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Thomas Malthus

Decent Essays

Thomas Malthus addressed many issues such as population growth, methodology of GDP accounting, value theory, diminishing returns, land rent, and aggregated demand. Malthus recognized a need to decrease controversies dealing with increasing poverty and “corn-laws”.
Thomas wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” which introduced the idea that population when unchecked increased geometrically whereas proper existence arithmetically at best. Malthus had a system to regulate population which used preventative and positive checks. These checks reduced birth rate and increased death rate to keep the population in check. Examples of preventative checks were moral restraint and positive included famine, misery, plague, and war. Furthermore, Malthus instilled the idea that poverty and misery were natural punishments to the lower classes and encouraged restrain from reproduction. As well as no to aid the poor, for it would allow more children to survive ultimately worsening the hunger problem. These ideas were later contributed to the harsh Poor Law Amendment of 1834. …show more content…

This theory addressed the idea of potential insufficiency of effective demand. Thomas assumed workers would receive an adequate wage and produce more work than received as wages. The profits of their work must be bought by others in order to continue production and employment. Some of the profit would be bought by general consumers but would not equate to all of it. To prevent a glut of produce and economic stagnation, he encouraged unproductive consumption by landlords, which they obtain from rent, that doesn’t increase cost of production. This further contributed to the implications that Corn Laws must be retained. Though he favored landlords having unproductive consumption, anyone living on the interest from nation debt should not, such as government

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