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Thomas Robert Malthus, after whom Malthusianism is named. Malthusianism is a theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline.
This model is often referred to as the exponential law. [5] It is widely regarded in the field of population ecology as the first principle of population dynamics, [6] with Malthus as the founder. The exponential law is therefore also sometimes referred to as the Malthusian Law. [7]
The neo-Malthusian controversy, comprising related debates of many years later, has seen a similar central role assigned to the numbers of children born. [27] The goal of Malthusian theory is to explain how population and food production expand, with the latter experiencing arithmetic growth and the former experiencing exponential growth. [ 28 ]
The book An Essay on the Principle of Population was first published anonymously in 1798, [1] but the author was soon identified as Thomas Robert Malthus.The book warned of future difficulties, on an interpretation of the population increasing in geometric progression (so as to double every 25 years) [2] while food production increased in an arithmetic progression, which would leave a ...
Using these techniques, Malthus' population principle of growth was later transformed into a mathematical model known as the logistic equation: = (), where N is the population size, r is the intrinsic rate of natural increase, and K is the carrying capacity of the population.
Classical economics focuses on the tendency of markets to move to equilibrium and on objective theories of value. Neo-classical economics differs from classical economics primarily in being utilitarian in its value theory and using marginal theory as the basis of its models and equations. Marxian economics also descends from classical theory.
While Malthusianism and eco-socialism overlap within the Green movement because both address over-industrialism, and despite the fact that eco-socialists, like many within the Green movement, are described as neo-Malthusian because of their criticism of economic growth, eco-socialists are opposed to Malthusianism.
Georgists and other modern classical economists and historians such as Michael Hudson argue that a major division between classical and neo-classical economics is the treatment or recognition of economic rent. Most modern economists no longer recognize land/location as a factor of production, often claiming that rent is non-existent.