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This essay will examine what Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus wrote about population growth. We will conclude that all three gentlemen were incorrect in their forecasts and why.
Heilbroner, in The Worldly Philosophers, describes Adam Smith as an absent minded eccentric with revolutionary ideas in the field of political economy (now more commonly referred to as economics). Smith believed that workers are motivated primarily by self interest rather than adherence to community spirit. For example, a baker bakes bread for self gain rather than the desire to feed his community. Enter competition, competition provided the balance or social harmony in the community by matching the self-interest of workers with the needs of society.
Smith believed that the ebb and flow of supply and demand is naturally corrected as resources are redistributed from unprofitable to profitable activities. Essentially the market place could be (or should be) self-regulating provided there was an equitable balance between self-interest and competition. To ensure this balance, Smith advocated the invisible hand of government to intervene when necessary.
Smith advocated three instances where government intervention was permitted. The first was to protect society from other societies. The second was to provide justice for citizens and lastly he believed that government should be responsible for providing infrastructure like roads and public intuitions such as schools and hospitals.
Heilbroner describes two laws from Smith’s 1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The first law, the law of accumulation, advocates the accumulation of capital. Smith asserted that accumulated capital could be used by industrialists to purchase additional machinery. This, in turn, would create a demand for additional labor. To attract labor, industrialists would have to increase wages.
The first law leads beautifully into the second law, the law of population. As wages increase, this would eventually lead to an improved lifestyle for workers. Improved living conditions would reduce health problems (including infant mortality) and eventually increase the workforce. A larger workforce would then restore the wage level back to the pre-boom level. In essences, the result of increased wages is ultimately a larger workforce.
In Smith’s first law, he stated that capital is spent on machinery would result in an increase of division of labor. Smith believed that division of labor was finite and that population would eventually cease to expand when processes could not be made more efficient. Unfortunately Smith pre-dates the Industrial Revolution that started in the last 18th century.
In 1793, William Godwin published Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and its Influence on Modern Morals and Manners. The book was very popular at the time for its utopian vision and anarchical political philosophy. Heilbroner suggested that, inspired by Political Justice, Thomas Robert Malthus decided to publish his somewhat depressing vision of the future in An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Malthus described an ever increasing population that was competing for declining resources.
Malthus believed that there were simply too many people in the world and went as far as saying that charity was futile and should be discouraged. David Ricardo, another economist in the late 18th century and a close friend, disagreed with much of Malthus’s views. However Ricardo agreed with Malthus’s gloomy position on population growth.
Malthus stated that populations would grow exponentially whereas agriculture could only expand at a linear rate. This imbalance could only be corrected through disease, famine and poverty or unnaturally activities like human conflict.
Malthus’s close friend Ricardo wrote that the only beneficiary of population growth would be landowners and landlords. Ricardo argued that capitalist would be the victim of population growth because they would have to pay higher production costs for new crops. However much of his reasoning is based on the inequitable political influence that landowners had at the time. For example, in the first half of the 19th century the parliament passed the Importation Act 1815 (or “Corn Laws”) that applied a tariff to cheaper foreign grain.
In conclusion, Adam Smith believed that population growth benefited all through increased prosperity. Smith stated that population would plateau because the division of labor was finite. Ricardo and Malthus agreed on a depressing vision in which population growth could not keep up with food production. Ricardo argued that the aristocratic landowners would be only people to benefit from population growth.
Fortunately neither Smith, Ricardo nor Malthus were correct in their forecasts. Economic deregulation, namely free trade, and technological advances have allowed populations to grow to staggering numbers that would shock all three gentlemen if they were alive today. The repeal of the Importation Act in 1846 allowed cheaper grain to enter the United Kingdom and, in turn, reduced the economic dominance of aristocracy. But the key factor attributable to population growth is technology. Today, crops have higher yields and benefit from better pesticides and fertilizers.
In recent decades, the relaxing of cultural attitudes and religious tolerance has allowed the widespread use of contraception to control population growth. Some countries like China offer economic incentives to families that restrict their family to one child. In fact, in some western countries like New Zealand, population (excluding immigration) has actually decreased.
