Thomas Robert Malthus

About Thomas Robert Malthus

Who is it?: Political Economist
Birth Day: February 13, 1766
Birth Place: Surrey, England, British
Died On: 23 December 1834(1834-12-23) (aged 68)\nBath, Somerset, England
Birth Sign: Pisces
Field: Demography, macroeconomics
School or tradition: Classical economics
Alma mater: Jesus College, Cambridge
Influences: David Ricardo, Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi
Contributions: Malthusian growth model

Thomas Robert Malthus Net Worth

Thomas Robert Malthus was born on February 13, 1766 in Surrey, England, British, is Political Economist. One of the renowned British clerics and scholars, Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus played an influential role in the field of political economy and demography. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and is well-known for his theories of population. His most important work, An Essay on the Principles of Population, presented a contradictory theory of evolution and population against what was prevalent in those times. It presented a contrasting view which singled out the fact that the rate at which the population was growing, it would eventually surpass the rate of production of food and would eventually lead to starvation. He was in favour of long-term stability instead of short term practicality. Furthermore, he criticized the Poor Laws, and supported the Corn Laws, which introduced a system of taxes on British imports of wheat. Sadly, he was the most misunderstood and misrepresented economist of all time. His theory, which is known as Malthusian economy, is said to represent a pessimistic outlook of the human population which is doomed to starvation via overpopulation. It was only after the advent of the Keynesian economics that his views and theory became popular in the 20th century. However, till date, he is referred to as the most debated writer and economist of all time.
Thomas Robert Malthus is a member of Intellectuals & Academics

💰 Net worth: Under Review

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Famous Quotes:

That the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed by moral restraint, vice and misery.

Biography/Timeline

1782

The seventh child of Henrietta Catherine (Graham) and Daniel Malthus, Robert Malthus grew up in The Rookery, a country house in Westcott, near Dorking in Surrey. Petersen describes Daniel Malthus as "a gentleman of good family and independent means... [and] a friend of David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau". The young Malthus received his education at home in Bramcote, Nottinghamshire, and then at the Warrington Academy from 1782. Warrington was a dissenting academy, then at the end of its existence, and it closed in 1783; Malthus continued for a period to be tutored by Gilbert Wakefield who had taught him there.

1784

Malthus entered Jesus College, Cambridge in 1784. There he took prizes in English declamation, Latin and Greek, and graduated with honours, Ninth Wrangler in mathematics. His tutor was william Frend. He took the MA degree in 1791, and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College two years later. In 1789, he took orders in the Church of England, and became a curate at Oakwood Chapel (also Okewood) in the parish of Wotton, Surrey.

1798

Malthus argued in his Essay (1798) that population growth generally expanded in times and in regions of plenty until the size of the population relative to the primary resources caused distress:

1799

In 1799 Malthus made a European tour with william Otter, a close college friend, travelling part of the way with Edward Daniel Clarke and John Marten Cripps, visiting Germany, Scandinavia and Russia. Malthus used the trip to gather population data. Otter later wrote a Memoir of Malthus for the second (1836) edition of his Principles of Political Economy. During the Peace of Amiens of 1802 he travelled to France and Switzerland, in a party that included his relation and Future wife Harriet. In 1803 he became rector of Walesby, Lincolnshire.

1804

On 13 March 1804, Malthus married Harriet, daughter of John Eckersall of Claverton House, near Bath. They had a son and two daughters. His firstborn, son Henry, became vicar of Effingham, Surrey, in 1835, and of Donnington, Sussex, in 1837; he married Sofia Otter (1807–1889), daughter of Bishop william Otter, and died in August 1882, aged 76. His middle child, Emily, died in 1885, outliving her parents and siblings. The youngest, Lucille, died unmarried and childless in 1825, months before her 18th birthday.

1805

In 1805 Malthus became Professor of History and Political Economy at the East India Company College in Hertfordshire. His students affectionately referred to him as "Pop" or "Population" Malthus.

1814

In terms of public policy, Malthus was a supporter of the protectionist Corn Laws from the end of the Napoleonic Wars. He emerged as the only Economist of note to support duties on imported grain. He changed his mind after 1814. By encouraging domestic production, Malthus argued, the Corn Laws would guarantee British self-sufficiency in food.

1815

Although government in Britain had regulated the prices of grain, the Corn Laws originated in 1815. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars that year, Parliament passed legislation banning the importation of foreign corn into Britain until domestic corn cost 80 shillings per quarter. The high price caused the cost of food to increase and caused distress among the working classes in the towns. It led to serious rioting in London and to the "Peterloo Massacre" (1819) in Manchester.

1816

At the end of 1816 the proposed appointment of Graves Champney Haughton to the College was made a pretext by Randle Jackson and Joseph Hume to launch an attempt to close it down. Malthus wrote a pamphlet defending the College, which was reprieved by the East India Company in 1817. In 1818 Malthus became a Fellow of the Royal Society.

1817

Ricardo corresponded with Malthus from 1817 and his Principles. He was drawn into considering political economy in a less restricted sense, which might be adapted to legislation and its multiple objectives, by the thought of Malthus. In his own work Principles of Political Economy (1820), and elsewhere, Malthus addressed the tension, amounting to conflict, he saw between a narrow view of political economy, and the broader moral and political plane. Leslie Stephen wrote:

1820

In 1820 Malthus published Principles of Political Economy. 1836: Second edition, posthumously published. Malthus intended this work to rival Ricardo's Principles (1817). It, and his 1827 Definitions in political economy, defended Sismondi's views on "general glut" rather than Say's Law, which in effect states "there can be no general glut".

1821

Malthus was a founding member of the Political Economy Club in 1821; there John Cazenove tended to be his ally, against Ricardo and Mill. He was elected in the beginning of 1824 as one of the ten royal associates of the Royal Society of Literature. He was also one of the first fellows of the Statistical Society, founded in March 1834. In 1827 he gave evidence to a committee of the House of Commons on emigration.

1823

After Ricardo's death in 1823, Malthus became isolated among the younger British political economists, who tended to think he had lost the debate.It is now considered that the different purposes seen by Malthus and Ricardo for political economy affected their technical discussion, and contributed to the lack of compatible definitions. For Example, Jean-Baptiste Say used a definition of production based on goods and services and so queried the restriction of Malthus to "goods" alone.

1827

McCulloch was the Editor of The Scotsman of Edinburgh; he replied cuttingly in a review printed on the front page of his newspaper in March, 1827. He implied that Malthus wanted to dictate terms and theories to other economists. McCulloch clearly felt his ox gored, and his review of Definitions is largely a bitter defence of his own Principles of Political Economy, and his counter-attack "does little credit to his reputation", being largely "personal derogation" of Malthus. The purpose of Malthus's Definitions was terminological clarity, and Malthus discussed appropriate terms, their definitions, and their use by himself and his contemporaries. This motivation of Malthus's work was disregarded by McCulloch, who responded that there was nothing to be gained "by carping at definitions, and quibbling about the meaning to be attached to" words. Given that statement, it is not surprising that McCulloch's review failed to address the rules of chapter 1 and did not discuss the definitions of chapter 10; he also barely mentioned Malthus's critiques of other Writers.

1834

Malthus died suddenly of heart disease on 23 December 1834, at his father-in-law's house. He was buried in Bath Abbey. His portrait, and descriptions by contemporaries, present him as tall and good-looking, but with a cleft lip and palate. The cleft palate affected his speech: such birth defects had occurred before amongst his relatives.

2019

The vast bulk of continuing commentary on Malthus, however, extends and expands on the "Malthusian controversy" of the early 19th century.