EXPIRES: 1900

WRITTEN: 1798

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio.

Thomas Robert Malthus

An Essay on the Principle of Population, J. Johnson, London, 1798, Chapter 1

Written: 1798

Addressed to: ongoing

Source: An Essay on the Principle of Population

Author: Thomas Robert Malthus

Category: Environment

Annotation

Malthus published his Essay just as the Industrial Revolution was about to prove him wrong for two centuries. Agricultural productivity increased geometrically, not arithmetically, through mechanization, fertilizers, and crop science. Yet Malthusian logic recurs in every generation's environmental anxiety, from Ehrlich to the Limits to Growth to modern degrowth movements.

What Actually Happened

Global population grew from ~1 billion in 1800 to 8 billion by 2022, while calories per capita increased substantially. Famines became rarer and were driven by politics, not absolute scarcity.

#population#agriculture#malthusianism#industrial-revolution#foundational-text

2025

The standard of living has risen along with the size of the world's population since the beginning of recorded time. There is no convincing economic reason why these trends toward a better life should not continue indefinitely.

Julian Simon

2072

If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.

Donella H. Meadows