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Malthus’s Legacy: A System of Ideas

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Part of the book series: Great Thinkers in Economics ((GTE))

Abstract

It is easy to treat Malthus’s disparate writings on population, productivity, distribution, effective demand, forced saving, money and God as isolated and free-standing contributions that do not add up to a whole. It is true that he never wrote an ambitious summing-up analogous to Smith’s Wealth of Nations. This chapter suggests, however, a different interpretation. The conclusion is reached that the separate elements are all parts of a single project in which human life becomes, through economics, an earthly paradise and not a veil of tears.

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References

By T. R. Malthus

  • (1820 [1989]). The Principles of Political Economy (abbreviated as PR), ed. by J. Pullen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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  • (1836 [1989]). The Principles of Political Economy: The Alterations to the First Edition (abbreviated as PR II), ed. by J. Pullen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Secondary Literature

  • Empson, W. (1837 [1963]). Life, Writings, and Character of Mr. Malthus. Edinburgh Review, 64 (Reprinted in Occasional Papers of T. R. Malthus, pp. 231–268, by B. Semmel, Ed., New York: Bert Franklin).

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  • James, P. (1979). Population Malthus: His Life and Times. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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  • Marshall, A. (1890 [1949]). Principles of Economics. London: Macmillan.

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  • Paglin, M. (1961). Malthus and Lauderdale: The Anti-Ricardian Tradition. New York: Augustus M. Kelley.

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  • Pullen, J. R. (1987). New Information on the Rev. T. R. Malthus. History of Political Economy, 19, 127–140.

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  • Spengler, J. J. (1945). Malthus’s Total Population Theory: A Restatement and Reappraisal. Canadian Journal of Economic and Political Science, 11, 83–110 and 234.

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Reisman, D. (2018). Malthus’s Legacy: A System of Ideas. In: Thomas Robert Malthus . Great Thinkers in Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01956-3_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01956-3_14

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-01955-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-01956-3

  • eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)

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