Malthus Over A 270 Year Perspective

Malthus Over A 270 Year Perspective

by Andrew R. B. Ferguson

In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus wrote: “population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio, but subsistence increases only in a arithmetical ratio.” He was well aware that Europeans were taking over the lands of Native Americans and thereby introducing more productive agricultural methods. However, taking over other people's lands is a finite process, and when he wrote that “subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio,” he was referring essentially to the potential for increasing the productivity of the land through improved farming methods.

... Little could Malthus have foreseen the improvements that would occur when full use could be made of fossil fuel energy so as to: make nitrogenous fertilizers, produce pesticides, introduce irrigation schemes, build and use tractors and other agricultural machinery, the latter greatly facilitating farming in areas that otherwise would have been unsuitable. Notwithstanding these unforeseen technological developments, which resulted in changing the arithmetical ratio by which productivity could be increased (see Figure at left), his proposition has remained substantially true; and as we will see, this should have been apparent to all about fifty years ago.

(Read the complete article in our July, 2008 newsletter).