Sunday, January 23, 2011

"On the Principle of Population" by Thomas R. Malthus

Population's Effects on Society:
  • Two difficulties facing the perfectibility of man are that food is necessary to the existence of man and the passion between the sexes is and will remain necessary.
  • These two natural laws will never cease
  • Since these two laws exist, the population will be greater than the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man
  • Population will always grow in a geometrical ratio while subsistence only increase in an arithmetical ratio
  • The world must try to keep these two unequal powers equal
Population's Effects on Human Happiness:
  • The different ratios of population and subsistence keep the population in check
  • The scarcity of subsistence prematurely tend to weaken and destroy the human frame
  • People should prevent having too many kids whom they cannot provide for
  • Positive checks to population are diseases, wars, famine, extreme labor, extreme poverty, and bad nursing of children
Population and Poverty:
  • When a man can barely afford to provide for two children and he has five children, he blames everybody else except himself for being in poverty
  • People must take responsibility for the amount of children that they have

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