Malthus Paragraph

        In a society, man has the power to control the population and food through preventative checks which balance the high birth rate caused by the poor and the amount of available sustenance. Preventative checks are man's way to control the population through abstinence or limiting the number of children that a family can have, whereas positive checks are caused by nature. Some examples of positive checks include diseases or natural disasters. Thomas Malthus suggests that when the rate of human reproduction is left unchecked, it increases in a geometrical ratio. On the other hand, food only increases in an arithmetical ratio, much slower than the population grows. Malthus believes that the reason for a disturbance in the balance between food and population is caused by the poor having multiple children without considering their poverty. He argues that without these kinds of checks the population of the lower class will continue to grow until there is not enough sustenance left to support a society. He says that the poor will often blame the upper class and the government for their low financial status, only adding to the problem as they are not taking any responsibility for their large families. It is for these reasons that Malthus believes preventative population checks should be enforced on a society, therefore preventing the growing imbalance between food resources and the number of people.

-Lily Garvin

Malthus paragraph

Malthus Paragraph

Garrett Kasper

            Population checks must be implemented in order to sustain a society that cannot outgrow its food supply and the issues regarding insufficient amounts of food and poverty are one individual’s problem.  The Earth’s food surplus cannot supply rapid population growth.  The concept which Malthus introduces is the preventative check.  Thomas Malthus’ idea of society implies that a society’s population is dependent on the men.  A man should not try to have more children than he can support.  If the man cannot supply his children with enough food they will die because all living beings need food to live.  An individual man is attached to a woman later in life, it may prevent rapid growth in population.  But of course, a man would never apprehend himself.  Thomas Malthus explains that a high population is mans fault because the man does not observe the problems of other people.  The positive checks theory shortens life naturally, thus lowering the population.  Several concepts keep the community in balance, such as wars, plagues, famines, epidemics, and disease.  The population can never be higher than the food supply because people need food to survive.  Lastly, implemented population checks must be instigated in order to sustain a society with financial stability and enough food to supply the entire population.        

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

Graham Nadel

Malthus Paragraph

            In order for a society to survive, the poor must execute preventative population checks so the food supply will be sustained. Population checks are necessary because a population grows exponentially while food grows linearly; therefore the population needs to be controlled for there to be enough food. There are two kinds of population checks, preventative and positive. Preventative checks are controllable impacts on population, such as a limited number of children per family, while positive checks are uncontrollable events, for example, a hurricane or a flood. Malthus suggests that without preventative checks a poor family will be in a worse state with more children, because the amount of money being brought in will be spread over more people. In addition to limiting the number of children in a family, Malthus says that men should be with one woman to help control the population. Without these checks families will run out of necessary resources, such as money and food, which will create a larger poor population. Even though population checks prevent and destroy life, they are needed to conserve the well being of the masses. For these reasons Malthus argues that the poor must put financial needs above having children to maintain their resources, and avoid poverty.

Although the poor lack the self-restraint of the rich and wealthy to reproduce beyond the population that the food supply is able to support, the population must be governed in order to supply the demands of the rest of the population, through both preventative and positive population checks. The principle reason that the population must be kept in check is because an unchecked population increases exponentially, while the food supply and substance only increase linearly. Through both preventative and positive population checks, the population growth curve must be kept below the growth curve of the vital resources; otherwise there is not enough resources and food per person. Malthus suggests that parents should consider the financial stability of their family if they wish to have a child, and not succumb to the primitive instincts of man. Malthus furthers his argument to include that it is the needy and underprivileged people's fault that they are at the bottom of society, and they should not spread their wealth too thin by having multiple children, but instead, focus on their own ascent up the social ladder, and strive towards increased financial stability. Malthus theorizes that it is the fault of the poverty-stricken that they remain poor, and if they are able to overcome the natural instincts of man, they will climb up in rank on the social ladder, and escape the bonds of poverty.
-Brian Creonte

Malthus' Vision

Although the population increase improves the labor force during the Industrial Revolution, Malthus criticizes the lower class for reproducing beyond their limits insisting upon preventive and positive checks in order to create a balance between population and food. During the Industrial Revolution the population increased because times were successful and people had work. However, the population was greater than the amount of food available per citizen so Malthus, a clergyman, proposed two solutions. First, he indicated that: "preventive check, is peculiar to men, and arises from that distincitve superiority in his reasoning faculties which enables to calculate distant consequences" (97). In other words, preventive check is based on reproducing depending on the amount of resources available. In second place, positive consists on: "every cause arising from vice and misery, which in any degree contributes to shorten the population" (99). In any case, both solutions imply a decrease of population of the lower class, since wealthy people can afford to have children and diseases usually attack the lower class, because he believes that the overpopulation is created by the lack of control of the lower class.

Margaux Higgins

Malthus on Population

Although the wealthy have more self-restraint than the poor, the population must be governed through both preventative and positive checks to supply the demands of the population.  Without checks population increases while the amount of food stays the same.  If the population grows larger the amount of food will no longer be sustainable, resulting in the starvation of people. Without a way to monitor population growth, there is greater increase in poverty along with a lack of food.  The first way to control population is preventative checks. If a family does not have enough money to support themselves, they should not have as many children. In limiting families, people will be able to live with in their means. The second kinds of check is a positive check. Positive checks naturally keep the population low. These include poverty, famine, disease, and wars.  Both kinds of checks keep the population down so that the resources are not used up. Because a large population cannot be sustained, different ways of monitoring are needed to support further existence.

On The Principle of Population.Julia Maney

ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION

By Julia Maney

Although it is human nature to reproduce, Malthus argues that personal and overall population should be proportionate to the amount of access of food though preventative and positive checks.  Thomas R. Malthus discusses that there are predominant difficulties in the limiting of the population because of two diversions.  First, mankind needs food to survive and secondly, that there will always be desire between the sexes, which causes them to reproduce.  Malthus says that “These two laws, ever since we have had knowledge of mankind, appear to have been fixed laws of our nature; and as we have not hitherto seen any alteration in them, we have no right to conclude that they will ever cease to be what they are now…” Since the laws of nature have such a great force, Malthus generates checks to attempt to limit the population.  Preventative checks are to make aware to mostly the poor and struggling that if you cannot feed a child, do not have a child.  This helps to decrease the personal population of families and to give more food to those who are living.  There are also the positive checks, which include wars, severe labor, poverty, disease, plague, famine, and all other natural causes that would limit the numbers of people by natural death.  Overall, Malthus asserts that all men will reproduce and obtain food, but he should only do so to the extent that he can manage.  Also, he states the checks in society that should be noticed to restrain the population numbers.t 

     Although the population increase improves the labor force, Malthus criticizes the lower class for reproducing beyond their limits and insists upon preventative and positive "checks" in order to create a sustainable balance between food and population. He believes that poor families who can barely afford two children are having five or six, and they blame the rich and the partial uncivilized society for them being miserably distressed. He accuses them of searching for the cause of their injustice, and in doing so they always fail to realize that the cause is themselves. He believed that there was so reason to better the conditions of the poor, whom he considered the most licentious part of the population. By upsetting the population/resource balance, they bring misery. A set of checks are proposed to maintain a sustainable population and food. These checks include eliminating severe labor, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, common diseases, etc. Limiting the size of the families, he believes, is a preventable          
check.

       Although the population increase improves the labor force Malthus criticizes the lower class for reproducing beyond their limits and insist upon positive and preventative checks in order to create a balance in population and food. Furthermore, Malthus believed that families should only have as many children as they could afford to feed. The food production was linear while the population increase was exponential, this results in starvation for many people. Malthus blamed the lower class for this problem and therefore wanted them eliminated. In conclusion, he suggested preventable checks in order to remove children from lower class families and in his mind resolve the issue. Although Malthus ideas were positive in a way to solve the issues, he came at them the wrong way for blaming only one social class.