The Malthusian theory of population. Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Law of Population Malthus Thomas Robert Experience on the Law of Population

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18-19th centuries. His main works were published in 1798 and 1820. Malthus and his "population theory" made a huge contribution to the development of science.

Biography

Malthus was born on February 14, 1766. His father was a very extraordinary person. He was fond of science, maintained friendly relations with Hume and Rousseau. In 1788, Malthus graduated from Jesus College, Cambridge University. According to the custom, as the youngest son, he had to start a spiritual career. After college, Malthus took the dignity. In 1793 he received a theological degree. From 1797 to 1803 Malthus was vicar in one of the parishes of Surrey. However, from his youth he was fascinated by science. Therefore, at the same time, Malthus began to teach. All his free time was devoted to the study of the problems of interconnection with natural processes. In 1805, he accepted an offer to become a professor in the department of modern history and political economy at the East India Company College. Here he also served as a priest.

Theory of Malthus (briefly)

It became the main work of his life. The first edition appeared in 1798 anonymously. Malthus and his theory of population caused numerous attacks at that time. It was this that was the main reason that from 1799 to 1802 he began to travel to some countries in Europe. During his trips, he collected information, statistical data. All this information was used by him to correct his work. After this tour in 1803, already under his own name, he publishes a new, supplemented edition of the book. Subsequent writings have also been greatly expanded and updated. The theory of Malthus, in short, became an extensive treatise, including historical digressions, works of other authors.

Compilation specifics

In the very first edition, Malthus' theory of population summarized his theses concerning the demographic state of a number of countries. However, when compiling the essay, the author was not even aware of simple statistical data not only from other states, but also from England itself. For example, he believed that the number of inhabitants of Britain - 7 million people. According to the census conducted in 1801, this number was almost 11 million. In preparing the second edition, he took into account not only the received statistical information, but also church records. In addition, Malthus's theory was supplemented by information on other countries. During his lifetime, 6 editions were published. Each time the theory of Malthus came out with more and more circulation.

The Nature and Growth of Ground Rent

This is another extensive work that Malthus created. It was published in 1815. In this work, the author, based on the natural nature of income from land, tried to reveal the mechanisms of its formation and increase, to substantiate the importance of rent in the implementation of the total product produced by society. But his final judgments were made somewhat later. In 1820, his second major work was published, which reflected the economic theory of Malthus.

The essence of the concept of 1798

Thomas Malthus and his theory have as their primary goal the improvement of human life. In his work, the author uses various categories and concepts. In his work there are not only economic, but also natural-philosophical, sociological, aesthetic, and also religious concepts. In his work, he considered without regard to any in general. The theory of population of T. Malthus was expressed as an eternal, unshakable, natural and inevitable law of nature. The author argued that the number of people is increasing exponentially, and the means of subsistence in an arithmetic progression. According to the theory of population of T. Malthus, after two centuries the ratio between the number of people and means would be 256:9, and after three - 4096:13. In 2000 years, the gap between categories would be incalculable and limitless. This theory of T. Malthus will later be called the law of declining fertility of the earth. Doubling the number of inhabitants of the planet, according to the author, will be equivalent to the fact that the size of the Earth will decrease by half. The more people there are, the less cultivated land will be left for each person. In this regard, there is a tendency for the expansion of food resources to lag behind the increase in the number of inhabitants of the planet. The theory of Malthus was not substantiated by any real facts. The author proceeded only from assumptions that were not supported by reliable evidence, materials that had any significant practical value.

Contradiction

Malthus's theory, however, contains one fact. But he not only does not substantiate his assumptions, but, on the contrary, speaks of his dishonesty as a scientist. The author mentions in his reflections the doubling of the population of North America in a quarter of a century. He believes that this fact confirms his assumption about the increase in the number of people exponentially. But in reality, as the thinker himself notes, the growth in the number of inhabitants does not occur without hindrance. The author notes that the thesis about doubling does not hold. It is easy to calculate that otherwise in a thousand years the number of people would have increased by 240 times. This means that if in 1001 AD. e. If there were 2 people, then in 2001 there would be 2 x 1012 (or 2 trillion people). This number is approximately 300 times less than the actual value today.

Problems in the concept

1. Moral restraint. The author believed that the duty of every person is that before deciding to marry, he needs to reach a state in which he will be able to provide the means of subsistence for his offspring. At the same time, the inclination towards family life must retain its strength in order to maintain energy and awaken in the celibate individual the desire to achieve the desired level of well-being by work.
2. Vices. Malthus attributed to them unnatural ties, licentiousness, desecration of the family bed, various tricks that are taken to hide vicious ties.
3. Misfortune. The author considered them famine, war, plague, epidemics, various excesses, poor nutrition of children, excessive, hard work, harmful activities, and so on.

However, it should be said that the doubling of the population actually took place at a certain stage in the development of society. But it happened as a result of migration, and not due to natural growth.

The poverty of the people

According to Malthus's theory, the main causes of poverty are not problems of social organization in society. The poor have no right to demand anything from the rich. According to the author, the latter are not guilty of the failure of the former. Malthus' theory of poverty is based on the fact that poverty has little or no dependence on the form of government or the uneven distribution of wealth. The rich are unable to provide the poor with food and work. In this regard, the poor, in fact, have no right to demand food or activities. Thus, according to the theory of population of Malthus, the main causes of poverty are inevitable natural laws.

Purpose of the concept

It reveals itself directly in the reasoning of the author. The theory of Malthus is oriented towards paralyzing the class struggle of the workers, proving the futility and groundlessness of the demands that the proletariat makes on the bourgeoisie. The author especially emphasized that the introduction and dissemination of his ideas among the poor would have a beneficial effect on the working masses, which, of course, was beneficial to the ruling class. Malthus made every effort to deprive the struggle of the proletariat of ground. At the same time, he himself cynically and openly opposed the fulfillment of the elementary requirements of justice, the vital rights of workers. The author put forward the assumption that the proletariat itself is guilty of its failure. The proletariat can reduce its poverty only by reducing the birth rate. He considered moral curbing, misfortunes, abstinence from beggarly marriages, exhausting labor, diseases, wars, epidemics, famine as measures to combat the increase in the number of people. In this, he saw the only effective and natural means by which to destroy "superfluous people."

Malthus' theory of "third parties"

Effect

Almost immediately after publication, Malthus's theory of reproduction became the subject of discussion among public figures, researchers, and among non-professionals. In addition to the followers of the concept, there were also opponents of the provisions. Some of the critics put forward quite constructive arguments. The work of Malthus was subsequently referred to by specialists from various scientific fields. His work had a key influence on the formation of the concept of Darwin.

Criticism of Marxists

Representatives of the classical school revealed the reactionary role of the theory of population. Marx proved that the essence of the concept is based on the substitution of specific socio-economic laws of capitalism by "immutable and eternal" natural postulates. Marx proved that there is no theory of population at all. Each social formation has its own specific law. Absolute overpopulation is not and cannot be. Population growth is a relative phenomenon. It acts as a specific feature of the capitalist system that arises under the influence of the law of accumulation. It is precisely this, and not natural laws, that determines the poverty of the proletariat. As the main "argument" Malthus used the unscientific law of diminishing fertility. Marxists have sharply criticized this concept. They argued that the author and his supporters did not take into account the increase in productive forces, the progress of technology. Lenin, criticizing the theory, said that there is not a general difficulty in obtaining food, but a problem with food only for a specific class of society - the proletariat. This difficulty is determined by specific capitalist, and not by natural laws.

Mises' opinion

This author emphasized the influence of the concept of Malthus on the theory of liberalism. Mises believed that the proposed assumptions act as the social doctrine of liberalism. As the core of this idea, he called the theory of the division of labor. Only with a close relationship with this concept can one correctly interpret the social conditions of Malthus's theory. Society appears as an association of people for the better use of the natural factors of existence. In fact, society is a ban on the mutual extermination of people. In society, instead of fighting, mutual assistance is used. This forms the main motivation for the behavior of its members. Within the framework of society there should be no struggle, there is only peace. Any confrontation, by its very nature, slows down social cooperation. Mises gives his explanation of the conclusions of Malthus. He says that private ownership of the means of production is a regulative principle. It strikes a balance between an increasing number of consumers and a decreasing amount of resources. This principle forms the dependence for each individual on the quota for the economic product, which is reserved from the coefficient of labor and property. It finds its expression in a decrease in the birth rate under the influence of society, the elimination of superfluous members of society, by analogy with the plant or animal world. In the human population, the function of the struggle for existence is realized by a "moral brake limiting offspring."

Concept protection

Mises, among other things, rejects the accusations made against Malthus of cruelty and misanthropy. The author warns readers against wrong conclusions. He says that in society there is not and cannot be a struggle for survival. Mises believes that it is a gross mistake to make such barbaric conclusions on the basis of the theory of Malthus. He argued that statements taken out of context and used for misinterpretation are due to the insufficiency and incompleteness of the first edition of the work. The original edition was compiled before the idea of ​​classical political economy was formed.

Use of the concept

Despite the general scientific inconsistency of the theory of population, it was a great success in bourgeois circles. This was due to the fact that the class demands of this part of society were highly satisfied with ideas. The most sinister role of the concept is noted at the present time. The active dissemination of the ideas of neo-Malthusianism in different interpretations is due to the accelerated increase in population (to a greater extent in developing countries). This trend is accompanied by an aggravation of environmental problems, an increase in the gap in the level of progress between countries.

Roman club

It is an international non-governmental organization. It brings together public, political, scientific figures from many countries of the world. The Club of Rome advanced the thesis that by the middle of the 20th century humanity had reached the limits of exponential growth within a limited space. This idea was presented at the first report in 1972. In 1974, one of the models for solving problems of a global nature, the concept of improving the world system in the plane of limited growth, was substantiated. The latter is understood as the procedure of structural differentiation, which has significant differences from an exclusively quantitative undifferentiated increase. The authors use this concept in relation to the growth of the world system in a similar way to the development of an organism, within which both the specialization of different elements and their functional mutual dependence are noted. The need to apply just such an approach, in the opinion of the participants, is determined by the interdependence of crisis phenomena. These include, in particular, demographic, raw materials, energy, food, natural and other problems.

Conclusion

If by the next century, intra-family planning extends to almost all the inhabitants of the planet, and if such a limit exists at the level of 2.2-2.5 children per marriage, then there is reason to believe that by the end of the 21st century, the number of people on Earth stabilizes up to 11-12 billion people. The most important prerequisites for solving the problem of regulating the increase in the human population are deep spiritual and social transformations, an increase in the cultural and material level of the peoples living on the planet. In this case, we are not talking about forced birth control, according to the theory put forward by Malthus. The essence of problem solving lies in the development and implementation of a number of thoughtful measures. Only thanks to this approach, in some states and regions, the increase in the number of inhabitants should accelerate, while in others it should begin to slow down. The need for an objective, conscious limitation of population growth, dictated by the ecological imperative, necessitates an appeal to the neo-Malthusian concept. The relationship of factors in it is two-way. The works of Malthus laid the foundation for the subsequent improvement of the demographic direction in the science of economic development.

Apology of Malthus

A.N. Sholudko, V.A. Shuper

The man we consider it our duty to defend died 174 years ago. Even in the encyclopedic dictionary "Demography", published by the publishing house "Big Russian Encyclopedia" in 1994, in the huge article "Malthusianism" there is a statement far from the truth that "he [Malthus] saw a remedy for overpopulation in spreading the norms of Christian asceticism among the people, in “moral restraint” (voluntary refusal to marry and have children). One can only thank God that Malthus himself, a zealous Christian, priest and theologian, did not have a chance to read this. On the contrary, a very brief (and very dry) article is devoted to Malthus as a person and thinker in this venerable edition, in which it is not even mentioned that he was a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1826). An indication of this circumstance, which is absolutely obligatory for any encyclopedic publications, is strangely absent in the article "Malthus" in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which was prepared, unlike the Great Russian Encyclopedia, with excellent care. Well, the article “Malthusianism” in the TSB ends like this: “The provisions of Malthusianism and neo-Malthusianism are a clear confirmation of the reactionary nature of bourgeois ideology, therefore the classics of Marxism-Leninism have repeatedly emphasized the need for a resolute, uncompromising and merciless struggle against Malthusianism, neo-Malthusianism in all its varieties, “... against attempts to impose this reactionary and cowardly doctrine on the most advanced, strongest, most ready for great transformations class of modern society ”(V.I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 23, p. 257)”.

Thomas Robert Malthus (17.2.1766 - 23.12.1834) was not only a zealous Christian, he served the ideals of the Enlightenment with the same devotion and talent. He brilliantly showed how faith in Reason can be combined in the most organic way with faith in God. In our time, when some do not believe in God, others do not believe in Reason, and still others - and there are more and more of them - do not believe in anything at all, it will hardly be easy to draw attention to the ideas of the good old rationalist, but it may be fate to the disgraceful perverted ideas of this slandered and slandered person will be of interest to us, living in an era of the gradual fading of the “natural light of reason”?

Since his contemporaries were no more fair to Malthus than his descendants, he managed to respond to so many attacks addressed to him: arithmetic. It's not fair. The first of these propositions seemed to me beyond doubt, as soon as the degree of reproduction in America was proved, and the second did not require proof at all. The main purpose of my work is to study the consequences that must inevitably flow and actually flowed among human societies from these laws outlined on the first pages.

It would be deeply wrong to drag out a social thinker who lived and worked two centuries ago to the judgment of modernity and reproach him for making a mistake. Of course, the population does not grow exponentially, if you do not take separate not too long periods in the history of individual countries. Of course, the Physiocrats were mistaken, believing that the national income is created only in agriculture, and Malthus followed them and considered it harmful for the economy to help the needy not with food, but with money - he considered it an extremely noble act to cultivate a piece of land and give the harvest to the needy, but monetary assistance, in his opinion, would only lead to an increase in the aggregate demand for the same amount of food and, accordingly, to an increase in prices. Malthus thought in terms of his time, and we are interested in him precisely as its foremost representative. Doesn’t his penetrating remark command respect: “After the advent of the remarkable work Hell. Smith, it is difficult to understand how there can still be an opinion that the change in the economic conditions in which the country finds itself depends on the omnipotence of the government, and that supply and demand can be equalized by decree or decree ”? Should we not sympathize with Malthus in his struggle against the most dangerous prejudice underlying, if not all, then most of the social upheavals: “The misfortunes of the lower classes of the population and the habit of blaming the government for these disasters seem to me the true support of despotism. These disasters and this habit create grounds for the abuse of power. It was the need to keep in obedience the lower classes of society, from the point of view of Malthus, served as a justification for despotic rule and represented the main threat to democracy.

Further, Malthus develops this idea: “Thus, the responsibility placed by Payne and his associates on the government for national disasters is obviously erroneous. Although free public institutions and good government contribute to some extent to the reduction of poverty, yet their influence in this respect is only indirect and extremely slow. In terms of its consequences, this influence does not in the least correspond to the immediate and rapid relief that the people expect to achieve through revolutions. These exaggerated hopes, and the excitement caused by their failure to fulfill them, give a false direction to the efforts of the people to achieve freedom and prevent the introduction of possible changes, although slow and gradual, but at the same time sure and undoubtedly leading to an improvement in the lot of the people. Evidently Malthus was an evolutionist and a democrat. Below we will try to show that he was even partly a Social Democrat, anticipating, long before the emergence of this trend itself, some of his very important positions. However, first we will show that, despite the bad reputation, Malthus was a true humanist, and the idea of ​​subordinating the interests of a person to the interests of the state was completely unacceptable to him.

Malthus's approach to emigration in this regard is quite characteristic: "Thus, it must be recognized as undoubted that eviction is certainly not enough to eliminate the disasters caused by excessive population growth. But if you look at it as a temporary and private measure taken to spread culture, then eviction turns out to be suitable and useful.[italics by Malthus] . It may not be possible to prove that governments are obliged to actively encourage it, but there is no doubt that the prohibition of evictions is not only unjust, but also an extremely erroneous measure. It is hard to think of anything more unfounded than the fear that the evictions could cause the depopulation of the country. Love for the motherland and attachment to the family hearth is so essential and strong that people will never decide on evictions, unless political displeasures or hopeless poverty force them to this last resort, in which case their removal is only beneficial for the fatherland itself. It is also unfounded to suggest that evictions raise wages. If in any country it enables the lower classes to live without extreme deprivation and suffering, then you can be sure that the people of these classes will not think about eviction; if it is so insufficient that it gives rise to deprivation and suffering, then it would be cruel and unfair on our part to oppose the evictions.

The common misconception that Malthus considered wars and epidemics to be the natural regulators of population is again best refuted by giving the floor to Malthus himself. Malthus considered such regulators deeply unnatural. He wrote: “One of the main causes of wars between the ancient peoples was the lack of space and food; although certain changes took place in the conditions of the existence of modern peoples, nevertheless, the same cause did not cease to act, changing only the degree of its tension. The ambition of rulers would lack the weapon of destruction if disasters did not induce the lower classes of society to come under their banners. Recruiters dream of a bad harvest; it is to their advantage to keep as many hands as possible out of work—in other words, to their advantage is a surplus in the population. In earlier times, when war was the main occupation of people, and when the decrease in population caused by it was incomparably greater than in our day, legislators and statesmen, constantly preoccupied with finding means for attack and defense, considered it their duty to encourage the reproduction of the population by all means; to do this, they tried to disgrace celibacy and barrenness and, on the contrary, surround matrimony with honor. Folk beliefs were formed under the influence of these rules. In many countries, fertility has been an object of worship. The religion of Mahomet, founded by the sword and by the considerable extermination of its faithful followers, established for them as the most important duty the desire for the birth of as many children as possible for the glorification of their God. Such rules served as a powerful encouragement to marriages, and the rapid increase in population they caused was both the effect and the cause of the constant wars that marked this period of mankind. Localities devastated by the preceding war were settled by new inhabitants, who were destined to form new armies, and the speed with which recruits were made was the cause and the means for new devastation. Under the dominance of such prejudices, it is difficult to foresee the end of wars.

The "misanthrope" Malthus formulated his attitude to epidemics just as unambiguously: one of two things: either an increase in mortality from some other cause, or a decrease in the relative number of births. But at the same time I expressed the wish that the latter should take place; therefore, on the basis of the principles which I have always proclaimed, I must be recognized, as indeed I am, as the most zealous supporter of smallpox vaccination. In doing everything in my power to improve the well-being of the poor and reduce mortality among them, I act completely in accordance with my principles. Offended by his contemporaries, Malthus said with a heart: “ It is necessary to completely misunderstand my teaching in order to consider me an enemy of the multiplication of the population. The enemies I fight are vice and poverty[italics by Malthus]".

Let us digress for a moment from the actual demographic problems and look at Malthus as a social thinker. Let's try to figure out whether he treated people from the lower classes as an end or as a means. For those who are familiar with Malthus's book, the answer is obvious - his position was truly humanistic and expressed in a consistent rejection of everything that entails a decrease in the cost of labor, whether it is the introduction of potatoes and milk as the main food for workers or endowing them with cows in order to encourage diligence and improve nutrition. Only the relatively high cost of labor could leave at least some means at the disposal of the worker, allowing him to rise above the level of poverty. "Because the use of milk, potatoes and stew as the main food of the people will cause a decrease in wages[italics by Malthus] , then, perhaps, there will be such a heartless politician who will advise taking such a measure in order to be able to produce in England and deliver goods to European markets at the lowest, uncompetitive price. I cannot approve of such motives. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a more disgusting act than condemning the working classes of their fatherland to extreme poverty because of the desire to sell more profitably a batch of cloth and paper materials. The wealth and power of nations are of any value only if they contribute to the increase in the happiness of all the people who make up that nation. By saying this, I do not mean to reduce them [wealth and power] meaning; on the contrary, I look upon them as a necessary means to that end. But if, in any particular case, such an end and such means to achieve it should be in complete contradiction, then reason does not allow doubts about what choice needs to be made.

Malthus, who believed in reason, considered it necessary to have a responsible attitude towards marriage, which is possible only when it is possible to support one's offspring without shifting this sacred duty to society. He saw a way out in late marriages, and by no means in "a voluntary refusal to marry and have children." At the same time, he strongly opposed the tradition that encourages women to marry at a young age, even for a man who is much older, so as not to be left without a family. Men in years, according to Malthus, of course, should marry, but women who are much closer to them in age. Such a proposal, of course, was in the interests of women, but by no means in the interests of Malthus himself. However, he did not win the greatest antipathy of his contemporaries, which, unfortunately, was passed on to his descendants.

Faithful to the ideals of the Enlightenment, Malthus considered a responsible attitude towards the family to be the duty of every person. Therefore, from his point of view, it would be completely irresponsible to encourage the poor to early marriages, giving them the opportunity to support their offspring at the expense of society, i.e. parishes. For this reason, he considered it extremely harmful to recognize the poor rights for feeding. In the event of crop failures and other critical situations, it is absolutely necessary to help those in need, but one cannot recognize right to receive assistance, as this leads to irresponsibility and dependency. Has this problem lost relevance in two centuries? Has Malthus' approach become less unpopular?

Malthus argued vigorously with contemporaries who defended this right: “In fact, whatever may be put forward by fruitless eloquence on this subject, our behavior, in essence, proves that this imaginary right [the right of the poor to be fed] does not exist at all. If the poor had the right to be maintained at the expense of society, no man could, without prejudice to justice, wear a dress of good cloth and satisfy his hunger with meat. Those who defend this right and at the same time ride in carriages, live in abundance, even feed horses on land that could serve to feed people, in my opinion, are in conflict with their own principles. The rationalist Malthus thought about the long-term consequences of the social policy pursued to a much greater extent than his contemporaries, or, even more so, our contemporaries: “Isn’t it more useful to give a piece of lamb intended for my dinner to a poor worker who has not eaten meat for a whole week? Wouldn't it be better to give it to a family that has nothing to satisfy their hunger? If these needs, by their nature, did not arise as they are satisfied, then it would no doubt be very useful to satisfy them, and I would not hesitate to recognize the right of those who experience these needs. But since experience and speculation irrefutably prove that the recognition of right would increase needs to such an extent that there would be no possibilities[author's emphasis] to satisfy them, and since the attempt to carry out such a course of action would inevitably plunge the human race into the most appalling poverty, it is obvious that our behavior, silently denying such a right, is more in accordance with the laws of our nature than fruitless eloquence, defending it. existence" . Can we then say that Malthus was profoundly wrong? Or at least that it is hopelessly outdated?

Malthus wrote: “... one, in my opinion, inevitable step must be taken before making any important changes in the existing system, whether it will be a question of reducing benefits or completely canceling them. This requires honor and justice. Necessary openly refuse to recognize the imaginary rights held at the public expense[emphasis and bold type by the author]. To achieve this goal, I would propose to pass a law by which the parish trustees withhold benefits for children born from marriages entered into a year after the promulgation of the law, and all illegitimate children born two years after its promulgation. In order for the law to become known to all and deeply imprinted in the minds of the people, I would suggest that the priests be charged with the duty, immediately after the announcement of the upcoming marriage, to utter a short suggestion in which the simple duty of every person to take care of the existence of his children would be persistently indicated and reminded of folly and the immorality of those who enter into marriage, having no hope of fulfilling this sacred duty, of the misfortunes to which the poor have been subjected every time they have sought to fruitless attempt to replace the cares that nature has placed on parents with the cares of public institutions, and, finally, about the urgent need abandon these attempts, which led to consequences completely opposite to those that were expected of them.

Malthus considered voluntary aid necessary and desirable, both morally and politically preferable, since it promotes solidarity between different classes of society, while compulsory aid corrupts some and does not bring satisfaction to others. However, he clearly distinguished between ends and means. Recognition of the right of the poor to receive assistance is possible and even useful, if it does not entail extremely negative consequences for society as a whole. Malthus' position was that a man should marry only when his earnings and savings allow him to support his wife and six children. Wasn't such a position justified in the complete absence of family planning? Didn't Malthus act sensibly and humanely when he offered to pay unconditional benefits to those workers who had more than six children: “It may be objected to me that all this ] may be useless, since the one entering into marriage cannot foresee how many children he will have and whether there will be more than six. This is just, and in that case, I believe, there would be no inconvenience in giving an allowance for each child in excess of this number, not as a reward for a large family, but to alleviate a burden that he could not foresee in his marriage. Consequently, the amount of the allowance should be such as to put him in the same position as one who has six children. Concerning the decree of Louis XIV, which granted certain advantages to those who would have ten or twelve children, Montesquieu remarks that such decrees are powerless to encourage an increase in population. The very reason that prompts him to denounce the law of Louis XIV. prompts me to assert that it could have been adopted without any danger.

Malthus was a son of his time and could not foresee family planning, and even on a modern technical basis, but can his descendants, who made childbearing almost the main source of income for a fair part of the population of European countries, reproach the old rationalist for lack of insight? Malthus was at the height of the tasks of his time, he was very concerned about the growth of cities, considering the conditions of existence in them extremely harmful to humans, and took a consistently humanistic position, without falling into conservatism: “... it must be recognized that the growth of the population was delayed by the successes civilization. The number of cities and factories is increasing, and it is difficult to count on a change in the conditions of existence in them. Of course, we are obliged to try, as far as it depends on us, so that they do not shorten life expectancy, but it is unlikely that we will ever be able to achieve that living in cities and working in factories is as healthy as life in the villages and rural activities. Acting as destructive forces, cities and factories thereby reduce the need for barriers to prevent population growth.

The successes of civilization, according to Malthus, in themselves cannot lead to a decrease in the rate of population growth, so significant that there is no need for moral curbing of passions: “Are the cities and factories of Switzerland, Norway, Sweden the graves of the human race and prevent any possibility of an excess population? In Sweden, the rural population is related to the urban population as 13:1, and in England as 2:1, and yet the population grows faster in the latter. How can such a fact be reconciled with the assertion that the advances of civilization are constantly accompanied by a corresponding weakening of the natural drive to reproduce? Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland have been governed fairly satisfactorily, and yet we do not notice in them those "preventive changes" which, according to Weiland, are found in every society, as the soil is exhausted, and which "turn many people away from marriage and do everything more people incapable of replenishing the declining population.” What, then, in these countries prevents marriage, if not the lack of funds to support a family? What makes people who are married incapable of replenishing a declining population, if not diseases stemming from poverty and lack of means of subsistence? If reflection on the condition of these and many other countries proves that the free practice of early marriage inevitably entails an increase in the mortality that results from poverty, then can we say that there is no moral basis for discouraging such early marriage? When we know that in many, perhaps even in all European countries, wages are not sufficient to maintain a large family in a healthy state, how can we assert that the population has not yet reached its extreme limits and that “the calamities caused by excess population can manifest itself only in a country inhabited to that extreme degree, above which its means of subsistence can no longer increase ”? .

An important and interesting feature of Malthus's worldview must be considered the combination of the social democratic motives mentioned above with downright Stolypin hopes for the middle class. It is true that in industrial England the middle class was by no means looming in the form of strong rural owners. Continuing the polemic with Weyland, Malthus writes: “This actual reproduction, that is, the true limits of the population, must constantly be far below the highest limit of the productive power of the land, which provides the means for food. This last condition follows, firstly, from the fact that we have no right to assume that the art and industriousness of people in modern society could receive Maybe the best application to meet this performance; secondly, from the fact that greatest[italics by Malthus] Nutrient production cannot be achieved under a system of private property [highlighted by us - A.Sh., V.Sh.], as I explained earlier.

Probably, a bridge between a completely social-democratic attitude towards the system of private ownership of land and a completely bourgeois attitude towards the middle class can form Malthus’s rejection of luxury, both for moral and economic reasons: “There is no need for the rich to indulge in excessive luxuries to maintain the factories, and that the poor deprive themselves of every comfort to support the population. The most useful factories in all respects are those that serve to satisfy the needs of the entire mass of the population. On the other hand, those that satisfy the needs of the rich are not only of lesser importance, owing to the limited demand for their products, but present the inconvenience that often causes great distress, owing to the volatility of the fashions by which they are governed. Moderate luxury, evenly distributed among all classes of society, and not the excessive luxury of a small group of people, is necessary for the happiness and well-being of the people. It is from these provisions that Malthus smoothly moves to hopes for the middle class as the basis of morality in society and the source of its economic prosperity: “It is generally noted that the middle position in society is most favorable for the development of virtue, industry and all kinds of talents. But obviously not all people can belong to the middle class. Upper and lower classes are inevitable and very useful. If there were no hope for advancement and fear of decline in society, if diligence were not followed by remuneration, and laziness by punishment, then there would be no activity and zeal that impel every person to improve his position and which are the main engine of social well-being".

Malthus cannot be denied not only insight, but also insight. Pointing out that the welfare of states increases as the size of the middle class increases, he, as always, remains true to the humanistic principle and places his hopes on technical progress precisely as the most important factor in the growth of the size of the middle class: “With such a replacement of the lower classes by the middle ones [thanks to technical progress], everyone the worker would have the right to hope to improve his position by his own strength and diligence. Diligence and virtue would more often be rewarded. A huge public lottery would have more winnings and fewer empty tickets. In a word, the total amount of happiness would obviously increase.

Contrary to popular misconception, Malthus's writings are imbued with a spirit of social optimism, and by no means a foreboding of catastrophe. True to the principles of rationalism, he urged his contemporaries to face the truth, be courageous and work hard to achieve a better future: “If the picture of the past gave me the right to hope that a significant improvement in the social system is not only possible, but at least probable, then the destruction of these hopes would no doubt have saddened me. But if, on the contrary, the experience of the past does not allow me to count on such an improvement, then I will look without any sadness at the difficulty that is inextricably linked with our nature, with which we have to wage a constant struggle, since this struggle excites the energy of a person, develops his abilities, tempers the soul. , improves it in many respects, in a word, is eminently suitable for its testing. It is much better to establish such a view of the state of society than to assure yourself that all disasters could easily be eliminated from our lives if the corruption of people who influence public institutions did not distort all useful undertakings.

How can one not recall the controversy of A.V. Lunacharsky (1875-1933) and A.I. Vvedensky (1888-1946) regarding the origin of man. Having exhausted his arguments, Vvedensky said that he was ready to admit that Lunacharsky was descended from a monkey, but he, Vvedensky, was descended from God. Lunacharsky, in response, expressed his readiness to admit that he was descended from a monkey, while Vvedensky was descended from God, but noted that anyone who looked at him, Lunacharsky, would say “What progress!”, And who looked at Vvedensky - “What squalor! ". More than a century earlier, the like-minded son of the Enlightenment, himself a priest and theologian, resolutely maintained his devotion to Reason: “If ignorance is good, then there is no need for enlightenment. But if, as in this case, it is dangerous, if false views of social order not only retard progress, but also cruelly deceive our hopes, then it seems to me that the feelings and expectations inspired by a sound view of the future are a source of comfort and that people those who have this sound view are happier and more involved in improving and consolidating the welfare of society than if they turned away from the truth.

Social optimism, based on rationalism and courageous acceptance of objective realities, was combined in Malthus with a subtle methodological intuition that put him far ahead of his time. Is it not worth listening to what was said two centuries ago: “We were buzzing our ears with empty accusations against theories and their authors. People who oppose theories boast of their commitment to practice and experience. It must be agreed that a bad theory is a very bad thing, and that the authors of such theories not only do not bring any benefit, but often even cause harm to society. However, the extreme advocates of practical methods do not notice that they themselves fall into a trap from which they try to warn others, and most of them can be counted among the authors of the most malicious theories. When a person transmits what he had the opportunity to observe, he thereby increases the total mass of information and benefits society. But when he draws general conclusions, or builds a theory on the basis of a limited observation of facts that have taken place on his farm or in his workshop, he is the more dangerous theorist because he relies on observation, since in such cases it is often overlooked that a reasonable theory must be based on general and not on particular facts”? Have we gone far from the views of Malthus and, most importantly, have we gone forward?

Finally, the question that obliges us to consider respect for the personality of Malthus is the question of the relationship between his views on the development of society and his faith. “Without going into unnecessary details here, which would distract us far,” writes Malthus, “we can establish on the basis of the teachings of St. Paul the following general rule of the Christian religion: marriage, if it is not contrary to higher duties, deserves our approval, but if it is contrary to them, then it is reprehensible. This rule also completely coincides with the indisputable requirements of the highest morality: "In order to know the will of God by reason, it is necessary to evaluate the significance of an act in relation to the common good." Malthus further develops this idea: “I believe that the purpose of the Creator is that the earth should be inhabited; but I think that He wants it to be populated by a healthy, virtuous, and happy breed, and not by a sick, vicious, and unhappy one. If, under the pretext of obeying the command to be fruitful and multiply, we populate the earth with the last breed, and thus voluntarily undergo all kinds of disasters, we will forfeit the right blame the divine commandment for injustice and we will have to explain our sufferings by the reckless fulfillment of the sacred law.

To understand where the origins of Malthus's worldview are, it is necessary to remember that the science of modern times did not become a continuation of ancient science, although it took a lot from it. It grew out of medieval philosophical scholasticism, when at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. an exceptionally fruitful idea arose that God created not one, but two books - Holy Scripture and Nature. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an ardent defender of the empirical (experimental) method of cognition, who died of a cold obtained during experiments on freezing chickens, wrote about God: “And so that we do not fall into error, He gave us two books: the book of Scripture, which reveals the will of God, and then the book of Nature, which reveals His power. Of these two books, the second is, as it were, the key to the first, not only preparing our minds to perceive, on the basis of the general laws of thought and speech, the true meaning of the scripture, but also mainly developing our faith further, forcing us to turn to serious reflection on divine omnipotence, signs which are clearly imprinted on the stone of his creations.

Consequently, the second book can and should also be studied by the rational, i.e. logical methods, which in this case should be considered the experiment and the interpretation of its results, and these results should be described in the form of mathematical formalisms. The possibility of the latter was based not only on the success of mathematics, but also on an unshakable faith in the perfection of God's plan. Hence the famous Newtonian saying that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. At the same time, I. Newton (1643-1727) was a deeply religious person and interpreted space as a sensible place of God. Malthus was just as religious, most likely, seeing in his scientific research his duty as a Christian.

Let's try to take a general look at the concept of Malthus from the vast distance that separates us from him. The situation in Black Africa, where for three decades there has been practically no progress in per capita food production, alas, forces us to admit that old Malthus was not so far from the truth, and without reducing the population growth rate, to solve the food problem (and with it and ecological, since the excess of all and any permissible loads on agricultural land and deforestation lead to desertification, which progresses very quickly) will clearly fail. What is happening on other continents also hardly refutes the provisions of Malthus. Aside from some rich oil-producing countries, no one has yet managed to break out of poverty without reducing the birth rate in a very significant way, and China, where the birth rate is now lower than in France, is the most striking example of this. It is difficult to overestimate the role of family planning, but the increase in the marriageable age and, especially, the age of the birth of the first child, which, in fact, Malthus had in mind, is also of great importance.

Malthus would have been pleasantly surprised by how much better living conditions have improved in cities, where life expectancy is often higher than in rural areas. However, it is precisely the rapid, one might say - avalanche-like urbanization in developing countries that makes a huge contribution to the decline in fertility. Finally, when we say that there is an optimal human population that has long been exceeded, that the population of the Earth will continue to grow for a few more decades, and then begin to gradually decline, and that this is not an evil, but a blessing, are we not following in the footsteps of the old rationalist?

If anyone really disproved Malthus, it is S.P. Kapitsa, who showed with the help of the phenomenological theory of the growth of the Earth's population that the number of mankind has always been subject not to external, but to internal restrictions. Such a conclusion grossly contradicts common sense, but all the most interesting things in science begin exactly where we can no longer do without them. This is exactly what happened when creating the theory of relativity, gravitational theories or quantum mechanics, and in our time - the theory of superstrings. However, Malthus, who unshakably believed in external limitations, would hardly have been upset by the results of Kapitsa - he was looking for the truth, and not arrogantly owning it, and humility before the truth was inherent in him, probably, to the same extent as humility before God.

Perhaps we were too carried away with quotations, but our goal - to restore the good name of Malthus - demanded that we give the floor to him. This is the only thing he needs to defend his views, and the suppression of his works, their very low availability, is hardly an unfortunate accident. 174 years ago, a wonderful man left us, a thinker and humanist, boundlessly devoted to the ideals of the Enlightenment and deeply believing in God. There is nothing we can do for this man who has suffered much injustice for his fearless search for truth. In restoring the truth, we strive to render a feasible service to modern society, often struggling with the same problems that Malthus tried to solve, and not always more successfully. Paying tribute to the blessed memory of Malthus, we want to end the article with the words with which he ended his book: “... practical purpose pursued by the author of this work, consisted in improving the lot and increasing the happiness of the lower classes of society Ibid., p. 126.
Ibid, p. 94.
Ibid, p. 53.
Ibid, p. 112.
Petrov M.K. Before the Book of Nature. Spiritual forests and prerequisites for the scientific revolution of the 17th century. // Nature, 1978, No. 8. S. 118.
Kapitsa S.P. General theory of human growth. How many people lived, lives and will live on Earth. Moscow: Nauka, 1999.
Malthus T. An experiment on the law of population. Fifth edition (1817) // Anthology of economic classics. - M .: "Ekonov", "Key", 1993. S. 116.

Introduction

Malthus considered the problem of population without regard to any particular mode of production and social development in general. He spoke of the "law of population" as an eternal, unshakable law of nature. In his opinion, both in the world of animals and plants, and in human society, there is an immutable law of nature, which "consists in the constant desire, characteristic of all living beings, to settle faster than is allowed by the amount of food at their disposal."

In relation to human society, Malthus argued that the population grows exponentially (i.e. as 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256), while the means of subsistence, in his opinion, grow in arithmetic progressions (i.e. like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…). In two centuries, he argued, population would be related to means of subsistence as 256 to 9; after three - as 4096 to 13, and after two thousand years this gap would be boundless and incalculable.

Malthus did not substantiate this statement put forward by him, he proceeded from pure assumptions, not confirmed by any factual material. True, he cites one fact, which, however, not only does not confirm his fabrications, but exposes his dishonesty as a scientist. He talks about the doubling of the population in North America in 25 years and takes this fact as evidence that the population is growing exponentially. In fact, this doubling of the population took place only at a certain historical stage of development and it happened due to immigration, and not natural population growth. The main conclusion that Malthus made from his "Experience on the Law of Population" was that poverty, the poverty of the working masses is the result of the inevitable laws of nature, and not the social organization of society, that the poor, the have-nots have no right to demand anything from the rich, for the latter are not responsible for their misfortunes.

“The main and continuous cause of poverty,” wrote Malthus, “depends little or nothing on the form of government, or on the unequal distribution of property; the rich are unable to provide the poor with work and food; - therefore, the poor, in the very essence of things, have no right to demand work and food from them: these are the important truths that follow from the law of population.

Thus, Malthus himself very clearly revealed the purpose of his theory of population - it is aimed at paralyzing the class struggle of the proletariat, "proving" the groundlessness and futility of his demands made on the bourgeoisie. No wonder Malthus emphasized that the dissemination of his ideas "among the poor" would have a "beneficial" effect on the masses, of course, beneficial to the ruling classes.

Making every effort to deprive the struggle of the working class of ground, Malthus himself, as a zealous apologist for the ruling classes, openly and cynically spoke out against the vital rights of the working people, against the elementary demands of human justice. He put forward the proposition that the working class is to blame for its poverty and that it can reduce its poverty only by limiting the birth rate. As measures to combat population growth, Malthus proposed "moral restraint" - the abstinence of the poor from marriages. In diseases, exhausting labor, famine, epidemics, wars, which constitute a true misfortune for the working people, he saw natural means of destroying the "excess" population.

Thomas Robert Malthus is a representative of the classical school of European economic science of the 18th–19th centuries. The main works that contain his most notable results are An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers” (“Experience on the law of population ...” in Russian translation) and the work of 1820 “The Principles of Political Economy” (“The Beginnings of Political Economy”). The most important contribution made by T.R. Malthus into economics, is to develop his "population theory", in which an attempt was made to link economic and demographic factors. It should be noted that in the Malthusian formulation of this question, this relationship turns out to be two-sided: just as economic processes affect the change in population, demographic factors also affect the development of the economy. Of course, attempts to establish this kind of dependence were made earlier, but it was the work of Malthus that laid the foundation for the further development of the demographic trend in economics.

1. The main provisions of the theory of population of Malthus

The theory of population put forward by Malthus is set forth by him in his work “An experiment on the law of population ...”, which was first published in 1798 and republished by the author with significant changes in 1803.

The primary goal of his research Malthus puts "the improvement of the life of mankind." It should be noted that in presenting his ideas Malthus widely uses not only economic, but also sociological, natural-philosophical, ethical and even religious concepts and concepts.

The presentation of his theory by T.R. Malthus begins by postulating a universal "biological law" to which all living beings are subject - "a great and intimately connected with human nature law that has been in effect since the beginning of communities."

This law "consists in the constant striving that manifests itself in all living beings to multiply faster than is allowed by the amount of food at their disposal." Further, referring to the results of Dr. Franklin, Malthus points to the limitation of the process of reproduction under consideration, noting the following: “the only limit to the reproductive ability of plants and animals is only the fact that, by multiplying, they mutually deprive themselves of their livelihood.”

However, if in animals the instinct of reproduction is not restrained by anything other than the indicated circumstance, then a person has a mind, which in turn plays the role of a limitation imposed by human nature on the operation of the above biological law. Driven by the same procreative instinct as other creatures, man is held back by the voice of reason that makes him fear that he will be unable to provide for the needs of himself and his children.

Malthus based his theory on the results of studies of the population dynamics of the North American territories, at that time still colonies of the United Kingdom and other states of the Old World, in the second half of the 18th century. He noticed that the number of inhabitants of the observed territories doubles every 25 years. From this he draws the following conclusion: "If the reproduction of the population does not encounter any obstacle, then it doubles every twenty-five years and increases exponentially." Later critics of Malthus's theory pointed out the fallacy of this conclusion; they emphasized that the main reason for the increase in the population of the colonies of North America was migration processes, and not biological reproduction.

The second basis of Malthus's theory was the law of diminishing soil fertility. The essence of this law is that the productivity of agricultural land decreases over time, and in order to expand food production, new lands should be developed, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich, although large, is still finite. He writes: “Man is constrained by limited space; when little by little... all fertile land is occupied and cultivated, an increase in the amount of food can be achieved only by improving the previously occupied lands. These improvements, due to the very properties of the soil, not only cannot be accompanied by ever-increasing successes, but, on the contrary, the latter will gradually decrease, while the population, if it finds a means of subsistence, increases without limit, and this increase becomes, in turn, active cause of new growth. As a result, Malthus concludes that "the means of subsistence in the most favorable conditions for labor can by no means increase faster than in an arithmetic progression."

Thus, Malthus comes to the conclusion that the life of mankind, while maintaining the observed trends, can only worsen over time. Indeed, the production of means of subsistence expands more slowly than the population grows. Sooner or later, the needs of the population will exceed the available level of resources necessary for its existence, and famine will begin. As a result of such an uncontrolled evolution of mankind, according to Malthus, “extra” people are created, each of whom is destined for a difficult fate: “At the great feast of nature, there is no device for him. Nature orders him to retire, and if he cannot resort to the compassion of one of those around him, she herself takes measures to ensure that her order is carried out.

However, in reality, as Malthus notes, population growth is not unhindered. He himself notes that the thesis about doubling the population every twenty-five years does not really hold. It is easy to calculate that otherwise in 1000 years the population would have increased by 240 times, that is, if in 1001 AD two people lived on Earth, then in 2001 - already more than 2 * 1012, or two trillion people, which about three hundred times the actual value today (about six billion). Such reproduction, according to Malthus, is possible only under certain specific conditions, and in real life a person is faced with various "barriers", which can be classified as follows:

1. Moral restraint: “It is the duty of every man to decide on married life only when he can provide his offspring with the means of subsistence; but at the same time, it is necessary that the propensity for married life retain all its strength so that it can maintain energy and awaken in a celibate person the desire to achieve the necessary degree of well-being by work.

Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Law of Population

What was, what is and what will be...

Thomas Robert Malthus was born on February 13, 1766 near Dorking, Surrey. His father was an outstanding personality: he was engaged in science, was friends and corresponded with the most prominent thinkers of that time, David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The latter advocated, among other things, for home schooling, and Daniel Malthus, being a passionate admirer of his, decided to hire a private teacher for his son - the rector of a small college located nearby. Then, since the famous Cambridge was within easy reach, Thomas entered one of the local institutions - Jesus College.

The main work of Thomas Malthus is an essay outlining the theory of population. Biographers claim that it was written after a heated argument between the scientist and his father. Daniel Malthus defended the idea of ​​a “perfect society” drawn from Rousseau, which should have consisted of “improved” people, and Thomas Malthus, who respected the facts most of all, destroyed all his polemical constructions, emphasizing figures (one might say, he spoke from the standpoint of sociology). Such an argument seemed to the father so vivid and convincing that he advised his son to put it all on paper.

The first edition of a book entitled An Essay on the Law of Population and How it Works for the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Ideas of M. Godwin, the Marquis de Condorcet, and Other Authors, appeared anonymously in 1798. And five years later saw the light of the second and, as they say, supplemented - twice as large in volume.

The above authors believed that either science will be able to find unlimited resources to provide the population with food, or the human mind will be able to limit, curb the increasing growth of the population. But still, their main postulate was the holy belief that no matter what problems humanity faces, be it overpopulation or depletion of resources, people will always find a solution and the key to endless prosperity. As usual, both in the field of the history of doctrine and in the field of facts, such ardent optimism was bound to provoke a reaction. She was not long in coming and appeared in the form of Malthus' Essay on the Law of Population. Concerning the above statements, that the progress of the human race towards wealth and happiness is endless, and that the danger, no matter how the time comes when there will be too many people on earth, is chimerical, or, in any case, is relegated to such a distant future that it is hardly worth worry about all these statements, Malthus replies that, on the contrary, this is precisely the almost insurmountable obstacle, and not in the distant future, but at the present, now, and at any time it hangs overhead, hinders progress of the human race, is the rock of Sisyphus, which constantly threatened to fall and destroy. Nature has invested in man an instinct which, left to its own devices, condemns him to hunger, death, and vices. People suffer from this instinct, not knowing the cause of their suffering, which would give them the key to the history of societies and their disasters. Everyone, even persons who are completely unfamiliar with sociological research, knows the unforgettable formulas of Malthus, according to which, on the one hand, the population left to itself grows with terrifying speed, and on the other, the means of subsistence increase relatively slowly. Therefore, Malthus represents population growth as a geometric progression, i.e. a series of digits growing in succession from multiplication by any one digit, and he takes the simplest series, each term of which is twice as large as the previous one. And he represents the growth of production as an arithmetic progression, i.e. a series of digits, successively increasing from the addition of one of some digits, and he takes the simplest series, namely, a series of whole digits.

Thus, he gets:

• 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256...
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9...

Malthus suggests that each member of the progression corresponds to a period of twenty-five years. It will be seen at first glance that if the population doubles every twenty-five years, and the means of subsistence in each such period increase by only the same amount, then the divergence between the two series occurs in appalling proportion. In our table containing only nine members, i.e. in a relatively short period of two hundred years, we see that the last figure for the population is already twenty-eight times the figure for the mass of the means of subsistence, and if the progression were continued to the hundredth term, then it would not be possible to represent it in numbers. The first of these progressions can be considered obvious, since it represents the biological law of origin. It is not for nothing that in the colloquial language the expressions generation (origin) and multiplication (reproduction) are considered synonymous. It is true that doubling implies four children born during the period of childbearing, and therefore about 5-6 births, with an inevitable decrease due to infant mortality. This figure may seem exaggerated to us, who live in a society where the restriction of births is a common phenomenon, but it is certain that in all living beings, and even in a person who is less prolific, the number of births would be much higher if reproduction of the genus was left to its own. natural flow. A woman of the age of reproduction may in certain cases be pregnant twenty times, and sometimes more. By virtue of this multiplication the earth is populated to the present day by people, and there is no sign that this reproductive capacity is now less in both sexes than ever before. Therefore, by taking the number 2 as a factor in his progression, Malthus did not allow any excessive assumption. Rather, the time period of twenty-five years, the interval between two terms, may be questionable. The time interval between the average age of the parents and the average age of the children, when they in turn become capable of reproduction, cannot be less than 33 years. This is called the period of one generation, and there were always about three such periods in one century. But these are minor quibbles. What happens if the gap between two terms is extended from 25 to 33 years and the progression multiplier is reduced from 2 to 11/2, 11/4 or 11/10? The progression will slow down a little, but once a geometric progression is accepted, however slowly it develops at the beginning, it very soon begins to make extraordinary jumps and goes beyond all limits. These amendments do not detract from the power of Malthus' reasoning, nor from the importance of the physiological law. The second progression seems to be more untenable, for it is obviously arbitrary, and it is not even known whether, like the first, it represents only a trend or is it intended to represent reality? It does not correspond to any known and true law, like the biological law of reproduction. Rather, it seems to refute this very law. In fact, what are "means of existence" if not animal and plant species, which reproduce according to the same laws, and, like man, and even much faster, according to geometric progression. Does not the power of reproduction of corn or potatoes, chickens or herrings, and even cattle or sheep, infinitely exceeds the power of reproduction of man? To this objection, Malthus would no doubt have replied that the latent power of reproduction of animal and vegetable species is in fact bound by very narrow boundaries: the climate, the food they need, the struggle for existence, and so on.

So be it. But if these obstacles count in the second progression, why are they not taken into account in the first? There seems to be some inconsistency here. One of two things: either it is a question of expressing tendencies, in which case the tendency in the multiplication of means of subsistence is not only not the same, but is much stronger than the tendency in the multiplication of people; or it is a question of objecting to what is, in which case the obstacles to the endless reproduction of people are no less than the obstacles to the endless reproduction of animals and plants, or, to put it better, the latter is obviously a function of the former.

To give meaning to the second formula, it should be transferred from the field of biology to the field of economics. According to Malthus, it is obviously a question of the product of a given land, say, bread, since English economists always have it in mind in their theories. What he means to say is that assuming that from a given patch of land the same increment of crops can be obtained at the end of each given period, say two hectoliters more every twenty-five years, that will be all that can be hoped to be obtained from the land. And in this hypothesis, apparently, there is still some exaggeration in comparison with reality. In 1789, Lavoisier calculated the growth of bread in France at 7 3/4 hectoliters per hectare. In recent years, it has averaged slightly more than 17 hectoliters. If we assume that the increment has been correct for 120 years, then we will find approximately two hectoliter increments for every twenty-five years. With a weak increase in the French population, this was enough to raise the average measure per head to 2-3 hectoliters. But will this be enough for such a rapidly growing population as that of England and Germany? Probably not, as can be seen from the fact that England and Germany, in spite of the greater increase in grain, are compelled to import from outside a considerable part of the grain products they consume. And in France, can the same thing continue indefinitely during the present and future centuries? It's incredible; the increase in the product of any land must have a physical limit, due to the limitedness of the elements contained in it, and, above all, an economic limit, due to the increase in the costs necessary for the exploitation of a given plot, when they want to develop its productivity to the last limits. And thus, the law of "diminishing fertility", to which we shall return later, is already the true basis of the Malthusian laws, although Malthus himself does not definitely yet speak of it. Obviously, in a given place, in fact, there cannot be more living beings than how many of them can be saturated there - this is a truism. For if there are superfluous ones, they are condemned to starvation according to the accepted principle. Thus it is also in the whole animal and vegetable kingdom: the insane fecundity of the germs is ruthlessly reduced by death to the desired proportion, and the level determined by necessity does not rise above or fall below, as in a well-regulated reserve, for the terrible devastations wrought among them by death are constantly replenished. the pressure of life. But among savage peoples, as well as among the animals they approach, most of the population literally starves to death. Malthus dwells at length on describing the state of these primitive societies, and in this respect he was one of the forerunners of prehistoric sociology, which after him moved far ahead. He shows very well how lack of food entails a thousand evils: not only mortality, epidemics, but also anthropophagy, infanticide, the killing of old people, and especially war, which, even when its goal is not to eat the vanquished, is, in any case , to take away from the conquered his land and the bread produced by it. These obstacles he calls positive or repressive. However, this lack of food in wild animals, as well as in animals, is not the result of their inability to produce, and not the result of overpopulation?

To this Malthus objects, pointing out that many of these wild customs continue to exist among such civilized peoples as the Greeks. Even among modern peoples there are such cruel, albeit to a lesser extent, ways of reducing the population. Although starvation in the proper form of undernourishment does not occur anywhere else except in Russia and India, yet it does not cease to rage among the most civilized societies in the form of a physiological disaster, the most deadly manifestation of which is tuberculosis, which settles terrible infant mortality and premature mortality among the adult worker. population. As for the war, it never ceases to mow down people. Malthus was a contemporary of the wars of the French Revolution and the First Empire, which between 1791 and 1815 killed up to ten million adults in Europe.

How to avoid a global catastrophe?

Still, the balance between the population and the means of subsistence among civilized peoples can be restored by more humane means, i.e. a repressive obstacle, consisting in an increase in mortality, can be replaced by a preventive (precautionary) obstacle, consisting in a reduction in the birth rate. Of all animals, only man, endowed with reason and foresight, is given such a remedy. If he knows that his children are doomed to die, he may refrain from producing them. It can even be said that this is the only truth, but an effective remedy, for a repressive obstacle only causes more population growth, like turf, which grows the more the more it is mowed. The war provides a striking example of population growth: in France, the year following the terrible war of 1870-1871 is the only one in its demographic record of an unexpected jump in which it marked the already descending curve of its birth rate. In the second edition of his book, Malthus dwelled chiefly on preventive remedies, and thus brightened up the ominous vistas that opened up in the first edition. But it is important to know what he means by them. We make numerous excerpts on this subject, because it is of great importance, and because on this very subject the thoughts of the Reverend Father of Haileybury have been so strangely perverted. A preventive obstacle, according to Malthus, is a moral restraint (moral restraint). But what is to be understood by this? Is it abstaining from sexual intercourse in marriage, since the number of children sufficient to maintain the population in a stationary or moderately progressive state reaches, say, three? No, Malthus never preached abstinence from sexual intercourse in marriage. We have already said that he recognizes a family with six children (this is at least assuming a doubling of the population in each generation) as a normal family. And he does not consider this number to be the maximum, for he adds: "Perhaps they will say that a person entering into marriage cannot foresee how many children he will have and whether it will be more than six? This is indisputable." But then what is moral restraint? This is how he defines it: "Abstinence from marriage, connected with chastity - that's what I call moral restraint." And to avoid any misunderstanding, he adds in a footnote: “I understand by moral restraint such a restraint to which a person submits for reasons of prudence in order not to marry, provided that his behavior during the entire premarital period is strictly moral.

I will try throughout this work never to deviate from such a meaning. "It is clear: it is a question, first of all, of abstaining from all sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and then of postponing marriage itself until the age when a person will be able to take upon himself responsibility for the care of the family, and even for the complete renunciation of marriage, if such a time never comes.It is obvious that Malthus by this absolutely excluded such means as are now promoted in his name: he definitely condemns those who preach free sexual intercourse out of wedlock or in wedlock, so long as measures are taken to ensure that this relationship remains fruitless. He places all such preventive measures under the rubric with the shameful name of vices and contrasts them with moral restraint. Malthus is very categorical on this score: "I will reject any artificial and inconsistent with the laws of nature, a remedy that one would like to resort to in order to check the growth of population. The obstacles I recommend are in accordance with the dictates of reason and sanctified by religion." And he adds these truly prophetic words: "It would be too easy and convenient even to completely stop the growth of population, and then we would be exposed to the opposite danger."

It is useless to say that if Malthus rejected adultery, then all the more did he reject the preventive measure that is the institution of a special class of women doomed to prostitution; and he would condemn even more measures that were not yet spoken of in his time, such as abortion - a scourge that seeks to replace in our modern society, only on a larger scale, infanticide or the planting of children in antiquity, but with which the criminal law powerless to fight, while the new morality begins to justify it. But, having eliminated all morally repugnant means, did Malthus think that moral restraint, in the form in which he imagined it, could impose a really strong bridle on the desire for overpopulation? No doubt he wanted it, for he is trying to arm the people for this holy crusade against the worst of social dangers: "To those who are Christians, I will say that the Holy Scripture clearly and unequivocally instructs us that it is our duty to restrain our passions in the limits of reason ... A Christian cannot consider the difficulties of bearing moral restraints as a legitimate excuse to get rid of the performance of his duty. And for those who want to obey only reason, and not religion, he makes the remark that "this virtue (chastity), when carefully examined, is necessary in order to avoid evils, which without it are the inevitable consequence of the laws of nature." But, in essence, Malthus did not believe in universal distribution. Moral restraint to overcome and regulate love. That is why he did not feel much self-confidence in himself, and the hydra seemed to him more and more menacing, despite the shield of pure and fragile crystal that he placed against her. On the other hand, he well felt that his means (celibacy) could be not only unsuccessful, but also dangerous, if it caused precisely those vices that he was afraid of. Prolonged or, what is worse, permanent celibacy is obviously a remedy unfavorable to good morals. Malthus suffered a cruel chagrin; and this man, who may have just been mistaken for an implacable ascetic, will soon prove to be a utilitarian moralist like Bentham. He seems to reconcile himself to the idea of ​​allowing the usual ways of satisfying the sexual instinct, with the indispensable condition of avoiding conception, and even of admitting those which he stigmatizes with the name of "vices." Of the two evils, the latter seems to him the lesser in comparison with that which results from overpopulation, the more, he says, that overpopulation itself is a very active cause of immorality due to poverty and the habits of confusion and unbridledness that are a consequence of it - remark, however , very thorough. After all, Malthus's decision is not remarkably pure; it is only, as he himself says, "the great rule of utility" - we are talking about the imperceptible assimilation of the habit of satisfying one's passions without harm to others. With such concessions, a bed was prepared for neo-Malthusianism. As a result, a person seems to Malthus to find himself at a crossroads in front of three roads, in front of which is the following inscription: the road directly opposite him leads to Poverty, to the right - to Virtue, to the left - to Vice. He sees that a blind instinct pushes a person onto the first path, and conjures him not to give in and elude him by one of the two side paths, preferably the right one. But he is afraid that the number of those people who will follow his advice, those who, according to the Gospel, will choose the right path of salvation, is very small. On the other hand, he does not want to admit in his bright soul that all other people will choose the path of vice; so that, after all, he is afraid that the mass of the people will go down the natural inclined plane to the brink of the abyss, and thus none of the preventive obstacles gives him confidence about the future fate of mankind.

There was no doctrine more disgraced than that of Malthus. Curses did not cease to rain down on the head of the one whom his contemporary, Godwin, called "this gloomy and terrible genius, ready to extinguish all hope of the human race." From an economic point of view, it was said that all his predictions were refuted by the facts, from a moral point of view, his teaching inculcated the most disgusting practice, and many French people consider him responsible for the decline in population in our country. What should one think about this criticism? Of course, history did not justify Malthus's fears: since that time, it has not indicated a single country that would have suffered from overpopulation. In some countries, in France, for example, the population increased only very slightly, in others it increased strongly, but did not outstrip the growth of wealth. If we take the very country where Malthus was looking for data for his calculations - S.-A. United States. Within half a century, the share of the wealth of every inhabitant of the United States more than quadrupled, although the population almost quadrupled in the same period of time (from 23 million to 92 million). Great Britain (England and Scotland) of the time of Malthus (1800-1805) had 10 million inhabitants, and now it has 40 million. If he could predict such a figure, he would be horrified. However, Britain's wealth and wealth also likely quadrupled. Can it therefore be said, as is often repeated, that the laws of Malthus have been refuted by the facts? No, it was not the laws that were refuted - they remain inviolable - but the predictions based on them. I do not think that it can be disputed that the reproduction of every living being, including man, occurs (this is, to tell the truth, a tautology) by multiplication and that, left to itself, without encountering any obstacles, it would overstep any boundaries; on the other hand, I do not think that the growth of industrial products would not necessarily be limited by the numerous conditions in which all production is placed (premises, raw materials, capital, manual labor, etc.). But if, nevertheless, population growth did not outstrip the growth of livelihoods, and even, as the above figures show, was left far behind, it was because it was limited by the will of the people, not only in France, where preventive measures were in full swing, but more or less in all countries where actual fertility remains far behind the inherent nature of fertility. And this voluntary restriction, which worried Malthus so much, occurs in the most natural way. Malthus' fears are based on a confusion of concepts of the biological order. The sexual instinct is different from the instinct of reproduction, and it follows completely different stimuli. Only to the first can be attributed that property of invincible strength which Malthus erroneously attributes to the second. The first is the instinct of animal origin, it ignites with the force of the most violent passion and governs all people equally. The source of the second is predominantly social and religious in nature: the second instinct takes on various forms, depending on time and place. Among religious peoples who followed the law of Moses, Manu or Confucius, birth was the means of salvation, the true realization of immortality. For a Brahmin, a Chinese or a Jew, not having a son is more than a misfortune - it is a crime against God. Among the peoples of Greek-Latin origin, birth was a sacred duty to the state and fatherland. In the aristocratic caste, the pride of the name must not perish. Birth-related expectations among the poor, and perhaps the charitable workers, are that the more children there will be, the greater the income or the means to arouse public charity. In a newly discovered country, birth is necessary for the multiplication of hands to clear the land, and people to create a new population. And, on the contrary, many forces antagonistic to it can rise before the instinct of reproduction: the egoism of parents who do not want to take responsibility; the selfishness of mothers who fear the suffering and danger associated with pregnancy; the love of a stingy father who does not want to have younger children in order to bestow on the older one; feminism seeking independence outside of marriage; premature emancipation of children, which leaves parents only the burdens of fatherhood, presenting neither benefit nor consolation for them; insufficiency of premises, burden of taxes, and thousands of others. Thus, the stimuli for reproduction vary infinitely, but precisely because they are of a social and not physiological origin, they do not have the character of unconditionality, permanence, universality and can very well be suppressed by the stimuli of the social order that are opposite to them; this is just what happens. And it is very easy to imagine that where religious faith would dry up, where patriotism would die, where family life would be enough for only one generation, where all lands would be privately owned, where factory labor would be forbidden to children, where people would live like nomads, where all physical suffering would become unbearable, where marriage, through divorce, would more and more approach a free union, in a word, where all the incentives for reproduction that I have just listed would cease to operate, and all their antagonists would be at full strength, where reproduction would stop altogether. But although the peoples have not reached such a state, it must nevertheless be admitted that they are approaching it. True, new stimuli for reproduction may arise in the new social environment, I know this, but they are not yet known to us. Paradoxical as it may seem, such a statement, but the sexual instinct plays only a very minor role in the reproduction of the species - the human race, it goes without saying. Having given these two instincts the same organs, nature undoubtedly united them, and those who believe in final causes may be amazed here at the cunning she used to ensure the preservation of the species, combining its production with an act of the greatest pleasure. But man turned out to be more cunning than she, he easily managed to separate the two functions, so that, continuing to blindly obey the law of love and lust, and all the more carefree because he was not saddened by the consequences, he managed to almost completely free himself from the law of reproduction. Thanks to this, the fears of Malthus scattered like smoke, and instead of them, another, opposite danger appeared on the horizon - the danger of the slow suicide of peoples. This separation of the two instincts is made all the more easier because he does not have the slightest moral obstacle in his way, which the honest pastor thought to oppose to him when he reduced these cunning against generation to the level of vices. Practice has treated them more indulgently than the teaching of the moralists, who take the trouble to prove that it answers a double duty: first, to give the sexual instinct and love the full freedom required by the physiological and psychological laws of the human race; the second, which consists in not trusting the chance of such an important matter as that of giving birth, and not entrusting to a woman such an exhausting task as the task of motherhood, except in those cases when she herself wills and deliberately accepts it. Conversely, neo-Malthusians declare the teacher's doctrine of "moral restraint" very immoral, firstly, because it contradicts the laws of physiology, is infected with Christian asceticism, an evil worse than that which she wants to get rid of, because, they say, the rejection of love causes worse suffering than the refusal of bread, and secondly, because, thanks to its rule of obligatory celibacy or late marriage, it tends to promote prostitution, encroaches on morals, creates unnatural vices, illegitimate births. In spite of this, the neo-Malthusians appropriated to themselves as disciples of Malthus and retain his name, since they are grateful to him for pointing out that the blind instinct of reproduction must necessarily produce a humanity doomed to disease, poverty, death and even vice, and that, therefore, to regulate this instinct is the only means to avoid this disastrous outcome. One must think, however, that if Malthus had been resurrected, he would not have been a neo-Malthusian. Least of all would he excuse his disciples for their intention to use adultery not in order to avert the danger of overpopulation, but in order to patronize debauchery, freeing love from the responsibility placed on it by nature. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that by the concessions we have already spoken of, Malthus prepared the way for them. Malthus, apparently, also did not notice one of the most dangerous points of his teaching, which most contributed to discrediting him, namely, that the duty of celibacy, inseparable from the duty of chastity - this refusal from the joy of family life - he placed only on the poor. , and not the rich man, for the latter is always in the conditions required by Malthus in order to have children. I know well that in the interests of the poor themselves, Malthus ordered them this severe law "not to produce children whom they will not be able to feed", but this does not prevent this law from emphasizing in the most severe way the inequality of their position compared to by other classes, for they are led to the necessity of making a choice between bread and love. Malthus silenced the old song, which said that for happiness it is enough "a hut and love in the heart." However, justice requires it to be noted that Malthus does not go so far as to prohibit their marriage by law - the liberal economist is here true to himself. He sees well that, apart from considerations of humanity, this remedy may turn out to be worse than evil, because the prohibition of marriages, by reducing the number of legitimate children, will lead to an increase in the number of children born out of wedlock. Finally, telling the poor that they themselves are responsible for their poverty, because they have been improvident, married too early and have too many children, and adding that no written law, no institution, no charity can help them, Malthus, according to - apparently did not realize that he was giving the propertied classes a convenient excuse not to care about the fate of the working classes. Throughout the nineteenth century, his doctrine will put up an obstacle to every project of socialist or communist organization, and even to every reform that seeks to improve the condition of the poor, because it will be said that the consequence of this will be that an increase in the mass of products to be distributed will entail the reproduction distribution partners and, therefore, these measures will lead nowhere. Nevertheless, although the teaching of Malthus gave rise to so much hatred, it served as a thorough introduction to economic problems: sometimes, as we have just said, to eliminate legitimate claims, and often also to give support to the great classical laws of political economy, such as, for example, like the law of land rent or wage fund. On the other hand, it served to justify the existence of the family and private property, because it represented both as a powerful safeguard against reckless reproduction from consideration of the responsibility associated with it. Today the great problem of population has not in the least lost its significance, but it has turned, so to speak, on the other side. What Malthus called the preventive obstacle has assumed such proportions in all countries that sociologists and economists are not concerned with the danger of unlimited reproduction, but with the danger of a regularly and everywhere decreasing birth rate. The challenge is to find the causes of this phenomenon. Everyone agrees, however, that these causes are of a social nature. It is not enough to indicate, as a reason, the conscious will of the parents not to have children or to limit their number; this explanation obviously does not explain anything, because that is exactly what we are talking about, to find out why they do not want to have children, and as regards, for example, our country, why such a desire to abstain from having children, which does not exist to such an extent in other countries and which, apparently, did not exist earlier, two or three generations ago, among the French, so intensively in our days? In order to explain this phenomenon, it is necessary to discover what are its causes, which are particular to our country and our generation, causes which, therefore, will not be found in other countries to the same extent; whether this is because, as Paul Leroy-Beaulier admits, the birth rate is falling due to the progress of civilization, which creates needs, desires and expenses incompatible with the duties and hardships of fatherhood; or because, as Dumont thinks, fertility falls as democracy grows, for democracy provides an incentive to strive to achieve their goals as quickly as possible and rise as high as possible (which is wittily called the law of capillarity)", or for other more specific reasons, varying depending on the school, such as, for example, the hereditary law of equal division, as taught by the school of Le Play, or such as the weakening of moral rules and religious beliefs, as Paul Bureau thinks, or such as intemperance in all forms - in the form of debauchery , alcoholism, etc. Unfortunately, it cannot be said that any of the explanations given so far were completely satisfactory, and therefore a new Malthus was not out of place in order to open up new horizons for demographic science.