He accumulated figures on biths, deaths, age
of marriage and child bearting and economic
factors contributing to longevity.
He linked population and food supply
Humans do not overpopulate to the
point of starvation, he contended, only
because people change their behaviour
in the face of economic incentives
Food production tends to increase arithmetically, population tends to increase naturally at a faster, geometric rate.
People choose to reduce population growth
They can check population growth more effectively by marrying late,
using contraceptives, emigrating, or, in more extreme circumstances,
resorting to reduced health care, tolerating vicious social diseases or
improvised living conditions, warfare, or even infanticide
People can only increase food production from difficult methods
such as reclaiming unused land or intensive farming
Malthus was facinated not with the inevitability of human
demise, but with why humans do not die off in the face of
such overwhelming odds
Malthus is arguably the most misunderstood and
misrepresented economist of all time
Because humans have not all starved,
economic choices must be at work, and it
is the job of an economist to study those
choices