Thomas Robert Malthus

Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766–1834), English economist, sociologist, and pioneer in the study of the population problem. In An Essay on the Principal of Population (1798; rev. ed. 1803), he asserted that any attempt to improve the human social condition was doomed to failure since food production would never grow as rapidly as population, a condition checked only by famine, disease, war, and moral restraint. His doctrine, adapted by neo-Malthusians, has influenced such economists as David Ricardo.

See also: Population.