The Essay Fights Back

Malthus’s Essay, first in 1798 and then in successive revisions up to 1826, argued that the increase in population tends to exceed the increase in grain. The tendency, which to him had the force of a prediction, was putting in motion positive and preventive checks. It explained the survival of poverty. Malthus warned that poor relief, by encouraging earlier marriages, would make the deprivation and even destitution worse. In the second edition of 1803 Malthus weakened his theory by drawing attention to embourgeoisement through economic growth that would cause even the lower classes to curtail family size in order to pay for expensive status symbols. This moral restraint was virtually the only mode of family planning that Malthus was prepared to countenance. In the 1817 Essay Malthus discusses alternative forms of industrial organisation and, by extension, property rights. Sections on Godwin are replaced by a discussion of Robert Owen.