In countries of Western Europe the bogey of Malthusianism has been overcome. In fact, some of the western countries are now faced with problem of declining population to such an extent that many people are talking of “race-suicide”. In modern times people voluntarily adopt medical methods of control, which are cheap and readily available, rather than incurring possible loss of health and additional expenditure. In 19th century in Europe it was found that the birth rate was lowest where wages were highest. Spread of education leads to a higher standard of living and late marriages. Statistics show that cultural advance produces a decline in the birth rate. The economic history of the 19th and the 20th century shows that it is possible for an industrialised country to maintain a large population by importing food from outside in exchange of its industrial products. The real basis of the Malthusian Theory is the Law of Diminishing Returns. “A baby comes to the world not only with a mouth and a stomach but also with a pair of hands.” Against this criticism it may be said that in agriculture the law of diminishing returns applies and the additional hands will produce less and less amounts of food in course of time.įor a time the tendency towards diminishing returns may be held in check by improvements in the arts of cultivation but diminishing rate of productivity is bound to operate sooner or later. Malthus failed to consider that the additional increments of population are also capable of increasing production. This criticism is beside the point because Malthus used the formulae only as examples to illustrate the dissimilar and unrelated nature of the growth of population and food supply. The mathematical formulas regarding food supply and population growth are not correct.
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