviations from the general trends – diseases did not disappear, wars became more deadly, the effectiveness of terrorist political regimes also increased. In the perspective of the last 200-250 years, however, it is visible that the positive changes, albeit to different degrees and at different times, affected everyone.

The average annual growth rate of world gross domestic product for the period from 1500 to 1820 was 0.32%, while in 1820-1870 it jumped to 0.94%, and in 1870-1913 it was 2.12%. Even during the two world wars and the Great Depression, growth was 1.82%. How does this translate into income growth? In 1800 and before that year, the average daily consumption per person was 3 US dollars (in 2010 purchasing power parity). This amount includes the consumption of everything – clothing, food, medicine, transportation, education, books, theater, etc. A more detailed walk through time before 1800 can reveal slightly richer or slightly poorer societies, but this will give an insignificant difference of plus or minus 1-2 dollars. At the beginning of the 21st century, the amount available to a person is 30 dollars a day. The emergence of new and unfamiliar goods and services, as well as the huge reduction in the price of basic goods, must also be taken into account. Nobel laureate in economics W. Nordhaus estimates that the cost of lighting (with significantly improved quality) from 1800 to the 1990s decreased by 99.97%. At the same time, infant mortality rates decreased dramatically, average life expectancy increased, etc.

Why is this happening?

The answer is not easy. Certainly, no single reason can be given. Among the most frequently mentioned are: the accumulation of capital, the division of labor, international trade and the expansion of markets, the exploitation of workers and of less developed countries by the more developed and militarily more powerful, the discoveries of the Industrial Revolution, institutions that promote economic growth such as the security of private property and the rule of law, political freedoms, state non-interference in the economy or, paradoxically, state intervention to promote the economy, etc. Some of the reasons given are relevant to the radical changes over the last 200 years, others are rather imaginary. None of them is fundamental.

The escape from Malthus' trap is the result of at least two fundamental ideas, or rather groups of ideas. First and foremost are the bourgeois ideas of equality, but not the popular idea of income equality today. This is about the idea developed by philosophers such as John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, etc. of equality before the law, of equal dignity of every citizen, of the right of everyone to have a goal that they can freely pursue. In this spirit is also the liberal idea that profiting from trade and production is something positive, that profit is not a sin, and also the gradual weakening of the militaristic and hierarchical values of the centuries before the 16th-18th centuries. Second are the concepts of the so-called scientific revolution. These include the view that the "agenda" of natural sciences should be directed towards practical goals and, more specifically, towards improving the material well-being of a state, individual, nation, world, etc. Another element of the scientific revolution is the belief in progress, that progress is possible and desirable. This often means denying or correcting the achievements of ancestors. Doubt in authorities, the free exchange of ideas, competition between individual scientists and the desire to achieve something new is a specific prerequisite for scientific progress. In science after the 17th century there is no single authority that imposes truths, dissidents are not killed, and ideas are tested.

Neo-Malthusians and the return of Malthus

Despite the fact that the predictions of the Malthusian model have not come true, Malthus' ideas have remained influential in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. They can be found in the concerns about excessive population growth in the second half of the 20th century, in the Chinese Communist Party's policy of deliberately limiting the birth rate, and in the almost religious fanaticism with which Mother Nature is protected from the pollution caused by ungrateful humanity. The resurrection of Malthusian concerns is also reinforced by the spread of Covid-19. The virus seems to be a manifestation of the forces described by the English economist to reduce the increased population.

To understand whether this is so, it is important to return to some basic assumptions. First, much more severe, catastrophic events in the 20th century did not stop the forces that oppose a return to the times before 1800. And second, although obscured by envy, over-politicization and irrationality, the two sets of ideas that led to a significant reduction in poverty and misery are still with us. In this sense, through Covid-19, Malthus is ominously winking at us from the afterlife, but it seems that there are no conditions for his return.

P. Penchev

Did you like it? Take a minute to support the EKIP on Patreon!