GERRIT GORTER
The present study of economics did not, of course, come out of thin air. Although thinkers in classical Greece already reflected on what we now call economics, it was largely in the eighteenth century that systematic thought on the subject began.
Two conceptual tools—the economic cycle and the idea of the invisible hand—date from that century and are still in use today, both in academic research and in education.
This site contains twenty-five portraits of important economists. Each offers a biographical sketch together with an indication of his (and, in one case, her) significance for the development of economic thought. They claim no more than to provide a first introduction to the lives and works of these pioneers.
These articles originally appeared in Dutch in the Tijdschrift voor het Economisch Onderwijs and were published on the website of Gerrit Gorter. The English translations are by Folkert Gorter.
Index
François Quesnay
Adam Smith
Thomas Robert Malthus
Jean-Baptiste Say
David Ricardo
Antoine Augustin Cournot
John Stuart Mill
Karl Marx
Walras
Carl Menger
Alfred Marshall
Vilfredo Pareto Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Knut Wicksell
Max Weber
Irving Fisher
Sam de Wolff
John Maynard Keynes
Joseph Alois Schumpeter
Joan Robinson
Jan Tinbergen
John Hicks
John Kenneth Galbraith
Milton Friedman
Paul Samuelson
Thomas Robert Malthus
England 1766–1834
Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) came from a well-to-do and intellectually stimulating environment. His father, Daniel Malthus, was a friend of the well-known philosopher David Hume, and even the French thinker Rousseau was known to stop by the house.
The young Thomas Robert pursued theological studies at Cambridge and became a clergyman. Father and son regularly engaged in discussions, including about a then-famous work by one William Godwin, which painted an extremely rosy picture of the future — a world without hunger, marked by justice and abundant leisure. The elder Malthus saw some merit in such ideas, but his son was skeptical. To convince his father, Malthus wrote, in 1798, his now-famous An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers. The book was initially published anonymously; later editions included his name. The second edition contained significantly more factual material than the first, thanks to a number of study trips he made to France, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Russia.
The harmonious world elaborated by some eighteenth-century thinkers was replaced by a grim Malthusian reality, in which humanity fought an unequal battle against hunger, wars, and other miseries. It was after reading Malthus’ bleak publication that the English historian Carlyle referred to economics as a “dismal science.”
Malthus’ theory can be summarized very simply:
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The size of the population is limited by the available supply of food.
- An increase in food production triggers population growth that outpaces the growth of subsistence resources.
- To prevent the outbreak of famines, checks must act to limit population growth.
The second proposition contains the famous law of diminishing returns. Food production could never increase faster than in an arithmetic progression, since the best land was already in use. The population, however, tended to grow geometrically, making the resulting misery predictable. The third proposition had two sides. Alongside a somewhat cynical aspect — famines and epidemics would naturally restore balance — it also included the famous moral restraint: a call to reduce the birth rate, primarily by marrying at a later age. Against this background, a remark made by an acquaintance about Malthus makes sense: “He’s a pleasant fellow and polite to the ladies — as long as there are no signs of impending fertility.”
Malthus became professor of history and economics at Haileybury College, an institution affiliated with the East India Company. Because of his lectures in economics, he is sometimes referred to as the first professional economist. His friendship with David Ricardo was of great importance. They maintained an extensive correspondence, which reveals that they disagreed on nearly every point. Yet they had a profound influence on one another. Population growth and diminishing returns, for instance, are also key pillars of Ricardo’s theory.
Malthus’ name is associated — perhaps excessively — with the principle of overpopulation. The major shortcoming in his theory, at least in hindsight, is the absence of any notion of progress, particularly in agricultural technology. Agriculture has proven capable of feeding far more people than Malthus ever thought possible. That does not change the fact that the principle of a finite world, one that can support only a finite population, still holds. The famous 1972 report by the Club of Rome is based on that very idea.