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The fall in death rate could only partly be accounted for by rise in nutritional standard of the people. It was caused mainly by improvement in medical service. In eighteenth century, England's medical profession moved out of the dark ages of socialism and traditional superstition into the light of science13 and service of society. Malthus underestimated the importance of medical service in growth of population.
Implication of his emphasis on marriage and multiplication is significant. It enabled him to condemn rise in the income of the working class. If increase in income reduced deaths, misery and pain, the increase should have been justified. If it increased births to reduce the share of each worker and cancel economic improvement through rise in number, the increase in income could be condemned. Malthus, thus, condemned poor rates as cause of unemployment and misery of the working people14. It was Malthus's preaching on the subject and Richardo's uncritical acceptance of it, which earned economics the title of "dismal science". Malthus might be honest in his observations of the problems of his time, however, they were superficial. The poor rates, administered by the parish without any central coordination, aggravated unemployment by obstructions in fluidity of labour between parishes15, rather than by encouraging marriages and multiplications. In the day of Malthus, employment increased fast. Temporary unemployment was caused and aggravated by bad administration and lack of planned measures to remove it.
The other propositions in the Malthusian theory are as defective as the first. Food production can increase faster than population. Even in the time of Malthus, English agriculture improved through organizational reforms. It proposed in the subsequent period through introduction of new methods of population. World food supply increased about 2 percent per annum during the half century before the First World War. World population increased, during the same period, about 0.7 percent per annum. In an underdeveloped country, food production may lag behind growth of population because of laziness of the people and bad administration. It cannot, for the reason, be raised into a universal proposition. If a developing country's natural resources for agriculture are poor and the same for industry rich, it can raise its manufacturers rapidly and import food to support the growing population.
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13 Trevelyan : op.cit.p.344.
14 Malthus : op.cit.Vil.Ii pp. 38-69.
15 Trevelyan : op.cit.p.352.
* Contributed by: -
Dr. R. P. Verma,
Ex. H.O.D. & Dean, Commerce and Business Management Dept.,
Arabinda Bhandari,
Strategic Management Researcher,
Ranchi University, Ranchi.
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