Monday, September 17, 2012

Thomas Malthus: Principle of Population


Population checks must be implemented in order to sustain a society that cannot outgrow its food supply and issues regarding insufficient amounts of food and poverty are one’s own problems. The primary reason that the population must be checked periodically is because an unadvised population will increase exponentially, whereas the  amount of food only increases linearly. The population’s growth curve must be monitored by preventative and positive population checks, or else there will not be enough food or vital resources for each person. Malthus suggests that the disruption of the population/resource ratio is man’s own fault for not thinking ahead about the costs of children and giving in to natural human desires. Malthus furthers his argument by including that poor and under-privileged people’s own faults that they are at the bottom of society and that they should not decrease their financial stability by having many children and having to spread out their wealth. Instead, they should aim towards ascending up the social ladder and becoming financially stable. Malthus believes that if the poor are able to overcome the natural reproductive instincts of man, then they will ascend up the social ladder and escape the limitations of poverty. 

-Jack Dolan

6 comments:

  1. good paragraph, but you may want to include the difference between positive and preventative checks.

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  2. your paragraph is well structured. But you may want to include the ideas of society Malthus had in his population theories.

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  3. Thanks for the feedback, I will use your advice in my next draft.

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  4. The paragraph is good but you might want to elaborate on how the population checks differ and maybe give an example of one.

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  5. Great paragraph, but I believe that defining the checks will add extra strength to your paragraph.

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  6. Yo your thesis statement is really good and the embedded details and specifics into the main points make the paragraph strong

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