Talk:An Essay on the Principle of Population

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Books This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate in the project, please visit its page, where you can join the project and discuss matters related to book articles. To use this banner, please refer to the documentation. To improve this article, please refer to the relevant guideline for the type of work.BooksWikipedia:WikiProject BooksTemplate:WikiProject BooksBook articles Environment Mid‑importance This environment-related article is part of the WikiProject Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page.EnvironmentWikipedia:WikiProject EnvironmentTemplate:WikiProject EnvironmentEnvironment articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Philosophy: Literature / Social and political / Modern Start‑class Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles Start This article has been given a rating which conflicts with the project-independent quality rating in the banner shell. Please resolve this conflict if possible. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Associated task forces: /  Philosophical literature Social and political philosophy Modern philosophy England Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Futures studies Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Futures studies, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Futures studies on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Futures studiesWikipedia:WikiProject Futures studiesTemplate:WikiProject Futures studiesfutures studies articles Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

Tip: Anchors are case-sensitive in most browsers. This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist. [[Malthusianism#Modern Malthusianism|neo-Malthusians]] The anchor (#Modern Malthusianism) is no longer available because it was deleted by a user before. [[Sustainability#Carrying capacity|carrying capacity]] Anchor Sustainability#Carrying capacity links to a specific web page: Carrying capacity. The anchor (#Carrying capacity) is no longer available because it was deleted by a user before. Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. | Reporting errors

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Srinjita.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:07, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Can't help noticing that after about 150 revisions, this article still doesn't concisely summarize what Malthus' thesis actually was. I will try to correct this. ElectricRay 22:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Going to try to insert a simplified summary of Malthus' point regarding the Iron Law of Population to precede the more detailed breakdown. Econ183RT 7:17, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Online I often see the following claimed as a quote from the Essay:

“All children who are born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to a desired level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the death of grown persons…. Therefore … we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavoring to impede, the operations of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. “Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of the plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlement in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and restrain those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they are doing a service to mankind by protecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders.”

However, I am not able to locate this quote in the actual text of the first edition of the essay, here http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/prppl10.txt . Moreoever, these ideas seem to me profoundly out of character with Malthus who seems to have been Christian and notably advocated late marriages as opposed to contraception (!!). Quite unlike today's "population controllers" who not only push abortions but also seem willing to even refuse curing African malaria as long as it keeps the numbers down. Well, can somebody figure out where these wonderful words are coming from? 76.24.104.52 (talk) 04:55, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

6th edition. Don't forget that as a Christian his theodicy answered the problem of evil by asserting that such problems were designed for our own good, to encourage hard work and thrift: that was apparently most strongly stated in the first edition. It also looks rather like a "what if" statement, to be read in context. Skimming the end, he's evidently arguing for "prudential habits with respect to marriage among the poor" to be attained by rethinking poor relief.[1] . .. dave souza, talk 07:14, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

got it, thanks. It seems that he is being overly wordy at constructing an "antiutopia" situation of "how to preserve early marriage in conditions of advanced society" from which he will eventually conclude that forget early marriage, let's marry older. So you are right, the man apparently didn't stop to think about ways his writings can be taken out of context to pervert his message :) 76.24.104.52 (talk) 07:16, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw a BBC TV programme in which it was claimed that Malthus's 'Essay' was one of the factors behind the first British Census in 1801, because Malthus had predicted impending starvation. As of course Malthus said nothing of the kind, I came to Wiki to find out the basis for the claim. This article (and the linked article on the Census) makes a similar claim but gives no source or authority for it. I am suspicious, as John Rickman, who was one of the driving forces behind the 1801 Census, wrote advocating it in 1796, two years *before* the first edn of the Essay. Is there any documentary basis for the claim, or is it just an urban myth arising from the date of the Essay shortly before 1801 and the usual misconceptions about what Malthus actually said?86.183.224.161 (talk) 22:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The wiki article on the Census cites the BBC article by Geoff Timmins which makes that explicit claim. In Wikipedia terms that's a reliable source, but if you can find other better sources on this aspect that will be very welcome and enable us to make verifiable improvements, avoiding original research. Interesting point, . dave souza, talk 23:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I found this page at the Office for National Statistics

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/cb_8.asp which makes the same claim and would be a better source than a BBC popular article. 86.185.12.174 (talk) 11:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it peculiar that the Thomas Robert Malthus article has a longer discussion of An Essay on the Principle of Population than this article specifically on the essay. Wouldn't it make more sense to move that material here, and put a link? Geoffrey.landis (talk) 16:16, 27 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Did this ever happen? Seems like a good idea to me. I think if I was going to do this, I would plan to:

• Copy the relevant material out of Thomas Robert Malthus, merging it into this article.
• Investigate whether Thomas Robert Malthus can be shortened. If so, try writing it, and linking to this article WP:Summary style

Hope this helps! -- RobLa (talk) 03:45, 24 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am of the belief that the basics of the notion that we have cone to accept as Malthusian Doctrine was in fact, first articulated by Benjamin Franklin,and that Franklin was credited by Malthus in the preface to the first couple editions of his seminal work. I see nothing to that effect in this entry.

Owen Aldridge, Alfred (1949). "Franklin as Demographer". Journal of Economic History 9 (1): 25–44. JSTOR 2113719.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Population_studies (36)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_Concerning_the_Increase_of_Mankind,_Peopling_of_Countries,_etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.249.146.8 (talk) 22:53, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed a chart that wrongly represented Malthus. I contacted the creator of the chart but have not heard back, so I've "been bold" and taken it out. - Metalello ^talk 20:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on An Essay on the Principle of Population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120229202712/http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Turchin_Korotayev_SEH_2006.pdf to http://cliodynamics.info/PDF/Turchin_Korotayev_SEH_2006.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at {{Sourcecheck}}).

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 05:01, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This poor-quality source is used for the entire first paragraph. It is barely even about Malthus at all but about modern "overpopulation" debates a la Ehrlich. Malthusian considerations are absolutely key to understanding world history prior to just about the time Malthus was writing and Malthus' Essay was a profound advance by any reasonable standard, even though it inappropriately extrapolated past trends in trying to predict the future. Even when it moves on from the CRF source, the article still barely touches on the importance of Malthus' insight for virtually all of human history while overemphasizing on neo-Malthusian "overpopulation" debates. 76.66.126.186 (talk) 19:58, 25 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on An Essay on the Principle of Population. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20121014024047/http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ww/lenin/1913-wcn.htm to http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ww/lenin/1913-wcn.htm
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20161018045326/http://www.foet.org/books/Entropy-toc.pdf to http://www.foet.org/books/Entropy-toc.pdf

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:02, 17 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]