Question

6. Explain Thomas Robert Malthus’s theory of population. Why did he think it was an appropriate rebuttal to the revolutionary and egalitarian proposals of William Godwin? How was this theory used by the Classical Political Economists to explain the wages of labor? Explain briefly.

Answer 1

The Malthusian Theory of Popluation is a theory of exponential population growth and arithmetic food supply growth. It is the most well known theory. The rapidly increasing population of England encouraged by a misguided poor law dstressed him very deeply. His theory is very simple Mathus based his reasoning on thye biological fact that every living organism tenda to multiply to an unimaginable extent. Mathus belived that through preventive checks and positive checks, the population would be controlled to balance the food supply with population level. These checks would lead to the Malthusian Catastrophe.Malthus examined the relationship between the population , growth and resources. he wrote in his theory that population growth occurs exponentially so it increases according to birth rate. this theory used by the Classical Political Economist explained wages of labor. This theory held that the market price of labour would always tend towards the minimum requirment for subsistence. If the supply of labour increased, wages would fall, eventually causing a decrease in the labour supply. If the wages increases above the subsitence level, population would increase until the large labor force would again force wages down. The wage fund theory says that wages depend on the relative amounts of capital available for the payment of workers and the size of the labour force. thus legilation to raise wages would be unsuccesful,since there was only a fixed fund to draw.