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M
Malthus on Population
Joseph R. Burger
Duke University Population Research Institute,
Durham, NC, USA
Institute of the Environment, University of
Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
Synonyms
An Essay on the Principle of Population; Expo-
nential growth; Malthusian growth
Definition
An Essay on the Principle of Population by
Thomas Robert Malthus (1798) is a book widely
viewed as having profound impact on the biolog-
ical and social sciences by recognizing basic bio-
physical, demographic, and economic principles
that can lead to population growth and possible
collapse.
Introduction
Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern
it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky,
and all the animals that scurry along the ground. –
Genesis 1:28
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
T. K. Shackelford, V. A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1267-1
The power of population is indefinitely greater than
the power in the earth to produce subsistence. –
Malthus 1798
An Essay on the Principle of Population by the
Reverend, Political Economist, and Demogra-
pher, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), is
perhaps the most important document ever
published on population, yet its central thesis con-
tinues to be highly controversial between natural
and social scientists today. First published anony-
mously during the Enlightenment in 1798, the
subsequent five editions bearing Malthus’ name
(the last in 1826) refined and elaborated on initial
arguments, as well as responded to critics with
data, case studies, and mathematical and logical
proofs. More than 220 years after the first edition,
the arguments and counterarguments provoked by
An Essay on Population (as it became popularly
known) are still central to discussions of future
human and planetary wellbeing today. In this
chapter I (i) introduce the historical context and
setting in which Malthus wrote the book, and
(ii) provide a brief overview of the Essay’s general
concepts and content, and (iii) conclude with a
summary of the enduring legacy of Malthus’
Essay in modern science and society.
Historical Context
Thomas Robert Malthus was born in 1766 in
Surrey outside of London. He studied in Jesus
College at Cambridge University where he was
2 Malthus on Population
later elected Fellow. Malthus was Professor of
History and Political Economy for the East India
Company College in Hertfordshire. He became
ordained by the Church of England in 1788 and
was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1818.
An interdisciplinary scholar, he influenced a vast
range of study including theology, biology,
demography, public policy, economics, agricul-
ture, labor, commerce, and moral philosophy.
Malthus was educated during the enlighten-
ment when there was much optimism for the
recent human progress. During this time, the arro-
gant view of humans as superior beings on Earth
contributed to the growing enlightenment pre-
scriptions for increased fertility, because popula-
tion increase and economic growth were so
intimately coupled. During this time, Adam
Smith’s Wealth of Nations was well received and
paved a path for prosperity through the “invisible
hand” of free markets. Malthus was a skeptic of
the idea that increasing revenue and wealth would
benefit all, citing that a substantial proportion of
the population in all societies is in poverty. Mal-
thus’ Essay on Population was specifically critical
of recent utopian views set forth by Marquis
(a.k.a. Nicolas) de Condorcet in France and Briton
William Godwin’s writings on “the perfectibility
of society.” The French Revolution, which largely
stemmed from the rising disparity between the
leisure and working classes, spurred debates
among the British aristocratic circles. The insepa-
rable political and religious establishments in
Britain were trying to prevent the revolutionary
contagion, as they saw it, from spreading across
the English Channel.
The first edition of Malthus’ Essay laid out his
thoughts and rebuttals to these scholars. It begins
with a conversation with “a friend” who turns out
to be Malthus’ father regarding the speculations
on the “future improvement of society” and “per-
fectibility of man” written by Godwin, Condorcet,
Smith, David Hume, and others of the time. Mal-
thus was an empiricist who held that “acknowl-
edged truth in philosophy is that a just theory will
always be confirmed by experiment.” The second
edition provided expanded discussion and data.
For example, Malthus cites Benjamin Franklin’s
observation that the New World colonies of the
Americas had a population doubling time of every
25 years (Franklin 1751). In contrast to the Euro-
centric focus of much of the discussion on popu-
lation and society at the time, Malthus’ work was
global in scope, involving case studies and data
from societies spanning the Far East and Pacific
Islands as well as the Americas (Bashford and
Chaplin 2016).
Malthus’ Theory and Implications
Malthus’ central thesis addressed the relative rates
of food production and population growth,
observing that, because human population grew
exponentially (geometrically 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32,
64, etc.) and food production arithmetically (e.g.,
linearly 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.), sooner or later
human population would outstrip resources
(Fig. 1). Gains in living standards would be
short-lived, and populations would collapse to
subsistence levels. This was based on two
assumptions that Malthus thought were innate
and incontrovertible. First, food is necessary for
humans to live. Everyone requires about 2000
calories per day and a healthy balance of fats,
proteins, and carbohydrates. Second, the passion-
ate drive between the sexes to procreate and “be
fruitful and multiply,” will inevitably lead to the
birth of more kids and population growth. Mal-
thus predicted that checks on population would
come in two forms: positive checks that raise the
death rate such as widespread “famine, pestilence,
and war” and preventative checks that lower the
birth rate including moral restraints such as birth
control, postponing marriage, and celibacy. Infi-
nite growth in population, Malthus proclaimed, is
impossible due to finite limits of the Earth.
Malthus’ Iron Law of Wages provided one of
the earliest economic insights into the biophysical
constraints that couple human population to the
natural environment. It suggested that growing
populations would result in a surplus of laborers,
which in turn would drive down wages towards
poverty levels. Moreover, increasing population
and demand for commodities would drive up the
price of provisions, while simultaneously decreas-
ing wages, leading to poverty and misery among
Malthus on Population 3

Malthus on Population,
Fig. 1 illustrates Malthus’ Population
theory. Over time
Malthusian
population growth increases
Catastrophe
exponentially if unchecked.
In contrast, resource

Quantity
production grows linearly. Subsistence
At some future time, growth
in population will exceed
the supply of resources –
known as the “Malthusian
Catastrophe” – and the
population collapses back
to subsistence levels
Time

the working class. Thus, according to Malthus, in

the long-term there will always be poor in all
societies. Population growth would exacerbate
the problem. Malthus writes that life for the poor
would be so miserable “Even when they have an
opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but
all that is beyond their present necessities goes,
generally speaking, to the ale-house” (p. 35).
Influence on Biology: First Law of Nature
Malthus had a profound influence on the funda-
mental demographic models that are still used to
study humans and the millions of other plants,
animal, and microbe species on the planet today.
It was perhaps unforeseen by Malthus that his
Essay would revolutionize biology. His observa-
tion that all living organisms have the capacity to
produce more offspring than can survive was a
cornerstone in the development of evolutionary
biology. All populations that are unchecked,
including humans, have the intrinsic capacity to
grow exponentially.
The implications of Malthus’ theory can be
formulated mathematically, where the population
growth rate (r) is equal to births (b) minus deaths
(d) plus immigration (i) minus emigration (e). So, a
Population ðPÞ at steady state ¼ P ¼ 0 ¼ r
¼ b  d þ i  e: ð1Þ
At the global scale, we can assume net migra-
tion of zero and Malthus’ theory can be expressed
as an exponential function of the form,
PðtÞ ¼ P0 ert : ð2Þ
where P0 = P(0) is the initial population size, r =
the population growth rate, and t = time. There-
fore, all stable populations of all species have an
r = 0, on average and over the long-term, where
births are equal to death rates, and i immigration
offsets e emigration. A positive growth rate
(r > 0) is exponentially. Such species would inev-
itably fill up the planet, exhaust all resources, and
collapse to a steady state population. Conversely,
populations with a negative growth rate (r <0) are
not sustaining and will inevitably go extinct. Crit-
ical for evolutionary theory, is that when
populations are in steady state and r = 0, most
offspring do not survive, selecting for the “fittest”
individuals.
Malthus’ law of exponential growth is
regarded as the first principle of population
dynamics (Turchin 2003). Malthus’ conjecture
that all populations have the intrinsic capacity to
produce more offspring than can survive, and thus
grow populations indefinitely if unchecked, had a
profound impact on modern biology as evident by
its inclusion in many introductory textbooks span-
ning the physical, biological, and social sciences
today. Despite few scientific laws in biology, and
even fewer in the social sciences, Malthus’ obser-
vation on population is even considered a “law of
nature” similar to Newton’s laws (Ginzberg 1986)
which preceded Malthus in the Scientific Revolu-
tion (Fig. 2). In fact, Malthus wrote in An Essay
about the influence of Newton’s Principia on his
thinking of the fundamental biophysical laws that
4 Malthus on Population
Malthus on Population, Fig. 2 shows growth in per
capita energy consumption, population, and global energy
consumption over time reproduced with permission from
Schramski et al. (2019). Superimposed are some key pub-
lications that influenced or were influenced by Malthus’
Essay. The world’s population was about 800 million in
1798 when Malthus first published the Essay. Today there
act on population. In turn, Malthus’ sixth edition
published in 1826 had a profound influence on the
formulation of evolutionary theory. In Charles
Darwin’s Autobiography (p. 120) he writes:
I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Pop-
ulation, and being well prepared to appreciate the
struggle for existence which everywhere goes on
from long-continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that under
these circumstances favourable variations would
tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be
destroyed. The result of this would be the formation
of new species. (Barlow 1958)
Similarly, Wallace in 1905 in his autobiography
My Life he wrote:
Perhaps the most important book I read was Mal-
thus’ Essay on Population. . . It was the first great
work I had yet read treating any of the problems of
philosophical biology, and its main principles
remained with me as a permanent possession, and
twenty years later gave me the long-sought clue to
the effective agent in the evolution of organic spe-
cies. (Wallace 1905: 232)
are 7.7 billion people and rising. For much of this time
population was growing faster than per capita and total
energy consumption. However, around 1960 total energy
use began to increase even faster than population. This
energy is finite and largely in the form of fossil fuels
(about 85%)
Equal Fitness Paradigm
In contemporary ecology and evolution, Malthus’
first law of nature is a cornerstone of the Equal
Fitness Paradigm (EFP; Van Valen 1973; Brown
et al. 2018; Burger et al. 2019a). The EFP posits
that, over evolutionary time, each parent must
exactly be replaced by one offspring, birth rates
must equal death rates, and this results in steady-
state populations and equal fitness among all spe-
cies. This is evident by the mere coexistence of the
millions of species on Earth. Some fish, plants,
and invertebrates produce literally millions of off-
spring and other species such as birds and mam-
mals, produce very few. Yet, underlying all the
enormous diversity of life on Earth are general life
history laws: (1) demographic: regardless of the
number of offspring produced in a lifetime, on
average only two survive to replace the parents
(in a sexually reproducing species) resulting in a
steady-state equilibrium or non-growing popula-
tion, and (2) mass-energy balance: each individual
Malthus on Population
exactly replaces themselves in energy and mate-
rial content, so a mass-energy balance must occur
over a generation (Burger et al. 2019a). Thus,
despite the enormous variation in biodiversity
spanning many orders of magnitude in body
size, generation time, and fecundity, all species
are equally fit because ultimately each adult is
exactly replaced by one surviving offspring that
lives to reproduce. The EFP provides a null
hypothesis and benchmark to understand the
unique circumstances that has allowed the
human species to maintain positive population
growth. These are just some of the profound
insights inspired by Malthus’ Essay. It still influ-
ences modern biology today and can play a piv-
otal role in extending fundamental evolutionary
and demographic theories to understanding the
origins of the Anthropocene – the age of global
human ecological dominance.
Malthus’ Influence on Society
It was evident from the first edition of Malthus’
Essay that it would have a profound impact on
society, influencing the first English census of
1801, and the Poor Law Amendment Act of
1834 which cut subsidies to the poor. Some inter-
pretations of Malthus’ work have presumably
influenced political ideologies such as genocide
and eugenics (Shermer 2016). A number of moral
philosophers and historians painted Malthus as
being insensitive to slavery, indigenous peoples,
and the poor. Yet, in later editions of the Essay,
Malthus does advocate for educational and eco-
nomic policy interventions to mitigate the amount
of suffering by the poor (Bashford and Chaplin
2016). He further writes about indigenous rights
to their native lands, although he was rather vague
about how to mitigate imperialism and exploita-
tion of native peoples (Hodgson 2016). Nonethe-
less, in retrospect Malthus is often considered a
forerunner of social Darwinism (e.g., Shermer
2016) because he applied fundamental laws of
biology to human populations. However, the nat-
uralistic fallacy instructs that just because things
are so, doesn’t mean they ought to be.
5
“Neo-Malthusians” Versus
“Cornucopians”
The 1960s witnessed a resurgence of Neo-
Malthusian campaigns for Zero Population
Growth (ZPG) culminating with the publication
of The Population Bomb (Ehrlich 1968), written
by Paul (and Ann (The editor of Population Bomb
insisted that Paul Ehrlich be the sole author when
Paul and Ann Ehrlich coauthored the book)) Ehr-
lich, and the Limits to Growth (Meadows et al.
1972) report published by the Club of Rome writ-
ten by a team of scientists lead by Donella and
Dennis Meadows at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. In response, Cornucopians (after the
ancient Greek “horn of plenty”) have argued
against Neo-Malthusians, citing that technologi-
cal innovations including energy efficiency,
health and medical advancements, genetically
modified crop breeding, petrochemical fertilizers,
mechanized agriculture, and irrigation have allo-
wed resource supply to outpace growing popula-
tion demand. Cornucopians extend Adam Smith’s
“invisible hand” of the free market to believing
that supply, demand, and monetary incentives will
continue to provide technology that will innovate
our way out of environmental problems. This
Cornucopian view shared by many neoclassical
economists and technologists assumes that
growth in the human system (population and
economy) can continue indefinitely. In contrast,
Jared Diamond’s famous book Collapse (2005) is
critical of Simon and the Cornucopians, stating
that their assumptions were not in line with natural
limitations.
Perhaps the pinnacle of this discussion culmi-
nated with a bet between, Paul Ehrlich (and
others), and the American economist and Cornu-
copian, Julian Simon. Simon argued in the 1970s
that we had already accumulated the knowledge
required to supply the worlds growing population
for the next seven billion years (Simon 1981). The
business professor Simon challenged the ecolo-
gist Ehrlich to choose any raw material and future
date and Simon wagered that the real inflation-
adjusted prices would decrease because of tech-
nology, rising standards of living, and free mar-
kets incentives that would drive the prices down
6 Malthus on Population

incorporate how population growth, interacting

with biophysical resource constraints, can lead to
biological and/or cultural innovations that allow
humans to temporarily circumvent environmental
constraints and continue growing (e.g., Boserup
1965; Nekola et al. 2013; Burger et al. 2017;
Weinberger et al. 2017; Burger 2018). While
these models shed light on how innovations have
allowed exponential population growth, indefinite
growth in a finite space is impossible and this was
central to Malthus’ thesis.

Malthus, Darwin, and Boserup

So far, the ascending spiral of positive feedbacks

between population growth, innovation, and
resource supply has kept pace with growing pop-
ulation and consumption levels (Fig. 4). How
have humans been able to continue harnessing
additional energy sources to temporarily escape
checks on populations that seemingly constrain all
Malthus on Population, Fig. 3 shows climate protestor
Brian Maitner holds a sign “MALTHUS WAS RIGHT”
other species? The Darwinian process of innova-
featuring Eq. 2 in El Presido Park in Tucson, Arizona, tion and adaptation has allowed us to continually
September 20, 2019, demonstrating the legacy of Malthus’ push environmental limits (Nekola et al. 2013).
seminal Essay on Population. Photo credited to Rachel Thus, Darwinian innovations have allowed birth
Gallery
rates to far exceed death rates resulting in expo-
nential population growth. However, the Malthu-
(Simon 1980). Ehrlich took the bet arguing that
sian process is that all species have the intrinsic
rising demand from population and affluence
capacity to increase population exponentially
would result in resource shortages, thus driving
until environmental limits are reached. Research
up prices. In 1980, in what has become known as
at the intersection of evolution and sociology has
the “Simon-Ehrlich wager” Ehrlich chose copper,
begun to investigate the role of cultural evolution
chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten with the pre-
in accelerating information exchange and innova-
dicted payoff date a decade later. Ehrlich lost the
tions leading to continued exponential growth
bet. The prices of all five metals declined during
(Fig. 4).
the 1980s. However, the prices of those commod-
The human ability to innovate and appropriate
ities subsequently increased and other metrics of
an ever-increasing resource supply has increased
human well-being (e.g., numbers in poverty,
global carrying capacity to current exponential
income inequality, and pollution) have gotten
growth rates (Fig. 4). The French and Danish
worse. So, it is not that straightforward if Ehrlich
Agricultural Economist Ester Boserup acknowl-
or Simon was right (Sabin 2013). This debate
edged the need to continuously innovate as popu-
between Malthusians and Cornucopians con-
lation growth demands ever increasing resources
tinues today (Fig. 3) and has motivated cross-
(1965). As the human population grows, the
disciplinary research seeking to explain the pecu-
demand for more resources has led to increased
liarity of human population growth. Combining
land intensification and higher crop yields culmi-
both the Malthusian and Cornucopian perspec-
nating in the Green Revolution of the 1950s and
tives has led to quantitative models that
1960s that drastically increased crop yields
Malthus on Population 7

a 7
b
Green revolution: 40 years ago
Computer: 60
Antibiotics: 70
6 Plastics: 90
Global population (Billions)

Airplane: 100
Internal combustion engine: 150
5 Vaccine: 200
Solar
Steam engine: 300 energy
Finite
Windmill: 1200 biosphere
4 Gunpowder: 1200
Water mills: 2300
Roads: 2500 Ecosystem Technological
3 Metal plows: 2500 services innovation

Bronze: 5000
Irrigation: 5000 Human
2 Cities: 5700 Expands
system
Wheel: 6000
Bow & arrow: 10000
Animal domestication: 10000 Population and Cumulative
1 economic growth cultural evolution

he
pt
lu ?
0 Fil orld
w

10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0

Years before present
TRENSS in Ecology & Evolution
From Nekola et al. 2013 From Burger 2018

Malthus on Population, Fig. 4 (a) Global human pop-
ulation over the past 10,000 years and some major inno-
vations in human history that have contributed to
increasing carrying capacity (Adapted from Nekola et al.
2013). Human population has increased from less than
1 billion before 1800, to ~2 billion in 1927, ~3 billion in
1959, ~6 billion in 1999, ~7 billion in 2011, to the now 7.7
billion on the planet in 2019 and is still increasing. (b)
A conceptual model of how growth in the human system
(population and economy) is characterized by positive
feedbacks between cumulative cultural evolution, techno-
logical innovation, and increased flow of natural and eco-
system services from the environment (adapted from
Burger 2018). Cumulative cultural evolution is broadly
defined as the accumulated socially learned knowledge
and technologies that are tried, tested, recorded, trans-
ferred, modified, and recombined over time through social
processes like copying, emulating, teaching, and learning.
Malthus argued that these exponential processes cannot
continue indefinitely on a finite planet

worldwide. However, the study of complex soci- ecology, and human demography today. Its central
eties has revealed diminishing marginal returns to thesis also continues to be a point of contention
growth (Tainter 2011, Strumsky et al. 2010; among Neo-Malthusians and Cornucopians. I end
Diamond 2005) including a global decline of per with three concluding points: (i) current popula-
capita consumption of several important global tion trends, (ii) Malthus’ argument for the (im)
resources such as oil, phosphate, wood, wild fish- perfectibility of humans, and (iii) Malthus’ solu-
eries, agricultural land, and freshwater (Burger tions and alternatives to the growth paradigm.
et al. 2012). Moreover, the fraction of income
spent on food and energy has been increasing
Current Population Trajectories
since the late 1990s (King 2015). So, the scope
The global population was ~800 million people
for innovation to continue to stave off collapse as
when Malthus wrote the first edition of An Essay.
we reach planetary limits is an open question
Today there are 7.7 billion people on the planet.
(Weinberger et al. 2017; Burger et al. 2017;
There is much optimism that world population
Burger 2018).
will reach a steady state and possibly even begin
to shrink by the end of the century due to the
demographic transition where the global popula-
Conclusion tion growth rate slows as fertility and mortality
rates drop as countries urbanize and develop eco-
Malthus’ Essay has had an enduring impact on the nomically (Bricker and Ibbitson 2019; see also
natural and social sciences. Its principles continue Burger 2019). However, per capita resource use
to influence fundamental models in evolution, and meat consumption (Schramski et al. 2019)
8 Malthus on Population
increase with shifts in employment from resource-
based rural economies to service and technology-
based cities (Burger et al. 2019b). Moreover,
decreasing fertility rates coincide with increasing
per capita energy use across countries and within
countries over time (Moses and Brown 2003;
DeLong et al. 2010). The increased urbanization
that coincides with economic growth, technolog-
ical innovation, and higher standards of living are
fueled largely by nonrenewable fossil fuels.
About 85% of the global energy demand is still
from fossil fuels despite campaigns and policies to
transition to renewables. It is important to note
that since 1960 per capita energy use has begun to
increase faster than population (Fig. 2), exacerbat-
ing climate change. Malthus’ Essay influenced
Jevon’s paradox, which states that increasing effi-
ciency has unintended consequences of actually
increasing the absolute amount of resource used,
accelerating the drawdown of the planet’s energy
reserves (Jevon 1865).
The (Im)Perfectibility of Humans
Particularly interesting is the timing of Malthus’
book in relation to the industrial revolution
(Fig. 2), when humans began to exploit vast quan-
tities of fossil fuel resources to power mechanized
industries including agriculture, manufacturing,
and transportation. Malthus’ Essay does acknowl-
edge technological improvements as a result of
human innovations. He merely states the absurdi-
ties in thinking that increasing “perfectibility”
could happen indefinitely. Malthus pointed out
that there are fundamental limits to improve-
ments. For example, he writes that “One of the
most obvious features of improvement is the
increase of size. The flower has grown gradually
larger by cultivation. If the progress were really
unlimited it might be increased ad infinitum, but
this is so gross an absurdity that we may be quite
sure that among plants as well as among animals
there is a limit to improvement, though we do not
exactly know where it is.” (p. 51).
In Malthus’ critique of Condorcet’s “Perfect-
ibility of mankind” he writes “. . .the mortality of
man on earth seems to be as completely
established, and exactly upon the same grounds,
as any one, the most constant, of the laws of
nature” (p. 74). “I think we may conclude, that
we have rather less reason for supposing that the
life of man may be indefinitely prolonged, than
that trees may be made to grow indefinitely high,
or potatoes indefinitely large” (p. 77). The notion
that indefinite growth is impossible on a finite
planet has inspired philosophical discussions on
alternative pathways for human societies.
Alternatives to the Growth Paradigm
In addition to being critical of the growth para-
digm, Malthus’ did provide solutions. He pro-
posed that we need to change the “very nature of
man?” taking Preventative checks to avoid popu-
lation growth and collapse. To this end, Malthus
inspired the pioneering works at the intersection
of ecology and economics by Kenneth Boulding,
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Herman Daly,
Howard T Odum, Vaclav Smil, Charlie Hall,
Ken Klitgaard, and others who have advanced
transdisciplinary research in the fields of ecolog-
ical economics and biophysical economics. These
fields set themselves apart from neoclassical eco-
nomics by placing the human population and eco-
nomic system as a subsystem embedded within
the global biosphere (Fig. 4) instead of being
divorced from the natural environment. Malthus
doesn’t make any specific predictions of the
timing of collapse. The central legacy of Malthus’
Essay is the appreciation that growth cannot occur
forever in a finite world. Accordingly, Malthus
would argue that the growth paradigm that pre-
vails in neoclassical economics today will ulti-
mately fail. Appreciation of the fundamental
biophysical constraints to growth is necessary to
develop alternative pathways for sustaining the
human enterprise.
Cross-References
▶ Adam Smith
▶ Biophysical Economics
▶ Club of Rome
▶ Cultural Evolution
▶ Demographic Transition
▶ Ecological Economics
▶ Equal Fitness Paradigm
Malthus on Population
▶ Ester Boserup
▶ Jevon’s Paradox
▶ Limits to Growth
▶ Naturalistic Fallacy
▶ Paul Ehrlich
▶ Poor Laws
▶ Population Bomb
▶ Population Bomb
▶ Simon-Ehrlich wager
▶ Technological Innovation
▶ Wealth of Nations
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