A Mathematical Approach to Malthus’s Criticism of Adam Smith in 1798

Taro Hisamatsu

History of Economics Review, 2015, vol. 61, issue 1, 78-90

Abstract: Against Smith, Malthus, in his First Essay on Population (1798), argued that every increase in national wealth does not always ameliorate the living standard of the working classes. If a nation increases investment in manufacture but not in agriculture, an increase in national wealth is not accompanied by an increase in ‘the funds for the maintenance of labour’, and thus physical wealth may increase, but happiness may decrease. In this paper, I formalise Malthus’s criticism of Smith using a simple mathematical model so that Malthus’s argument can be clearly understood.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1080/18386318.2015.11681276

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