The Malthusian trap, named after political economist Thomas Robert
Malthus, suggests that for most of human history, income was largely stagnant
because technological advances and discoveries only resulted in more
people, rather than improvements in the standard of living. It is only with the
onset of the agricultural revolution in Britain and Holland and the Industrial
Revolution in the 18th century that the income per person began to dramatically
increase in some countries, and they broke out of the trap; it has been
shown, however, that the escape from the Malthusian trap can also generate
serious political upheavals. It is argued that many countries in tropical
Africa still find themselves in the Malthusian trap.
Malthus' theoretical argument It was Thomas Malthus who first made the
argument that in "every age and in every state" population increases are limited
by the means of subsistence, and that when the means of subsistence increases,
population will also increase, and that the population increase will be limited
by "misery and vice". This pessimistic view on the impossibility of real
progress was first made in 1798, ironically, just as the Industrial
Revolution was getting underway; however, it took several decades for the
industrialization to raise the living standards of lower income people in
countries where it occurred. = Evidence=
In accordance with the theory, cross-country evidence indicates that
technological superiority and higher land productivity had significant
positive effects on population density but insignificant effects on the
standard of living, during the time period 1–1500 AD. In addition, scholars
have reported on the lack of a significant trend of wages in various
places over the world for very long stretches of time. In Babylonia during
the period 1800 to 1600 BC, for example, the daily wage for a common laborer was
enough to buy about 15 pounds of wheat. In Classical Athens in about 328 BC, the
corresponding wage could buy about 24 pounds of wheat. In England in 1800 AD
the wage was about 13 pounds of wheat. In spite of the technological
developments across these societies, the daily wage hardly varied. In Britain
between 1200 and 1800, only relatively minor fluctuations from the mean in real
wages occurred. Following depopulation by the Black Death and other epidemics,
real income in Britain peaked around 1450-1500 and began declining until the
British Agricultural Revolution. Robert Fogel published a study of
lifespans and nutrition from about a century before Malthus to the 19th
century that examined European birth and death records, military and other
records of height and weight that found significant stunted height and low body
weight indicative of chronic hunger and malnutrition. He also found short
lifespans that he attributed to chronic malnourishment which left people
susceptible to disease. Lifespans, height and weight began to steadily
increase in the UK and France after 1750. Fogel's findings are consistent
with estimates of available food supply. = Theories for the breakout=
Causes for the Malthusian Trap and theories for the causes of the
Industrial Revolution have been as multifarious as the theories of the fall
of the Western Roman Empire. The transition from the Malthusian epoch to
an era of sustained economic growth is explored by Unified growth theory. One
branch of Unified growth theory is devoted to the interaction between human
evolution and economic development. Some argue that natural selection during the
Malthusian epoch selected beneficial traits to the growth process and brought
about the Industrial Revolution. Consistent with the theory, evidence
shows the survival of the richest in England during the 17th century.
From a macroeconomic perspective, the main contributions to the British
breakout were technological improvements and structural change away from
agricultural production, while coal, capital, and trade played a minor role.
Economic historian Gregory Clark has controversially argued, in his book A
Farewell to Alms, that the British breakout may have been caused by
differences in reproduction rates among the rich and the poor This in turn led
to sustained "downward mobility": the descendants of the rich becoming more
populous in British society and spreading middle-class values such as
hard work and literacy. A trap at the escape from the Malthusian
Trap In 2011 it was suggested that the
emergence of major sociopolitical upheavals at the escape from the
Malthusian trap is not an abnormal, but a regular phenomenon.
See also