Malthus, Thomas

1. A British economist of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially concerned with overpopulation.

Malthusian theories hold that populations will always increase faster than food supplies and that, therefore, hunger will always exist among the poorest populations (see Malthusianism).

Malthus's pessimistic views, along with those of David Ricardo, earned economics the reputation of being the “dismal science.”

Example Sentences

Bailey, likewise, contrasts sharply with past conservative ideas of Malthus, Thomas Jefferson, and other anti-modernists.

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Malthus, Thomas R., death of, 339; "Essay on Population," 43.

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