Thomas Malthus: A Look at His Work on Society and Natural Resources

It was Malthus who claimed that humans, most notably the poor masses, were doomed by both the natural world and by god himself to lives of eternal suffering.  The central point of Malthus’s theory was that man as a society and a species is wasteful, and that our population was destined to waste the natural resources we have at our disposal.  However pessimistic and morbid as Malthus’s theories may be, they are destined to come to fruition unless we as a society find a way to downsize in terms of numbers as well as impact on our natural world. 

            Malthus writes that man “brands himself as the slave of the most miserable and narrow prejudices; or, as the defender of abuses of civil society, only because he profits by them”.  What does he mean by this? Perhaps his point may be more clearly stated by another quotation, in which he says, (man) “cannot see above five yards before him, and who must therefore be utterly unable to take in the views of the enlightened benefactor of mankind”.  Essentially Malthus is saying that we as a species and a society lake the foresight and intelligence to look ahead to the future of our existence, but instead are consumed with exploitation of our world in the here and now, dooming us to eventually over tax our natural resources.  Malthus’s first piece of evidence he offers forth is that firstly, mankind needs food in order to survive, and secondly that the passion between the sexes will remain forever in its present state.  What Malthus means is that we as a species will continue to reproduce at a relatively high rate, thus expanding our population at a relatively regular, high rate.  This will eventually lead to massive overpopulation to the point of famine, as we as a society will no longer be able to produce enough food to support our ballooning population.     

            While a great deal of time has passed since Malthus was writing, we see that the central argument he presents is still prevalent, and that with all of our miraculous advances in technology, we have simply managed to delay the inevitable, and that our population is still expanding faster than our ability to produce food.  However as society has changed over time, food no longer serves as the only concern, as we begin to experience dwindling amounts of many key natural resources that were once considered infinite.  Examples of these resources are fossil fuels, and water.