Outline Malthus’s Theory of Population and Access His Contribution to the Reform of the Poor Laws in 1834.

Thomas Robert Malthus is widely regarded as the worlds first professional political economist. He was born on 13th February 1766 to a wealthy English family and after being educated by his father at home, he went on to study Mathematics at Jesus College, Cambridge and become the most well known social scientist of the Nineteenth century. Through his life, Malthus wrote many books and essays and his writings can be split into two periods. In the first period his writings dealt with the unrest of labour and attempts to restructure society to promote the welfare of the worker. In the second period from 1814 onwards, his writings dealt more with the corn laws and the problems between the landlords and capitalists. This essay will explain why his first essay on the theory of population in 1798 and his second essay in 1803 were written, what they entailed and why they were instrumental to the reform of the Poor Laws in 1834. Landreth & Colander (1994) proposed three factors which appeared to account for the formation of Malthus’s theory. Firstly, in the years preceding Malthus’s first essay, it had become necessary for England to import food due to its rising population. Until around 1790 the country had been self-sufficient in its food supply but as this changed there became a notable increase in food prices. The second factor was the increasing poverty of the lower income class. England was becoming more and more urbanized as factory production replaced home-made production and with this the lower income class’s suffering worsened. The third factor was an argument that developed between Malthus and his father, Daniel. His father was a supporter of the views of writers William Godwin and Marquis de Condorcet. Their basic view was that the character of an individual is not inherited but it is formed by their immediate environment and that it was government who were responsible for this. Robert Malthus wanted to show that these ideas were incorrect and it was

References:  Landreth, H; Colander,D. History of Economic Thought, 3rd ed., Houghton Mifflin Company, USA, 1994  Turner,M [Ed]. Malthus and his Time, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1986 Bibliography  Roll, E (1992). A History of Economic Thought, 5th Edition, London, Faber and Faber  Landreth, H; Collander, D. (1994). History of Economic Thought, 3rd Edition, Usa Houghton Mifflin Company  Barber, WJ. (1991). A History of Economic Thought, UK, Penguin  Marshall, JD. (1985). The Old Poor Law 1795-1834, 2nd Edition, UK, Macmillan  Glass, DV. (1953). Introduction to Malthus, London, Watts