Quotes
Eight passages quoted in Hunt & Lautzenheiser, each with a note on what it means and why it matters.
Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical progression of such a nature as to double itself every twenty-five years.
The heart of his theory: people multiply 1, 2, 4, 8… while food grows only 1, 2, 3, 4…. Sooner or later, something has to check population.
These are the unhappy persons who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank.
For Malthus some human beings "must suffer from want," and that is simply bad luck. He uses the same "lottery" image to explain why some are born owning land and others own only their labor.
At nature's mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders.
A man born into "a world already possessed," without work or family support, "has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food." Hunt cites this to show what kind of man Jevons called "most humane and excellent."
The poor laws of England tend to depress the general condition of the poor.
Poor relief, he claimed, raises population without raising food, and it takes food from the "more industrious and more worthy." This argument helped end the Speenhamland system and shaped the harsh New Poor Law of 1834.
The principal argument of this Essay only goes to prove the necessity of a class of proprietors and a class of labourers.
Malthus admits his real goal: to show that class division is a law of nature that no reform can abolish, and to answer Godwin and Condorcet.
Every exchange … is with regard to both parties concerned, an exchange of what is wanted less for what is wanted more.
The exchange view of the economy: every trade benefits both sides. Hunt calls this the "normative core" that neoclassical economics would inherit.
Almost all merchants and manufacturers save, in prosperous times, much more rapidly than it would be possible for the national capital to increase.
The seed of his theory of gluts. When capitalists save more than can profitably be invested, effective demand falls short and goods go unsold.
There must therefore be a considerable class of persons who have both the will and power to consume more material wealth than they produce.
His cure for gluts: landlords and their servants. "In this class the landlords no doubt stand preeminent." That made the Corn Laws, which raised rents, good for everyone in his view.
All passages as quoted in Hunt & Lautzenheiser, History of Economic Thought, ch. 4 (pp. 65–90) and ch. 10 (p. 255).