Malthus, Darwin, and the Descent of Economics

• Published date: 01 September 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12158
• Date: 01 September 2016
• Author: Heather Remoff

Malthus, Darwin, and the Descent of

Economics

By HEATHER REMOFF*

ABSTRACT. Confusion about overpopulation stems from the writings

of Thomas Malthus in 1798. It was compounded by Charles Darwin

and Alfred Russel Wallace, both of whom made the Malthusian

“struggle for existence” the basis of natural selection in the

evolutionary process. Malthus argued, without evidence, that human

population growth will continue unchecked until regulated by

external factors such as hunger and disease. Darwin and Wallace

cemented that idea into evolutionary theory. Recent evolutionary

biologists have focused on gene frequency as a way to compare the

reproductive success of one individual against another within the

same species. However, among humans, the true basis of

reproductive success is grounded in control of the resources

necessary for survival. Humans sometimes adapt to environmental

stress by having more children, not fewer, which means that poverty

can cause population growth, not the reverse. Recognizing this

simple relationship would have helped Darwin resolve a dilemma at

the heart of his theory: his expectation that the most successful

members of our species would have the most children, an idea

contradicted by his observation of large, poor families among the

Irish. The evolutionary puzzle can be solved by observing that

providing equal access to land enables humans to limit their own

fertility. The problem of equal access can be addressed by

implementing Henry George’s idea of taxing the value of land,

thereby preventing hoarding and gross inequality of wealth.

*Anthropologist (PhD, Rutgers 1980). Author of Sexual Choice (1984) and articles

related to anthropology and economics. Email: heathertr [at] comcast.net. This article

has been adapted from an earlier version in Geophilos, Autumn 2001. My thanks to

Fred Harrison for encouraging me to write the original article and for authorizing the

derivation of the present article from it.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 75, No. 4 (September, 2016).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12158

V

C2016 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

Introduction

The Malthusian doctrine of overpopulation continues to distort both

the biologic and economic sciences and to doom the problem-solving

aspirations of policymakers. Malthus’s (1798) Principle of Population

masquerades as science, when—as Thomas Robert Malthus himself

points out in the opening paragraphs of his famous essay—the theory

is unsupported by facts.

How is it possible that a theory that was undocumented in its time—

and remains without scientific corroboration in 2016—continues to

inform the public debate and direct the social and economic policies of

modern times? Two reasons spring immediately to mind.

The first reason theMalthusian theory remains popular, despite being

wrong, is the ease with which it can be understood. It can be summed

up in a sound bite that feels so intuitively correct that almost no one is

motivated to conduct further research. Malthus proposed in 1798 that

population grows geometrically, while food production grows only

arithmetically, which leads inevitably to starvation.

The second reason for the continued acceptance of Malthusianism is

less obvious, but may be just as important. Malthus’s theory allows

modern readers to focus on changing the reproductive behavior of

others, namely, people in developing countries, while leaving unexa-

mined the extractive, rent-seeking behavior of the developed world. It

is always more fun to focus on controlling the sex lives of somebody

else than to admit to the damaging effects of our own greed. A solution

that requires those of us who live in relative affluence to make no dra-

matic changes to our lives is certain to gain our support. We have

already reduced our birth rates. Therefore, the problems of poverty,

income inequality, climate change, war, famine, and a host of other

economic and ecological disasters can besolved if we can just convince

those other people to stop having so many children.

Darwin Discovers Malthus

Malthus confused cause with effect. We continue to do so. Here is

where the plot thickens and becomes historically more interesting. Mal-

thus, an early political economist, and Charles Darwin, the father of

modern biology, are responsible for a curious link between the two

Malthus, Darwin, and the Descent of Economics 863

sciences that has served neither field well. Malthus’s book, An Essay on

the Principle of Population, as it Effects the Future Improvement of Soci-

ety, was published in 1798. Darwin’s groundbreaking book, The Origin

of Species, was not published until 1859. Malthus died in 1834, 25 years

before Darwin’s famous work was published. Malthus could not have

anticipated that Darwin would give the Principle of Population the

blessing of science.

In his autobiography (written 1876, published posthumously), Dar-

win (1887: 42–43) described the way in which the Malthusian principle

gave rise to his sudden epiphany about the process by which natural

selection takes place:

In October 1838, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry,

I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being

prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes

on, from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants,

it at once struck me that under these circumstances favorable variables

would tend to be preserved and unfavorable ones destroyed. The result

would be the formation of a new species.

Darwin’s claim that reading Malthus gave him the insight into the

selection pressure driving natural selection is a convenient truth that

enhanced the reputations of both men. The Reverend Malthus, a man

of the cloth, was suddenly elevated by having his undocumented

theory cloaked in the mantle of science. Since Malthus was a shoddy

practitioner of science, this mantle became more of a magician’s cape

under which his biases against the Irish could be hidden. The many

Malthusians who followed were likewise able to mask their prejudices

against groups of poor people in the same way, by claiming to be sci-

entific. More on that later.

Darwin—a man of both faith and science, who happened to share

Malthus’s opinion of the Irish—was troubled that his theory of evolu-

tion would be challenged as an attack on religion. It was fortuitous

then that Darwin could emphasize the role Malthus’s writings played in

helping him envision the struggle for existence that would occur when

populations reached their carrying capacity. In this way, Darwin

acquired the support of someone who, although dead, was from the reli-

gious establishment. The Reverend Malthus had described a mechanism—

The American Journal of Economics and Sociology864