Robert Malthus was an English reverend and scholar with huge contributions to the field of political economics. He was born sixth in Malthus’ family of seven children and enrolled for early mathematics training that formed the basis of his later arguments. He lived for sixty eight years having lived from 1766 to 1934. The scholar was married to Harriet and had two daughters and two sons. His contribution is largely in the areas of population growth and was the first professor of history and political economy in Hertfordshire.
Malthus’ main contribution was captured through his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population. In the book, the author laid down a side by side comparison of the growth in population and food production. Accordingly, population had a way of outrunning growth in production thus limiting humans’ prospects of utopian happiness. In Principles of Political Economy, he described a demand schedule that was separate from the quantity demanded at a given price. The economist approached the subject negatively implying that only war and famine would act as an inhibition for geometric population growth.
The importance of Robert Malthus is highly evidence in the impact of his contributions to the world. The Malthusian theory of population positively contributed to the social policy in Britain. In addition, his arguments were used by later scholars including Charles Darwin and J.M. Keynes in exploring their hypotheses regarding human life. Consequently, the work of Malthus contributed to the theory of natural selection whereby only the strong survived natural calamities in a world of limited resources. Evidently, therefore, Malthus’ importance in the world and his contribution to the study of economics is felt up to date.
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